In addition to the primary SDSS photometry and spectroscopy, there are a few extra catalogs created by our collaborators that are distributed through the SAS. These Value-Added Catalogs (VACs) are listed below, and include catalogs that were released in earlier data releases.
MINESweeper Stellar Parameters for BOSS Halo Stars
Stellar parameters (including metallicities, alpha abundances, and isochrone distances) for halo stars observed by BOSS, determined by fitting spectro-photometry with the MINESweeper code.
Catalog Data
Abstract
The BOSS halo survey is observing the most distant and the most metal-poor stars in the Milky Way. For these stars in the extremes of parameter distributions, it is important to incorporate all available information about a star when determining its fundamental parameters. The MINESweeper code fits the BOSS optical spectrum, archival optical--infrared broadband photometry from Gaia DR3, SDSS, Pan-STARRS, 2MASS, and WISE, wherever available, and Gaia DR3 parallax, in a Bayesian framework to determine stellar parameters, metallicities, and alpha abundances. Solutions are constrained to physical regimes of parameter space using MIST isochrones, delivering a global solution with self-consistent isochrone-based distances. Kinematic and orbital parameters are also calculated and provided in the catalog, along with propagated uncertainties on all parameters. A full description of MINESweeper is provided in Cargile et al (2020), and this particular VAC will be described in Chandra et al (in prep). This pipeline is only run on the subset of BOSS stars that were targeted to be metal-poor, or to reside in the distant outer halo.
Catalog last modified: 2025-07-10 11:47:15