Through the Eyes of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey... ...Probing Deeper into the Milky Way Galaxy

Abstract

OR THE past six years, astronomers working with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) have been collecting the world’s largest database of calibrated photometry for galaxies and stars. This now comprises more than 200 million objects over 8,000 square degrees of the northern sky, as well as medium-resolution spectroscopy for over one million galaxies, quasars, and stars in the Milky Way. The original SDSS, now known as SDSS-I, formally came to an end in July 2005. Since that time this ever-growing collaboration, which now comprises some 25 universities and institutions worldwide, and involving more than 300 individual scientists, have continued their journey of discovery with the first extension of SDSS, known as SDSS-II. SDSS-II includes three separate mini-surveys — if one can imagine anything ‘mini’ about SDSS — which effectively split the available time on the ARC 2.5m telescope on Apache Point, New Mexico.