Cioni, M.-R.L. ; Cross, N.J.G. ; Ripepi, V. ; Girardi, L. ; de Grijs, R. ; Clementini, G. ; van Loon, J.Th. ; Groenewegen, M.A.T. ; Ivanov, V.D. ; Oliveira, J.M. ; Marconi, M. ; Bekki, K. ; Blake, R.P. ; Holliman, M.J. ; Irwin, J. ; Irwin, M.J. ; Mann, R.G. ; Read, M. ; Sutorius, E. ; Craig, J.E.M. ; Cusano, F. ; Dresbach, F. ; Maitra, C. ; Molinaro, R. ; Niederhofer, F. ; Omkumar, A.O. ; Pennock, C.M. ; Sicignano, T. ; Subramanian, S. ; Tatton, B.L. ; Vijayasree, S. ; Zaggia, S.

published in A&A, 690, pp. A300 (2025)

Abstract: Context: The near-infrared YJKs Visual and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) survey of the Magellanic Clouds (VMC) is complete, along with data from additional programmes contributing to the enhancement of its quality over the original footprints. Aims: This work presents the final data release of the VMC survey, which includes additional observations and provides an overview of the scientific results. The overall data quality has been revised and reprocessed standard data products that have previously appeared in earlier data releases are made available together with new data products. These include the individual stellar proper motions, reddening towards red clump stars, and source classifications. Several data products, such as the parameters of some variable stars and of background galaxies, from the VMC publications have been associated with a data release for the first time. Methods: The data were processed using the VISTA Data Flow System and additional products (e.g. catalogues with point-spread-function photometry and tables with stellar proper motions) were obtained with software developed by the survey team. Results: This release supersedes all previous data releases of the VMC survey for the combined (deep-stacked) data products, whilst providing additional (complementary) images and catalogues of single observations per filter. Overall, it includes about 64 million detections, split nearly evenly between sources with stellar or galaxy profiles. Conclusions: The VMC survey provides a homogeneous data set resulting from deep and multi-epoch Y JKs-band imaging observations of the Large and Small Clouds, the Bridge, and two fields in the Stream. The VMC data represent a valuable counterpart for sources detected at other wavelengths for both stars and background galaxies.

Keyword(s): surveys ; Magellanic Clouds ; infrared: stars