The seventh data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Kevork N. Abazajian, Jennifer K. Adelman-McCarthy, Marcel A. Agueros, Sahar S. Allam, Carlos Allende Prieto, Deokkeun An, Kurt S. J. Anderson, Scott F. Anderson, James Annis, Neta A. Bahcall, C. A. L. Bailer-Jones, John C. Barentine, Bruce A. Bassett, Andrew C. Becker, Timothy C. Beers, Eric F. Bell, Vasily Belokurov, Andreas A. Berlind, Eileen F. Berman, Mariangela BernardiSteven J. Bickerton, Dmitry Bizyaev, John P. Blakeslee, Michael R. Blanton, John J. Bochanski, William N. Boroski, Howard J. Brewington, Jarle Brinchmann, Jonathan V. Brinkmann, Robert J. Brunner, Tamas Budavari, Larry N. Carey, Samuel Carliles, Michael A. Carr, Francisco Javier Castander, David Cinabro, Andrew J. Connolly, Istvan Csabai, Carlos E. Cunha, Paul C. Czarapata, James R. A. Davenport, Ernst de Haas, Ben Dilday, Mamoru Doi, Daniel J. Eisenstein, Michael L. Evans, N. W. Evans, Xiaohui Fan, Scott D. Friedman, Joshua A. Frieman, Masataka Fukugita, Boris T. Gansicke, Evalyn Gates, Bruce A. Gillespie, G. Gilmore, Belinda Gonzalez, Carlos F. Gonzalez, Eva K. Grebel, James E. Gunn, Zsuzsanna Gyory, Patrick B. Hall, Paul Harding, Frederick H. Harris, Michael Harvanek, Suzanne L. Hawley, Jeffrey J. E. Hayes, Timothy M. Heckman, John S. Hendry, Gregory S. Hennessy, Robert B. Hindsley, J. Hoblitt, Craig J. Hogan, David W. Hogg, Jon A. Holtzman, Joseph B. Hyde, Shin-ichi Ichikawa, Takashi Ichikawa, Myungshin Im, Zeljko Ivezic, Sebastian Jester, Linhua Jiang, Jennifer A. Johnson, Anders M. Jorgensen, Mario Juric, Stephen M. Kent, Richard Kessler, Scott J. Kleinman, Gillian R. Knapp, Kohki Konishi, Richard G. Kron, Jurek Krzesinski, Nikolay Kuropatkin, Hubert Lampeitl, Svetlana Lebedeva, Myung Gyoon Lee, Young Sun Lee, R. French Leger, Sebastien Lepine, Nolan Li, Marcos Lima, Huan Lin, Daniel C. Long, Craig P. Loomis, Jon Loveday, Robert H. Lupton, Eugene Magnier, Olena Malanushenko, Viktor Malanushenko, Rachel Mandelbaum, Bruce Margon, John P. Marriner, David Martinez-Delgado, Takahiko Matsubara, Peregrine M. McGehee, Timothy A. McKay, Avery Meiksin, Heather L. Morrison, Fergal Mullally, Jeffrey A. Munn, Tara Murphy, Thomas Nash, Ada Nebot, Eric H., Jr. Neilsen, Heidi Jo Newberg, Peter R. Newman, Robert C. Nichol, Tom Nicinski, Maria Nieto-Santisteban, Atsuko Nitta, Sadanori Okamura, Daniel J. Oravetz, Jeremiah P. Ostriker, Russell Owen, Nikhil Padmanabhan, Kaike Pan, Changbom Park, George Pauls, John, Jr. Peoples, Will J. Percival, Jeffrey R. Pier, Adrian C. Pope, Dimitri Pourbaix, Paul A. Price, Norbert Purger, Thomas Quinn, M. Jordan Raddick, Paola Re Fiorentin, Gordon T. Richards, Michael W. Richmond, Adam G. Riess, Hans-Walter Rix, Constance M. Rockosi, Masao Sako, David J. Schlegel, Donald P. Schneider, Ralf-Dieter Scholz, Matthias R. Schreiber, Axel D. Schwope, Uros Seljak, Branimir Sesar, Erin S. Sheldon, Kazu Shimasaku, Valena C. Sibley, Audrey E. Simmons, Thirupathi Sivarani, J. Allyn Smith, Martin C. Smith, Vernesa Smolcic, Stephanie A. Snedden, Albert Stebbins, Matthias Steinmetz, Chris Stoughton, Michael A. Strauss, Mark Subbarao, Yasushi Suto, Alexander S. Szalay, Istvan Szapudi, Paula Szkody, Masayuki Tanaka, Max Tegmark, Luis F. A. Teodoro, Aniruddha R. Thakar, Christy A. Tremonti, Douglas L. Tucker, Alan Uomoto, Daniel E. Vanden Berk, Jan Vandenberg, S. Vidrih, Michael S. Vogeley, Wolfgang Voges, Nicole P. Vogt, Yogesh Wadadekar, Shannon Watters, David H. Weinberg, Andrew A. West, Simon D. M. White, Brian C. Wilhite, Alainna C. Wonders, Brian Yanny, D. R. Yocum, Donald G. York, Idit Zehavi, Stefano Zibetti, Daniel B. Zucker

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Abstract

This paper describes the Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), marking the completion of the original goals of the SDSS and the end of the phase known as SDSS-II. It includes 11,663 deg2 of imaging data, with most of the ~2000 deg2 increment over the previous data release lying in regions of low Galactic latitude. The catalog contains five-band photometry for 357 million distinct objects. The survey also includes repeat photometry on a 120° long, 2fdg5 wide stripe along the celestial equator in the Southern Galactic Cap, with some regions covered by as many as 90 individual imaging runs. We include a co-addition of the best of these data, going roughly 2 mag fainter than the main survey over 250 deg2. The survey has completed spectroscopy over 9380 deg2; the spectroscopy is now complete over a large contiguous area of the Northern Galactic Cap, closing the gap that was present in previous data releases. There are over 1.6 million spectra in total, including 930,000 galaxies, 120,000 quasars, and 460,000 stars. The data release includes improved stellar photometry at low Galactic latitude. The astrometry has all been recalibrated with the second version of the USNO CCD Astrograph Catalog, reducing the rms statistical errors at the bright end to 45 milliarcseconds per coordinate. We further quantify a systematic error in bright galaxy photometry due to poor sky determination; this problem is less severe than previously reported for the majority of galaxies. Finally, we describe a series of improvements to the spectroscopic reductions, including better flat fielding and improved wavelength calibration at the blue end, better processing of objects with extremely strong narrow emission lines, and an improved determination of stellar metallicities.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)543-558
JournalThe Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
Volume182
Issue number2
Early online date18 May 2009
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2009

Keywords

  • atlases
  • catalogs
  • surveys

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