The Eighth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Data from SDSS-III
- Creators
- Aihara, Hiroaki
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McGehee, Peregrine M.
Abstract
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) started a new phase in 2008 August, with new instrumentation and new surveys focused on Galactic structure and chemical evolution, measurements of the baryon oscillation feature in the clustering of galaxies and the quasar Lyα forest, and a radial velocity search for planets around ~8000 stars. This paper describes the first data release of SDSS-III (and the eighth counting from the beginning of the SDSS). The release includes five-band imaging of roughly 5200 deg^2 in the southern Galactic cap, bringing the total footprint of the SDSS imaging to 14,555 deg^2, or over a third of the Celestial Sphere. All the imaging data have been reprocessed with an improved sky-subtraction algorithm and a final, self-consistent photometric recalibration and flat-field determination. This release also includes all data from the second phase of the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE-2), consisting of spectroscopy of approximately 118,000 stars at both high and low Galactic latitudes. All the more than half a million stellar spectra obtained with the SDSS spectrograph have been reprocessed through an improved stellar parameter pipeline, which has better determination of metallicity for high-metallicity stars.
Additional Information
© 2011 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2011 January 7; accepted 2011 February 24; published 2011 March 28. We thank the referee, Andrew West, for comments that improved the paper. Funding for SDSS-III has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, and the US Department of Energy. The SDSS-III Web site is http://www.sdss3.org/. SDSS-III is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions of the SDSS-III Collaboration including the University of Arizona, the Brazilian Participation Group, Brookhaven National Laboratory, University of Cambridge, University of Florida, the French Participation Group, the German Participation Group, the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, the Michigan State/Notre Dame/JINA Participation Group, Johns Hopkins University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, New Mexico State University, New York University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the Spanish Participation Group, University of Tokyo, University of Utah, Vanderbilt University, University of Virginia, University of Washington, and Yale University.Attached Files
Published - Aihara2011p13483Astrophys_J_Suppl_S.pdf
Erratum - Aihara2011p15910Astrophys_J_Suppl_S.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 23364
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20110418-113352053
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- NSF
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- Created
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2011-04-20Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field