SkyMapper Southern Survey: First Data Release (DR1)

TL;DR

The SkyMapper Southern Survey's first data release provides extensive imaging data over southern sky regions, with high photometric and astrometric precision, enabling diverse astronomical research.

Contribution

This paper details the first data release of the SkyMapper Southern Survey, including survey strategy, data processing, and a comprehensive catalog of over 285 million objects.

Findings

Over 66,000 images covering 17,200 deg$^2$ in six passbands.

Photometric RMS scatter of 2% compared to PanSTARRS1.

Astrometric accuracy better than 0.2 arcsec.

Abstract

We present the first data release (DR1) of the SkyMapper Southern Survey, a hemispheric survey carried out with the SkyMapper Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia. Here, we present the survey strategy, data processing, catalogue construction and database schema. The DR1 dataset includes over 66,000 images from the Shallow Survey component, covering an area of 17,200 deg$^2$ in all six SkyMapper passbands $uvgriz$, while the full area covered by any passband exceeds 20,000 deg$^2$. The catalogues contain over 285 million unique astrophysical objects, complete to roughly 18 mag in all bands. We compare our $griz$ point-source photometry with PanSTARRS1 DR1 and note an RMS scatter of 2%. The internal reproducibility of SkyMapper photometry is on the order of 1%. Astrometric precision is better than 0.2 arcsec based on comparison with Gaia DR1. We describe the end-user database, through which data are presented to the world community, and provide some illustrative science queries.