Mission Overview
Bias-free Extragalactic Analysis for Cosmic Origins with NIRCam (BEACON)
Primary Investigator: Takahiro Morishita
HLSP Authors: Kimi C. Kreilgaard, Takahiro Morishita, and Charlotte A. Mason.
Released: 2026-09-22
Updated: 2026-09-22
Primary Reference(s): Morishita et. al. 2025, Kreilgaard et. al. 2026
DOI: 10.17909/f2rf-hc66
Citations: See ADS Statistics
Source Data:
- Source Data DOI: 10.17909/5x1p-dp20
- Proposal ID: JWST GO 3990
(Top Right): Histogram of the 5σ limiting magnitude of the 36 BEACON DR2 fields measured from a 0.16" aperture radius in the F150W band. (Bottom) Sky distribution of the 36 BEACON DR2 fields (orange circles) in ecliptic coordinates, overlaid on a temperature map from the WMAP 7-year data (Jarosik et al. 2011). The symbol sizes do not represent the true sky size, but they are roughly scaled to the corresponding survey area.
Overview
Bias-free Extragalactic Analysis for Cosmic Origins with NIRCam (BEACON, PID: 3990, T. Morishita et al. 2025) is a JWST pure-parallel multi-band imaging survey awarded 600 hours during Cycle 2 to address fundamental questions in extragalactic astronomy: What are the properties of the first galaxies? When did they form? How did galaxies acquire mass, evolve in structure, and quench star formation? BEACON provides a large, unbiased sample of the Universe across ~100 independent sightlines (~0.3 sq deg total area), minimising cosmic variance to achieve a comprehensive census of early galaxies. BEACON DR2 (K. Kreilgaard et al. 2026), consisting of 36 pointings, provides NIRCam imaging spanning 6+ bands, providing mostly uninterrupted spectral coverage from 0.8 to 5 microns. This allows for robust photometric redshift determination and physical property analysis of sources at redshifts z ~ 2 to z > 10 through spectral energy distribution (SED) modelling.
With this data release, the team provides imaging data from the 36 independent pointings constituting BEACON DR2, covering approximately 400 sq. arcmin. Data products include a high-redshift (7<z<12) candidate catalogue consisting of 164 sources, satisfying the selection described in K. Kreilgaard et. al. 2026, and imaging data from 8 additional BEACON pointings covered by 4 bands.
Data Products
Image Products
The image products have the following file naming convention:
hlsp_beacon_jwst_nircam_<field-id>_<filter>_<version>_<img-type>.fits
where:
<field-id>is the field identifier<filter>is the name of the filter used, e.g., "F090W" or "det" for the detection image, a variance-weighted co-add of the F277W, F356W, and F444W filters.<ver>is the version number<img-type>is the type of image product. "drz-sci" is the final drizzled science image, resampled to 0.0315''/pixel and aligned to the IR-detection image, while "drz-rms" is the root mean square map.
Data file types:
| _drz-sci.fits | Final drizzled science image |
| _drz-rms.fits | Root mean square map |
Catalog Products
The catalog products for individual pointings have the following naming convention:
hlsp_beacon_jwst_nircam_<field-id>_multi_<version>_<cat-type>.fits
where:
<field-id>is the field identifier<ver>is the version number<cat-type>is the type of catalog product. "phot-cat" denotes photometric flux catalogs, where fluxes have been measured from NIRCAM mosaics PSF-matched to the F444W resolution. "sedfit-cat" contains results from SED fitting with EAZY.
Data file types:
| _phot-cat.fits | Photometric flux catalog, measured from NIRCAM mosaics PSF-matched to the F444W resolution |
| _sedfit-cat.fits | Results from SED fitting with EAZY |
High Redshift Catalog
Finally, the team provides a catalogue of the 164 high-redshift (7<z<12) galaxy candidates from BEACON DR2, described in K. Kreilgaard et al. 2026, in the file hlsp_beacon_jwst_nircam_all_multi_v1_highz-cat.ecsv, which contains information about position, redshift and Muv for each candidate.
The selection and BEACON DR2 are described in K. Kreilgaard et. al. (2026).
This catalog contains columns:
| Column Name | Description | Units |
|---|---|---|
|
field_id |
Survey field identifier |
-- |
|
object_id |
Unique object identifier |
-- |
|
keydrop |
Keydrop selection ('JWST_NIRCAM_MULTIPLE_F1 15W-d'=F090W-dropouts and 'JWST_NIRCAM_MULTIPLE_F150W-d'=F115W-dropouts in Kreilgaard+26 |
-- |
|
R.A. |
Right Ascension (ICRS) |
deg |
|
Decl. |
Declination (ICRS) |
deg |
|
mF200W |
Observed AB magnitude in JWST/NI RCam F200W |
mag |
|
mF444W |
Observed AB magnitude in JWST/NI RCam F444W} |
mag |
|
magnif |
Gravitational lensing magnification factor |
-- |
|
zbest |
Best-fit photometric redshift from EAZY |
-- |
|
z16 |
16th percentile of photometric redshift PDF |
-- |
|
z50 |
Median photometric redshift |
-- |
|
z84 |
84th percentile of photometric redshift PDF |
-- |
|
Muv_phot |
Absolute UV magnitude as measu red from photometry |
mag |
|
Muv_phot_lower |
Lower uncertainty on Muv |
mag |
|
Muv_phot_upper |
Upper uncertainty on Muv |
mag |
Data Access
MAST Portal and Astroquery
The BEACON data products are available in the MAST Search Portal (web-based, cross-mission search interface) and Astroquery (Python package to search for and download files from Python scripts you write).
- In the MAST Search Portal, set the Provenance Name filter to "BEACON" in an Advanced Search to find these data. The user guide for how to search and download products using the MAST Portal is available here.
- For Astroquery, the following example code demonstrates how to search for and download these products. This code assumes that you want to download all products from this HLSP, so you may want to consider narrowing down your search for large HLSPs (> 10 GB) or those with many individual files (> 10k). You can find more astroquery.mast tutorials here.
from astroquery.mast import Observations
# Search for all BEACON products
all_obs = Observations.query_criteria(provenance_name="beacon")
data_products = Observations.get_product_list(all_obs)
# Print the number of data products that would be downloaded
print(len(data_products))
# Download data
Observations.download_products(data_products)
-
A web-based interface for cross-mission searches of data at MAST or the Virtual Observatory.
-
Search for and download data products for this HLSP programmatically in Python.
Direct Download
The catalog data for this HLSP are available for direct download using the links in the table below:
| Catalog | File |
|---|---|
| High Redshift Catalog | hlsp_beacon_jwst_nircam_all_multi_v1_highz-cat.ecsv |
The photometry and SED fitting catalogs for individual pointings are available through the MAST Portal and astroquery.
Citations
Please remember to cite the appropriate paper(s) below and the DOI 10.17909/f2rf-hc66 if you use these data in a published work.
Note: These HLSP data products are licensed for use under CC BY 4.0.