2016ApJS..224...28P

We present post-cryogenic Spitzer imaging at 3.6 and 4.5 µm with the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) of the Spitzer/HETDEX Exploratory Large-Area (SHELA) survey. SHELA covers ≃24 deg² of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey "Stripe 82" region, and falls within the footprints of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) and the Dark Energy Survey. The HETDEX blind R ∼ 800 spectroscopy will produce ∼200,000 redshifts from the Lyα emission for galaxies in the range 1.9 z ii] emission for galaxies at z ugriz images from the Dark Energy Camera, K-band images from NEWFIRM, and other ancillary data, the IRAC photometry from Spitzer will enable a broad range of scientific studies of the relationship between structure formation, galaxy stellar mass, halo mass, the presence of active galactic nuclei, and environment over a co-moving volume of ∼0.5 Gpc³ at 1.9 z µm images. The catalogs reach limiting sensitivities of 1.1 µJy at both 3.6 and 4.5 µm (1σ, for R=2'' circular apertures). As a demonstration of the science, we present IRAC number counts, examples of highly temporally variable sources, and galaxy surface density profiles of rich galaxy clusters. In the spirit of the Spitzer Exploratory programs, we provide all of the images and catalogs as part of the publication.