NASIM: Revealing the low surface brightness Universe from legacy VISTA data (2508.02780v1)

Abstract: Near-infrared imaging is a powerful technique in observational astronomy, but the bright background, primarily from the Earth\'s atmosphere, makes the detection of faint features particularly challenging. To recover low surface brightness (LSB) structures in such data, we present NASIM (Near-infrared Automated low Surface brightness reduction In Maneage), a fully automated and reproducible data reduction pipeline optimised for VISTA/VIRCAM observations. NASIM builds on GNU Astronomy Utilities (Gnuastro) to effectively remove large-scale instrumental artefacts while preserving faint, diffuse emission. As a key science application, we focus on deep Ks-band observations of the Euclid Deep Field South (KEDFS), one of the deepest VISTA/VIRCAM datasets and a high-priority field for synergy with current and future facilities, including Euclid, JWST, LSST, Roman, Spitzer, and ALMA. With VIRCAM no longer operational, KEDFS now stands as a unique legacy dataset. We release selected tiles from the KEDFS survey and highlight science cases, including galaxy outskirts, LSB galaxies, and intracluster light, that demonstrate NASIM\'s ability to recover diffuse structures. A direct comparison with conventional VISTA data reduction pipelines demonstrates the advantages of NASIM in preserving diffuse emission without compromising compact source detection. All quantitative results presented in this paper are fully reproducible with Maneage (commit 4d32667).