Technical Publications

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These technical papers describe various aspects of the technical operation of the original Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the SDSS-II’s SEGUE and Supernova surveys, the SDSS-III BOSS, APOGEE, SEGUE-2, and MARVELS surveys, the SDSS-IV eBOSS, APOGEE-2 and MaNGA surveys, and the current SDSS-V mapper programs. This list of papers is sorted by the phase of SDSS (most recent first), the survey within SDSS, and the technical system that the paper describes.

Data release papers are listed here, while all a list of all peer-reviewed publications from the SDSS team is available here.

Preprints

Some important technical publications have not yet appeared on ADS or arXiv, but the authors have made preprints available here. Click on the paper titles below to download the preprints. Once these papers are published, their full reference information will be available below.

Notes

The list below is automatically generated and may not contain all relevant papers under each heading. For a fuller list of SDSS-IV APOGEE and APOGEE-2 technical publications, see the APOGEE Technical Papers and Additional References page on the SDSS-IV website.

SDSS-V

SDSS-IV

SDSS-III

SDSS-II

SEGUE-1

Introduction

SEGUE (Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration) collected images and spectra of stars in the Milky Way to create a detailed three-dimensional map of our Galaxy. SEGUE obtained images of 3,200 square degrees of sky and spectra of 240,000 stars in the galactic disk and spheroid. Analysis of the spectra revealed the age, composition and phase space distribution of stars within the various Galactic components. More information can be found on the SEGUE web site.

The complete SEGUE dataset was part of the SDSS’s Data Release 7, and additional images and spectra taken as part of the SDSS-III’s SEGUE-2 extension are available as a part of Data Release 8.

For technical details of the SEGUE survey, see the technical papers below.

Survey Overview

  • SEGUE: A Spectroscopic Survey of 240,000 Stars with g = 14-20
    Brian Yanny et al. (107 more)Brian Yanny, Constance Rockosi, Heidi Jo Newberg, Gillian R. Knapp, Jennifer K. Adelman-McCarthy, Bonnie Alcorn, Sahar Allam, Carlos Prieto Allende, Deokkeun An, Kurt S. J. Anderson, Scott Anderson, Coryn A. L. Bailer-Jones, Steve Bastian, Timothy C. Beers, Eric Bell, Vasily Belokurov, Dmitry Bizyaev, Norm Blythe, John J. Bochanski, William N. Boroski, Jarle Brinchmann, J. Brinkmann, Howard Brewington, Larry Carey, Kyle M. Cudworth, Michael Evans, N. W. Evans, Evalyn Gates, B. T. Gänsicke, Bruce Gillespie, Gerald Gilmore, Ada Nebot Gomez-Moran, Eva K. Grebel, Jim Greenwell, James E. Gunn, Cathy Jordan, Wendell Jordan, Paul Harding, Hugh Harris, John S. Hendry, Diana Holder, Inese I. Ivans, Željko Ivezič, Sebastian Jester, Jennifer A. Johnson, Stephen M. Kent, Scot Kleinman, Alexei Kniazev, Jurek Krzesinski, Richard Kron, Nikolay Kuropatkin, Svetlana Lebedeva, Young Sun Lee, R. French Leger, Sébastien Lépine, Steve Levine, Huan Lin, Daniel C. Long, Craig Loomis, Robert Lupton, Olena Malanushenko, Viktor Malanushenko, Bruce Margon, David Martinez-Delgado, Peregrine McGehee, Dave Monet, Heather L. Morrison, Jeffrey A. Munn, Eric H. Neilsen Jr., Atsuko Nitta, John E. Norris, Dan Oravetz, Russell Owen, Nikhil Padmanabhan, Kaike Pan, R. S. Peterson, Jeffrey R. Pier, Jared Platson, Paola Re Fiorentin, Gordon T. Richards, Hans-Walter Rix, David J. Schlegel, Donald P. Schneider, Matthias R. Schreiber, Axel Schwope, Valena Sibley, Audrey Simmons, Stephanie A. Snedden, J. Allyn Smith, Larry Stark, Fritz Stauffer, M. Steinmetz, C. Stoughton, Mark SubbaRao, Alex Szalay, Paula Szkody, Aniruddha R. Thakar, Sivarani Thirupathi, Douglas Tucker, Alan Uomoto, Dan Vanden Berk, Simon Vidrih, Yogesh Wadadekar, Shannon Watters, Ron Wilhelm, Rosemary F. G. Wyse, Jean Yarger, and Dan Zucker (Hide full author list). AJ (2009) 137 4377-4399; adsabs:137.4377Y; doi:10.1088/0004-6256/137/5/4377; arXiv:0902.1781

