A deep wide-field, optical, and near-infrared catalog of a large area around the Hubble Deep Field North

We have conducted a deep multicolor imaging survey of 0.2 deg(2) centered on the Hubble Deep Field North (HDF-N). We shall refer to this region as the Hawaii HDF-N. Deep data were collected in U, B, V, R, I, and z' bands over the central 0.2 deg(2) and in HK' over a smaller region covering the Chandra Deep Field North. The data were reduced to have accurate relative photometry and astrometry across the entire field to facilitate photometric redshifts and spectroscopic follow-up. We have compiled a catalog of 48,858 objects in the central 0.2 deg(2) detected at 5 sigma significance in a 3" aperture in either R or z' band. Number counts and color-magnitude diagrams are presented and shown to be consistent with previous observations. Using color selection we have measured the density of objects at 3<z<7. Our multicolor data indicates that samples selected at z>5.5 using the Lyman break technique suffer from more contamination by low-redshift objects than suggested by previous studies.