WFPC2 observations of the Hubble Deep Field South

The Hubble Deep Field South (HDF-S) observations targeted a high Galactic l atitude held near QSO J2233-606. We present Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 o bservations of the field in four wide bandpasses centered at roughly 300, 4 50, 606, and 814 nn. Observations, data reduction procedures, and noise pro perties of the final images are discussed in detail. A catalog of sources i s presented, and the number counts and color distributions of the galaxies are compared with a new catalog of the original Hubble Deep Field (HDF-N) t hat has been constructed in an identical manner. The two fields are qualita tively similar, with the galaxy number counts for the two fields agreeing t o within 20%. The HDF-S has more candidate Lyman break galaxies at z > 2 th an the HDF-N. The star formation rate per unit volume computed from the HDF -S, based on the UV luminosity of high-redshift candidates, is a factor of 1.9 higher than from the HDF-N at z similar to 2.7, and a factor of 1.3 hig her at z similar to 4.