The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) will provide the data to support detailed investigations of the distribution of luminous and non- luminous matter in the Universe: a photometrically and astrometrically calibrated digital imaging survey of pi steradians above about Galactic latitude 30 degrees in five broad optical bands to a depth of g' about 23 magnitudes, and a spectroscopic survey of the approximately one million brightest galaxies and 10^5 brightest quasars found in the photometric object catalog produced by the imaging survey. This paper summarizes the observational parameters and data products of the SDSS, and serves as an introduction to extensive technical on-line documentation.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical Summary

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) will provide the data to support detailed investigations of the distribution of luminous and nonluminous matter in the universe: a photometrically and astrometrically calibrated digital imaging survey of π sr above about Galactic latitude 30° in five broad optical bands to a depth of g' ~ 23 mag, and a spectroscopic survey of the approximately 106 brightest galaxies and 105 brightest quasars found in the photometric object catalog produced by the imaging survey. This paper summarizes the observational parameters and data products of the SDSS and serves as an introduction to extensive technical on-line documentation.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/301513/pdf

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical summary

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is an imaging and spectroscopic survey that will eventually cover approximately one-quarter of the celestial sphere and collect spectra of ≈106 galaxies, 100,000 quasars, 30,000 stars, and 30,000 serendipity targets. In 2001 June, the SDSS released to the general astronomical community its early data release, roughly 462 deg2 of imaging data including almost 14 million detected objects and 54,008 follow-up spectra. The imaging data were collected in drift-scan mode in five bandpasses (u, g, r, i, and z); our 95% completeness limits for stars are 22.0, 22.2, 22.2, 21.3, and 20.5, respectively. The photometric calibration is reproducible to 5%, 3%, 3%, 3%, and 5%, respectively. The spectra are flux- and wavelength-calibrated, with 4096 pixels from 3800 to 9200 A at R ≈ 1800. We present the means by which these data are distributed to the astronomical community, descriptions of the hardware used to obtain the data, the software used for processing the data, the measured quantities for each observed object, and an overview of the properties of this data set.

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Sloan digital sky survey: Early data release

http://inspirehep.net/record/1084324/files/arXiv:1201.2434.pdf

Observational probes of cosmic acceleration

The astrometric calibration of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey is described. For point sources brighter than r ~ 20, the astrometric accuracy is 45 mas rms per coordinate when reduced against the USNO CCD Astrograph Catalog and 75 mas rms when reduced against Tycho-2, with an additional 20–30 mas systematic error in both cases. The rms errors are dominated by anomalous refraction and random errors in the primary reference catalogs. The relative astrometric accuracy between the r filter and each of the other filters (u, g, i, z) is 25–35 mas rms. At the survey limit (r ~ 22), the astrometric accuracy is limited by photon statistics to approximately 100 mas rms for typical seeing. Anomalous refraction is shown to contain components correlated over 2° or more on the sky.

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/346138/pdf

Astrometric Calibration of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

We present the 158 standard stars that define the ugriz photometric system. These stars form the basis for the photometric calibration of the Sloan Digital Sky Equal first authors. Visiting Astronomer, United States Naval Observatory. University of Michigan, Department of Physics, 500 East University, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Current Address: University of Wyoming, Department of Physics & Astronomy, P.O. Box 3905, Laramie, WY 82071 Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510 Physics Department, Rochester Institute of Technology, 85 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5603 Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, University of Tokyo, Midori, Tanashi, Tokyo 188-8502, Japan Institute for Advanced Study, Olden Lane, Princeton, NJ 08540 Astronomical Institute, Tohoku University, Aoba, Sendai 980-8578, Japan National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Mitaka, Tokyo, 181-8588 Japan Los Alamos National Laboratory, NIS-4, D448, Los Alamos, NM 87545 Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, 3701 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA Princeton University Observatory, Princeton, NJ 08544 Department of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Japan Women’s University, Mejirodai, Tokyo, 112-8681 Japan Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 229-8510, Japan U.S. Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station, P.O. Box 1149, Flagstaff, AZ 86002-1149 Apache Point Observatory, P.O. Box 59, Sunspot, NM 88349-0059 New Mexico State University, Dept. 4500, Box 30001, Las Cruces, NM 88003 Department of Astronomy and Research Center for the Early Universe, School of Science, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0033 Japan The University of Chicago, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 5640 S. Ellis Ave., Chicago, IL 60637 The University of Chicago, Enrico Fermi Institute, 5640 S. Ellis Ave., Chicago, IL 60637

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The u'g'r'i'z' Standard Star Setwork

We present a large catalog of optically selected galaxy clusters from the application of a new Gaussian Mixture Brightest Cluster Galaxy (GMBCG) algorithm to SDSS Data Release 7 data. The algorithm detects clusters by identifying the red sequence plus Brightest Cluster Galaxy (BCG) feature, which is unique for galaxy clusters and does not exist among field galaxies. Red sequence clustering in color space is detected using an Error Corrected Gaussian Mixture Model. We run GMBCG on 8240 square degrees of photometric data from SDSS DR7 to assemble the largest ever optical galaxy cluster catalog, consisting of over 55,000 rich clusters across the redshift range from 0.1 < z < 0.55. We present Monte Carlo tests of completeness and purity and perform cross-matching with X-ray clusters and with the maxBCG sample at low redshift. These tests indicate high completeness and purity across the full redshift range for clusters with 15 or more members.

A GMBCG galaxy cluster catalog of 55,880 rich clusters from SDSS DR7

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey will image (Pi) steradians about the north galactic cap in five filters, and acquire one million spectra using a dedicated 2.5 m telescope at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico. We describe the data acquisition system for the survey's three main detectors: an imaging camera, mounting 54 Tektronix charge-coupled devices (CCD); a pair of spectrographs, each mounting a pair of CCDs; and a smaller monitor telescope camera. We describe the system's hardware and software architecture, and relate it to the survey's special requirements for high reliability and need to understand its instrumentation in order to produce a consistent survey over a five year period.© (1994) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

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Timothy A. McKay

Papers

The u'g'r'i'z' Standard Star Setwork

A GMBCG galaxy cluster catalog of 55,880 rich clusters from SDSS DR7

Data acquisition systems for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey