The Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment. BVI Maps of Dense Stellar Regions. III. The Galactic Bulge

Abstract

We present the VI photometric maps of the Galactic bulge. They contain VI photometry and astrometry of about 30 million stars from 49 fields of 0.225 square degree each in the Galactic center region. The data were collected during the second phase of the OGLE microlensing project. We discuss the accuracy of data and present color-magnitude diagrams of selected fields observed by OGLE in the Galactic bulge. The VI maps of the Galactic bulge are accessible electronically for the astronomical community from the OGLE Internet archive.

15 pages, Latex. Figs. 3-13 in 'jpg' format. Full resolution figures and photometric data presented in the paper are available from the OGLE Internet archive: http://www.astrouw.edu.pl/~ogle or its US mirror http://bulge.princeton.edu/~ogle