Stellar Pipeline I

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Supernova Survey

Survey Overview

The SDSS Supernova Survey was one of three components of SDSS-II, an extension of the original SDSS. The Supernova Survey was a time-domain survey, involving repeat imaging of the same region of sky every other night, weather permitting. The primary scientific motivation was to detect and measure light curves for several hundred supernovae, to help constrain cosmological models in a redshift range where more data were needed.

The Supernova Survey repeatedly imaged the SDSS Southern Equatorial trip (Stripe 82), an area of sky 2.5° wide by 120° long (-1.25 ≤ Dec ≤ 1.25, 310 < RA < 60). Every night, weather permitting, for three months in each of three years (Sept/Oct/Nov 2005-2007), the SDSS camera imaged that area. All these images are publicly available as FITS files from the SDSS Data Archive Server, and catalogs derived from the images are available from the Stripe 82 Catalog Archive Server. The SNANA supernova analysis package used by the team is publicly available on the SDSS Supernova Survey website.

Over the course of the three years, the SDSS Supernova Survey discovered and measured multi-band lightcurves for about 500 spectroscopically confirmed Type Ia supernovae in the redshift range z = 0.05-0.4. Additional light curves are available for a few hundred more Type Ia supernovae that could not be spectroscopically confirmed as supernovae, but for which host galaxy redshifts are known. The survey also discovered about 80 spectroscopically confirmed core-collapse supernovae (supernova types Ib/c and II).

For technical details of the SDSS supernova survey, see the technical papers below.

Technical Summary

  • The Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey: Technical Summary
    J. A. Frieman et al. (100 more)Frieman, Joshua A.; Bassett, Bruce; Becker, Andrew; Choi, Changsu; Cinabro, David; DeJongh, Fritz; Depoy, Darren L.; Dilday, Ben; Doi, Mamoru; Garnavich, Peter M.; Hogan, Craig J.; Holtzman, Jon; Im, Myungshin; Jha, Saurabh; Kessler, Richard; Konishi, Kohki; Lampeitl, Hubert; Marriner, John; Marshall, Jennifer L.; McGinnis, David; Miknaitis, Gajus; Nichol, Robert C.; Prieto, Jose Luis; Riess, Adam G.; Richmond, Michael W.; Romani, Roger; Sako, Masao; Schneider, Donald P.; Smith, Mathew; Takanashi, Naohiro; Tokita, Kouichi; van der Heyden, Kurt; Yasuda, Naoki; Zheng, Chen; Adelman-McCarthy, Jennifer; Annis, James; Assef, Roberto J.; Barentine, John; Bender, Ralf; Blandford, Roger D.; Boroski, William N.; Bremer, Malcolm; Brewington, Howard; Collins, Chris A.; Crotts, Arlin; Dembicky, Jack; Eastman, Jason; Edge, Alastair; Edmondson, Edmond; Elson, Edward; Eyler, Michael E.; Filippenko, Alexei V.; Foley, Ryan J.; Frank, Stephan; Goobar, Ariel; Gueth, Tina; Gunn, James E.; Harvanek, Michael; Hopp, Ulrich; Ihara, Yutaka; Ivezić, Želko; Kahn, Steven; Kaplan, Jared; Kent, Stephen; Ketzeback, William; Kleinman, Scott J.; Kollatschny, Wolfram; Kron, Richard G.; Krzesiński, Jurek; Lamenti, Dennis; Leloudas, Giorgos; Lin, Huan; Long, Daniel C.; Lucey, John; Lupton, Robert H.; Malanushenko, Elena; Malanushenko, Viktor; McMillan, Russet J.; Mendez, Javier; Morgan, Christopher W.; Morokuma, Tomoki; Nitta, Atsuko; Ostman, Linda; Pan, Kaike; Rockosi, Constance M.; Romer, A. Kathy; Ruiz-Lapuente, Pilar; Saurage, Gabrelle; Schlesinger, Katie; Snedden, Stephanie A.; Sollerman, Jesper; Stoughton, Chris; Stritzinger, Maximilian; Subba Rao, Mark; Tucker, Douglas; Vaisanen, Petri; Watson, Linda C.; Watters, Shannon; Wheeler, J. Craig; Yanny, Brian; York, Donald (Hide full author list). AJ (2008) 135 338-347; adsabs:135.338F; doi:10.1088/0004-6256/135/1/338; arXiv:0708.2749

