SEGUE: A Spectroscopic Survey of 240,000 Stars with g = 14-20

Creators: Yanny, Brian; McGehee, Peregrine

Abstract

The Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE) Survey obtained ≈240,000 moderateresolution (R ~ 1800) spectra from 3900 Å to 9000 Å of fainter Milky Way stars (14.0 < g < 20.3) of a wide variety of spectral types, both main-sequence and evolved objects, with the goal of studying the kinematics and populations of our Galaxy and its halo. The spectra are clustered in 212 regions spaced over three quarters of the sky. Radial velocity accuracies for stars are σ(RV) ~ 4 km s^(−1) at g < 18, degrading to σ(RV) ~ 15 km s^(−1) at g ~ 20. For stars with signal-to-noise ratio >10 per resolution element, stellar atmospheric parameters are estimated, including metallicity, surface gravity, and effective temperature. SEGUE obtained 3500 deg^2 of additional ugriz imaging (primarily at low Galactic latitudes) providing precise multicolor photometry (σ(g, r, i) ~ 2%), (σ(u, z) ~ 3%) and astrometry (≈0".1) for spectroscopic target selection. The stellar spectra, imaging data, and derived parameter catalogs for this survey are publicly available as part of Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7.

Additional Information

© 2009 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2008 September 29; accepted 2009 February 8; published 2009 April 7. Funding for the SDSS and SDSS-II has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, the Max Planck Society, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England. The SDSS Web site is http://www.sdss.org/. The SDSS is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions. The Participating Institutions are the American Museum of Natural History, Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, University of Basel, Cambridge University, Case Western Reserve University, University of Chicago, Drexel University, Fermilab, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Japan Participation Group, Johns Hopkins University, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics, the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, the Korean Scientist Group, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (LAMOST), Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), New Mexico State University, Ohio State University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the United States Naval Observatory, and the University of Washington. C. Allende Prieto acknowledges support from NASA grants NAG 5-13057 and NAG 5-13147. T. C. Beers, Y. S. Lee, and S. Thirupathi acknowledge partial funding of this work from grant PHY 02-16783: Physics Frontiers Center/Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics (JINA), awarded by the U.S. National Science Foundation. P. Re Fiorentin acknowledges support through the Marie Curie Research Training Network ELSA MRTN-CT-2006-033481. We acknowledge useful discussions with Steve Majewski on the G dwarf target-selection design. We acknowledge several useful suggestions from the referee.

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