Sloan Digital Sky Survey
(SDSS)
(imaging survey of 500,000,000 objects in 35% of sky)
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)
can be considered a continuing series of surveys
that began with photometry and continued with spectrography
as well.
The series is named for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
It images all types of astronomical objects, but a major initial goal was
redshifts of galaxies, i.e., to produce a vast 3D map.
Surveying began in 2000 and has grown to 35% sky coverage,
with photometry of over 500 million objects
and spectra of over a million.
The median redshift of the galaxies
is redshift z = 0.1, reaching as far as z = 0.7,
with quasars to redshift z = 6 and beyond.
The original survey (now called SDSS-I) produced images using
the ugriz photometric system of five passbands:
Spectrography was carried out on selected galaxies and quasars.
The survey was a milestone, providing an improved set of freely-available
all-sky research-quality astronomical data, produced using 2000s
technology, carried out with a dedicated telescope
(the Sloan 2.5m Telescope) at Apache Point Observatory (APO),
New Mexico. Subsequent efforts use additional telescopes,
including the du Pont Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory,
Chile, adding coverage of more of the southern hemisphere.
SDSS efforts:
- SDSS-I (2000-2005, Data Releases 1-5).
- SDSS-II (2005-2008, Data Releases 6-7).
- SDSS-III (2008-2014, BOSS, SEGUE-2, APOGEE, MARVELS, TDSS, Data Releases 8-10).
- SDSS-IV (2014-2020, aiming to finish 2020, APOGEE-2, eBOSS, MaNGA, Data Releases 11-17 as of January 2022).
- SDSS-V (2020-now: optical and infrared spectrography using robotic fiber positioners, so far: Data Release 18).
Among the sub-surveys:
- APOGEE (APO Galactic Evolution Experiment) - infrared survey of the Milky Way interior.
- BOSS (Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey) - survey to map the spatial resolution of luminous red galaxies and quasars.
- MARVELS (Multi-object APO Radial Velocity Exoplanet Large-area Survey) - survey to find extra-solar planets using radial velocity measurements.
- SEGUE and SEGUE-2 (Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration) - follow-up surveys to SDSS of a group of 119,000 Milky Way stars.
- TDSS (Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey) - spectroscopic investigation of variable sources.
- MaNGA (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO) - IFU observations of 10,000 nearby galaxies, yielding a map of information for each galaxy, e.g., showing whether the SF is in the center versus in the arms.
SDSS-V programs:
To carry out spectrography on so many objects, for years SDSS
used a partially manual process with their multi-object spectrograph:
fibers were positioned by hand-plugging them into aluminum plates
(plug plates) with holes that were pre-drilled at positions
corresponding to locations of objects within the field of view.
The holes were drilled and their positions verified using
machine-controlled equipment.
SDSS has now replaced this procedure with robotic fiber positioners.
Spectra have been collected on millions of objects.
(survey,photometry,spectrography,all sky)
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey
http://www.sdss.org/
https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.07688
https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9412080
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1999RSPTA.357...93M/abstract
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2000AJ....120.1579Y/abstract
http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys240/lectures/sdss/sdss.html
Prefix | Example | | |
SDSS | SDSS 1346-0031 | | |
SDSSp | SDSSp J104433.04-012502.2 | "provisory" | |
Segue | Segue 2 | SEGUE discovery | |
|
Referenced by pages:
2dF-SDSS LRG and QSO survey (2SLAQ)
APOGEE
astronomical survey
Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT)
baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO)
Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS)
COLD GASS
conditional stellar mass function (CSMF)
data release (DR)
DECaLS
fiber positioner
Field of Streams
G band (G)
Galaxy Zoo
Galaxy Zoo 2 (GZ2)
GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey (GASS)
gas fraction estimation
GD-1
griz photometric system
intensity mapping surveys
J designator
luminous red galaxy (LRG)
Lyman break (LB)
MaNGA Stellar Library (MaStar)
Milky Way Mapper (MWM)
Monoceros Ring
multi-object spectrograph
Ogle Galaxy Catalog (OGC)
Orphan stream
Pantheon
pea galaxy (GP)
photometric system
plate
R band
redshift survey
Ritchey-Chrétien telescope (RCT)
SDSS-DR12 Quasars (SDSS-DR12Q)
SDSS-DR16 Quasars (SDSS-DR16Q)
SkyMapper Southern Survey (SMSS)
Sloan 2.5m Telescope
Sloan Great Wall (SGW)
supernova survey
TiNy Titans (TNT)
ugriz photometric system
UKIDSS
ultra-faint dwarf galaxy (UFD)
Ursa Major II Dwarf
Virgo Stellar Stream
VLT Survey Telescope (VST)
Index