The COSMOS Survey: <i>Hubble Space Telescope</i> Advanced Camera for Surveys Observations and Data Processing

We describe the details of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) Wide Field Channel (WFC) observations of the COSMOS field, including the data calibration and processing procedures. We obtained a total of 583 orbits of HST ACS/WFC imaging in the F814W filter, covering a field that is 1.64 deg^2 in area, the largest contiguous field ever imaged with HST. The median exposure depth across the field is 2028 s (one HST orbit), achieving a limiting point-source depth AB(F814W) = 27.2 (5 σ). We also present details of the astrometric image registration and distortion removal and image combination using MultiDrizzle, motivating the choice of our final pixel scale (30 mas pixel^(-1)), based on the requirements for weak-lensing science. The final set of images are publicly available through the archive sites at IPAC and STScI, along with further documentation on how they were produced.