Selection of Candidates

  • The Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey: Search Algorithm and Follow-Up Observations
    M. Sato et al. (49 more)Sako, Masao; Bassett, Bruce; Becker, Andrew; Cinabro, David; DeJongh, Fritz; Depoy, D. L.; Dilday, Ben; Doi, Mamoru; Frieman, Joshua A.; Garnavich, Peter M.; Hogan, Craig J.; Holtzman, Jon; Jha, Saurabh; Kessler, Richard; Konishi, Kohki; Lampeitl, Hubert; Marriner, John; Miknaitis, Gajus; Nichol, Robert C.; Prieto, Jose Luis; Riess, Adam G.; Richmond, Michael W.; Romani, Roger; Schneider, Donald P.; Smith, Mathew; SubbaRao, Mark; Takanashi, Naohiro; Tokita, Kouichi; van der Heyden, Kurt; Yasuda, Naoki; Zheng, Chen; Barentine, John; Brewington, Howard; Choi, Changsu; Dembicky, Jack; Harnavek, Michael; Ihara, Yutaka; Im, Myungshin; Ketzeback, William; Kleinman, Scott J.; Krzesiński, Jurek; Long, Daniel C.; Malanushenko, Elena; Malanushenko, Viktor; McMillan, Russet J.; Morokuma, Tomoki; Nitta, Atsuko; Pan, Kaike; Saurage, Gabrelle; Snedden, Stephanie A. (Hide full author list). AJ (2008) 135 348-373; adsabs:135.348S; doi:10.1088/0004-6256/135/1/348; arXiv:0708.2750
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SDSS-I

