The SIRTF first-look survey.: I.: VLA image and source catalog

The First-Look Survey (FLS) of the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) will cover about 5 deg(2) centered on J2000.0 alpha = 17(h)18(m), delta = + 59degrees30' in order to characterize the extragalactic infrared sky 2 orders of magnitude deeper than the IRAS survey. We expect that most of the FLS far-infrared (lambda = 160, 70, and 24 mum) sources will be star-forming galaxies obeying the very tight far-infrared/radio correlation and will be continuum radio sources with flux densities S greater than or similar to 100 muJy at nu = 1.4 GHz. Conversely, radio sources stronger than 100 muJy are usually powered by star-forming galaxies, plus some active galactic nuclei, and most should be detectable by the SIRTF FLS. Thus, a sensitive radio survey can be used to select and identify most of the SIRTF FLS source population before launch. We used the B configuration of the VLA to make an image of the FLS area at nu = 1.4 GHz with sigma approximate to 23 muJy beam(-1) rms fluctuations, theta = 5."0 resolution, and sigma(alpha) approximate to sigma(delta) less than or similar to0."5 rms uncertainties in right ascension and declination. The resulting radio image and catalog of 3565 radio components with peak flux densities S-p greater than or equal to 5sigma = 115 muJy beam(-1) have been released via the Web to expedite follow-up optical identification and spectroscopy.