The Herschel Stripe 82 Survey (HerS): Maps and Early Catalog

We present the first set of maps and band-merged catalog from the Herschel Stripe 82 Survey (HerS). Observations at 250, 350, and 500 mu m were taken with the Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver instrument aboard the Herschel Space Observatory. HerS covers 79 deg(2) along the SDSS Stripe 82 to an average depth of 13.0, 12.9, and 14.8 mJy beam(-1) (including confusion) at 250, 350, and 500 mu m, respectively. HerS was designed to measure correlations with external tracers of the dark matter density field-either point-like (i.e., galaxies selected from radio to X-ray) or extended (i.e., clusters and gravitational lensing)-in order to measure the bias and redshift distribution of intensities of infrared-emitting dusty star-forming galaxies and active galactic nuclei. By locating HerS in Stripe 82, we maximize the overlap with available and upcoming cosmological surveys. The band-merged catalog contains 3.3 x 10(4) sources detected at a significance of >= 3 sigma (including confusion noise). The maps and catalog are available at http://www.astro.caltech.edu/hers/.