General Summary

  • The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical Summary
    D. J. York et al. (144 more)York, Donald G.; Adelman, J.; Anderson, John E., Jr.; Anderson, Scott F.; Annis, James; Bahcall, Neta A.; Bakken, J. A.; Barkhouser, Robert; Bastian, Steven; Berman, Eileen; Boroski, William N.; Bracker, Steve; Briegel, Charlie; Briggs, John W.; Brinkmann, J.; Brunner, Robert; Burles, Scott; Carey, Larry; Carr, Michael A.; Castander, Francisco J.; Chen, Bing; Colestock, Patrick L.; Connolly, A. J.; Crocker, J. H.; Csabai, István; Czarapata, Paul C.; Davis, John Eric; Doi, Mamoru; Dombeck, Tom; Eisenstein, Daniel; Ellman, Nancy; Elms, Brian R.; Evans, Michael L.; Fan, Xiaohui; Federwitz, Glenn R.; Fiscelli, Larry; Friedman, Scott; Frieman, Joshua A.; Fukugita, Masataka; Gillespie, Bruce; Gunn, James E.; Gurbani, Vijay K.; de Haas, Ernst; Haldeman, Merle; Harris, Frederick H.; Hayes, J.; Heckman, Timothy M.; Hennessy, G. S.; Hindsley, Robert B.; Holm, Scott; Holmgren, Donald J.; Huang, Chi-hao; Hull, Charles; Husby, Don; Ichikawa, Shin-Ichi; Ichikawa, Takashi; Ivezić, Željko; Kent, Stephen; Kim, Rita S. J.; Kinney, E.; Klaene, Mark; Kleinman, A. N.; Kleinman, S.; Knapp, G. R.; Korienek, John; Kron, Richard G.; Kunszt, Peter Z.; Lamb, D. Q.; Lee, B.; Leger, R. French; Limmongkol, Siriluk; Lindenmeyer, Carl; Long, Daniel C.; Loomis, Craig; Loveday, Jon; Lucinio, Rich; Lupton, Robert H.; MacKinnon, Bryan; Mannery, Edward J.; Mantsch, P. M.; Margon, Bruce; McGehee, Peregrine; McKay, Timothy A.; Meiksin, Avery; Merelli, Aronne; Monet, David G.; Munn, Jeffrey A.; Narayanan, Vijay K.; Nash, Thomas; Neilsen, Eric; Neswold, Rich; Newberg, Heidi Jo; Nichol, R. C.; Nicinski, Tom; Nonino, Mario; Okada, Norio; Okamura, Sadanori; Ostriker, Jeremiah P.; Owen, Russell; Pauls, A. George; Peoples, John; Peterson, R. L.; Petravick, Donald; Pier, Jeffrey R.; Pope, Adrian; Pordes, Ruth; Prosapio, Angela; Rechenmacher, Ron; Quinn, Thomas R.; Richards, Gordon T.; Richmond, Michael W.; Rivetta, Claudio H.; Rockosi, Constance M.; Ruthmansdorfer, Kurt; Sandford, Dale; Schlegel, David J.; Schneider, Donald P.; Sekiguchi, Maki; Sergey, Gary; Shimasaku, Kazuhiro; Siegmund, Walter A.; Smee, Stephen; Smith, J. Allyn; Snedden, S.; Stone, R.; Stoughton, Chris; Strauss, Michael A.; Stubbs, Christopher; SubbaRao, Mark; Szalay, Alexander S.; Szapudi, Istvan; Szokoly, Gyula P.; Thakar, Anirudda R.; Tremonti, Christy; Tucker, Douglas L.; Uomoto, Alan; Vanden Berk, Dan; Vogeley, Michael S.; Waddell, Patrick; Wang, Shu-i.; Watanabe, Masaru; Weinberg, David H.; Yanny, Brian; Yasuda, Naoki; SDSS Collaboration (Hide full author list). AJ (2000) 120 1579-1587; adsabs:2000AJ….120.1579Y; doi:10.1086/301513; arXiv:astro-ph/0006396

Telescope

  • The 2.5 m Telescope of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
    J. E. Gunn et al. (59 more)Gunn, James E.; Siegmund, Walter A.; Mannery, Edward J.; Owen, Russell E.; Hull, Charles L.; Leger, R. French; Carey, Larry N.; Knapp, Gillian R.; York, Donald G.; Boroski, William N.; Kent, Stephen M.; Lupton, Robert H.; Rockosi, Constance M.; Evans, Michael L.; Waddell, Patrick; Anderson, John E.; Annis, James; Barentine, John C.; Bartoszek, Larry M.; Bastian, Steven; Bracker, Stephen B.; Brewington, Howard J.; Briegel, Charles I.; Brinkmann, Jon; Brown, Yorke J.; Carr, Michael A.; Czarapata, Paul C.; Drennan, Craig C.; Dombeck, Thomas; Federwitz, Glenn R.; Gillespie, Bruce A.; Gonzales, Carlos; Hansen, Sten U.; Harvanek, Michael; Hayes, Jeffrey; Jordan, Wendell; Kinney, Ellyne; Klaene, Mark; Kleinman, S. J.; Kron, Richard G.; Kresinski, Jurek; Lee, Glenn; Limmongkol, Siriluk; Lindenmeyer, Carl W.; Long, Daniel C.; Loomis, Craig L.; McGehee, Peregrine M.; Mantsch, Paul M.; Neilsen, Eric H., Jr.; Neswold, Richard M.; Newman, Peter R.; Nitta, Atsuko; Peoples, John, Jr.; Pier, Jeffrey R.; Prieto, Peter S.; Prosapio, Angela; Rivetta, Claudio; Schneider, Donald P.; Snedden, Stephanie; Wang, Shu-i. (Hide full author list). AJ (2006) 131 2332-2359; adsabs:2006AJ….131.2332G; doi:10.1086/500975; arXiv:astro-ph/0602326
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Imaging

