SkyMapper Southern Survey: Second Data Release (DR2)

TL;DR

The SkyMapper DR2 provides an extensive, deep optical survey of the southern sky with high photometric precision, covering over 21,000 square degrees and including cross-matched data from multiple external catalogs.

Contribution

This release extends the SkyMapper Southern Survey beyond its previous magnitude limit, offering deeper, more precise data and comprehensive cross-matching with other major astronomical surveys.

Findings

Over 500 million objects catalogued

Deep coverage over 21,000 deg² with high photometric accuracy

Cross-matched with Gaia, Pan-STARRS1, and other surveys

Abstract

We present the second data release (DR2) of the SkyMapper Southern Survey, a hemispheric survey carried out with the SkyMapper Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia, using six optical filters: $u,v,g,r,i,z$. DR2 is the first release to go beyond the $\sim$18mag (10${\sigma}$) limit of the Shallow Survey released in DR1, and includes portions of the sky at full survey depth that reach >21mag in $g$ and $r$ filters. The DR2 photometry has a precision as measured by internal reproducibility of 1% in $u$ and $v$, and 0.7% in $griz$. More than 21 000 deg$^2$ have data in some filters (at either Shallow or Main Survey depth) and over 7 000 deg$^2$ have deep Main Survey coverage in all six filters. Finally, about 18 000 deg$^2$ have Main Survey data in $i$ and $z$ filters, albeit not yet at full depth. The release contains over 120 000 images, as well as catalogues with over 500 million unique astrophysical objects and nearly 5 billion individual detections. It also contains cross-matches with a range of external catalogues such as Gaia DR2, Pan-STARRS1 DR1, GALEX GUVcat, 2MASS, and AllWISE, as well as spectroscopic surveys such as 2MRS, GALAH, 6dFGS, and 2dFLenS.