A Map of the Northern Sky: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey in Its First Year
Eva K. Grebel (MPIA, Heidelberg, Germany)

TL;DR
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is a large-scale, ambitious astronomical project that maps a significant portion of the sky with high precision, leading to numerous scientific discoveries in its first year.
Contribution
This paper introduces the SDSS survey, discusses its scientific potential, and highlights key early scientific results and follow-up programs.
Findings
Multiple scientific discoveries in the first year
High-quality data available for the community
Successful international collaboration
Abstract
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is the largest and most ambitious optical CCD survey undertaken to date. It will ultimately map out one quarter of the sky with precision photometry in five bands, high-quality astrometry, and spectra of all galaxies and quasars brighter than certain limiting magnitudes. The scientific potential of the SDSS is enormous and addresses a wide variety of astrophysical key questions. After a proprietary period the reduced and calibrated data are made available to the astronomical community as a whole. The SDSS is run by an international consortium involving universities and research institutions. One of the participating partners is the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg. Already in its first year the SDSS has led to a number of spectacular scientific discoveries. In this paper, we will introduce the SDSS survey, discuss its scientific…
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Taxonomy
TopicsAstronomical Observations and Instrumentation · Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies · Photocathodes and Microchannel Plates
