The second data release of the sloan digital sky survey

Kevork Abazajian*, Jennifer K. Adelman-McCarthy, Marcel A. Agüeros, Sahar S. Allam, S. J Anderson Kurt, Scott F. Anderson, James Annis, Neta A. Bahcall, Ivan K. Baldry, Steven Bastian, Andreas Berlind, Mariangela Bernardi, Michael R. Blanton, John J. Bochanski, William N. Boroski, John W. Briggs, J. Brinkmann, Robert J. Brunner, Tamás Budavári, Larry N. CareySamuel Carliles, Francisco J. Castander, A. J. Connolly, István Csabai, Mamoru Doi, Feng Dong, Daniel J. Eisenstein, Michael L. Evans, Xiaohui Fan, Douglas P. Finkbeiner, Scott D. Friedman, Joshua A. Frieman, Masataka Fukugita, Roy R. Gal, Bruce Gillespie, Karl Glazebrook, Jim Gray, Eva K. Grebel, James E. Gunn, Vijay K. Gurbani, Patrick B. Hall, Masaru Hamabe, Frederick H. Harris, Hugh C. Harris, Michael Harvanek, Timothy M. Heckman, John S. Hendry, Gregory S. Hennessy, Robert B. Hindsley, Craig J. Hogan, David W. Hogg, Donald J. Holmgren, Shin ichi Ichikawa, Takashi Ichikawa, Željko Ivezić, Sebastian Jester, David E. Johnston, Anders M. Jorgensen, Stephen M. Kent, S. J. Kleinman, G. R. Knapp, Alexei Y. Kniazev, Richard G. Kron, Jurek Krzesinski, Peter Z. Kunszt, Nickolai Kuropatkin, Donald Q. Lamb, Hubert Lampeitl, Brian C. Lee, R. French Leger, Nolan Li, Huan Lin, Yeong Shang Loh, Daniel C. Long, Jon Loveday, Robert H. Lupton, Tanu Malik, Bruce Margon, Takahiko Matsubara, Peregrine M. McGehee, Timothy A. McKay, Avery Meiksin, Jeffrey A. Munn, Reiko Nakajima, Thomas Nash, Eric H. Neilsen, Heidi J. Newberg, Peter R. Newman, Robert C. Nichol, Tom Nicinski, Maria Nieto-Santisteban, Atsuko Nitta, Sadanori Okamura, William O'Mullane, Jeremiah P. Ostriker, Russell Owen, Nikhil Padmanabhan, John Peoples, Jeffrey R. Pier, Adrian C. Pope, Thomas R. Quinn, Gordon T. Richards, Michael W. Richmond, Walter Hans-Rix, Constance M. Rockosi, David J. Schlegel, Donald P. Schneider, Ryan Scranton, Maki Sekiguchi, Uros Seljak, Gary Sergey, Branimir Sesar, Erin Sheldon, Kazu Shimasaku, Walter A. Siegmund, Nicole M. Silvestri, J. Allyn Smith, Vernesa Smolčić, Stephanie A. Snedden, Albert Stebbins, Chris Stoughton, Michael A. Strauss, Mark Rao Subba, Alexander S. Szalay, István Szapudi, Paula Szkody, Gyula P. Szokoly, Max Tegmark, Luis Teodoro, Aniruddha R. Thakar, Christy Tremonti, Douglas L. Tucker, Alan Uomoto, Daniel E. vanden Berk, Jan Vandenberg, Michael S. Vogeley, Wolfgang Voges, Nicole P. Vogt, Lucianne M. Walkowicz, Shu i. Wang, David H. Weinberg, Andrew A. West, Simon D M White, Brian C. Wilhite, Yongzhong Xu, Brian Yanny, Naoki Yasuda, Ching Wa Yip, D. R. Yocum, Donald G. York, Idit Zehavi, Stefano Zibetti, Daniel B. Zucker

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

933 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has validated and made publicly available its Second Data Release. This data release consists of 3324 deg 2 of five-band (ugriz) imaging data with photometry for over 88 million unique objects, 367,360 spectra of galaxies, quasars, stars, and calibrating blank sky patches selected over 2627 deg2 of this area, and tables of measured parameters from these data. The imaging data reach a depth of r ≈ 22.2 (95% completeness limit for point sources) and are photometrically and astrometrically calibrated to 2% rms and 100 mas rms per coordinate, respectively. The imaging data have all been processed through a new version of the SDSS imaging pipeline, in which the most important improvement since the last data release is fixing an error in the model fits to each object. The result is that model magnitudes are now a good proxy for point-spread function magnitudes for point sources, and Petrosian magnitudes for extended sources. The spectroscopy extends from 3800 to 9200 Å at a resolution of 2000. The spectroscopic software now repairs a systematic error in the radial velocities of certain types of stars and has substantially improved spectrophotometry. All data included in the SDSS Early Data Release and First Data Release are reprocessed with the improved pipelines and included in the Second Data Release. Further characteristics of the data are described, as are the data products themselves and the tools for accessing them.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)502-512
Number of pages11
JournalAstronomical Journal
Volume128
Issue number1 1783
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2004
Externally publishedYes

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