Camera

Filter Definitions

Photometric Monitoring System

Photometric Quality Assessment

Photometric System

Monitor Telescope Pipeline

Ubercalibration

Astrometry

Magnitude

If you are studying any objects near the magnitude limit of the survey, you should mention that SDSS uses asinh magnitudes, and reference the paper defining this magnitude system:

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Target Selection

Main Galaxy Sample

  • Spectroscopic Target Selection in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Main Galaxy Sample
    M. A. Strauss et al. (35 more)Strauss, Michael A.; Weinberg, David H.; Lupton, Robert H.; Narayanan, Vijay K.; Annis, James; Bernardi, Mariangela; Blanton, Michael; Burles, Scott; Connolly, A. J.; Dalcanton, Julianne; Doi, Mamoru; Eisenstein, Daniel; Frieman, Joshua A.; Fukugita, Masataka; Gunn, James E.; Ivezić, Željko; Kent, Stephen; Kim, Rita S. J.; Knapp, G. R.; Kron, Richard G.; Munn, Jeffrey A.; Newberg, Heidi Jo; Nichol, R. C.; Okamura, Sadanori; Quinn, Thomas R.; Richmond, Michael W.; Schlegel, David J.; Shimasaku, Kazuhiro; SubbaRao, Mark; Szalay, Alexander S.; Vanden Berk, Dan; Vogeley, Michael S.; Yanny, Brian; Yasuda, Naoki; York, Donald G.; Zehavi, Idit (Hide full author list). (2002) Astronomical Journal 124 1810-1824; adsabs:2002AJ….124.1810S; doi:10.1086/342343; arXiv:astro-ph/0206225

Luminous Red Galaxy (LRG) Sample

Quasar Sample

Tiling

If the tiling procedure is at all important to your analysis, you should also reference the tiling paper.

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Spectrograph

Spectograph Hardware

  • The Multi-Object, Fiber-Fed Spectrographs for SDSS and the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey
    S. A. Smee et al. (62 more)Smee, Stephen A.; Gunn, James E.; Uomoto, Alan; Roe, Natalie; Schlegel, David; Rockosi, Constance M.; Carr, Michael A.; Leger, French; Dawson, Kyle S.; Olmstead, Matthew D.; Brinkmann, Jon; Owen, Russell; Barkhouser, Robert H.; Honscheid, Klaus; Harding, Paul; Long, Dan; Lupton, Robert H.; Loomis, Craig; Anderson, Lauren; Annis, James; Bernardi, Mariangela; Bhardwaj, Vaishali; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Bolton, Adam S.; Brewington, Howard; Briggs, John W.; Burles, Scott; Burns, James G.; Castander, Francisco Javier; Connolly, Andrew; Davenport, James R. A.; Ebelke, Garrett; Epps, Harland; Feldman, Paul D.; Friedman, Scott D.; Frieman, Joshua; Heckman, Timothy; Hull, Charles L.; Knapp, Gillian R.; Lawrence, David M.; Loveday, Jon; Mannery, Edward J.; Malanushenko, Elena; Malanushenko, Viktor; Merrelli, Aronne James; Muna, Demitri; Newman, Peter R.; Nichol, Robert C.; Oravetz, Daniel; Pan, Kaike; Pope, Adrian C.; Ricketts, Paul G.; Shelden, Alaina; Sandford, Dale; Siegmund, Walter; Simmons, Audrey; Smith, D. Shane; Snedden, Stephanie; Schneider, Donald P.; SubbaRao, Mark; Tremonti, Christy; Waddell, Patrick; York, Donald G. (Hide full author list). AJ (2013) 146 32; adsabs:2013AJ….146…32S; doi:10.1088/0004-6256/146/2/32; arXiv:1208.2233
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