This page acts as a central hub to track and communicate known issues with SDSS-V DR20. Each of the mappers maintains individual pages (BHM, MWM, and LVM) with caveats that are directly associated with their data. Caveats associated with SDSS-IV and earlier phases of SDSS can be found on their associated websites, which can be […]
Search Results for: SDSS-IV
LVM Data Analysis Pipeline
Overview The Local Volume Mapper Data Analysis Pipeline, LVM-DAP, (Sánchez et al. 2025) provides higher-level analysis products for the SDSS-V Local Volume Mapper (LVM). The DAP analyzes the reduced row-stacked spectra produced by the LVM Data Reduction Pipeline (DRP), (Mejía-Narváez et al. in prep), i.e., the so-called lvmSFrames, modeling the stellar continuum and measuring the […]
Using Bitmasks
A bit mask uses the bits in the binary representation of an integer as “toggles” to indicate whether certain conditions are met. For a more general introduction to this concept, consult Wikipedia or other online resources on the subject. Within the SDSS, the most common use of a bitmask is to indicate the status of […]
Legacy Tutorials
If you want to work with data that was released in SDSS-IV or earlier, then check the Completed Surveys page for direct links to data descriptions, caveats, and relevant tutorials. Completed surveys include: We have tutorials available on parameter files, fits files, and using bitmasks, and a page with conversions between our wavelength and magnitude […]
Glossary of SDSS Terminology
This Glossary is a work in progress, and more terms will be added during the lifetime of SDSS-V. If you have come across SDSS Terminology that is not explained yet in the Glossary below, then please let us know via the SDSS Helpdesk at helpdesk@sdss.org. ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ A Adaptive Moment A method of measuring object shapes […]
Frequently Asked Questions
About the SDSS What is the Sloan Digital Sky Survey? The Sloan Digital Sky Survey is an ongoing astronomy project that has been working since 1998 to make a detailed map of the universe, including our Milky Way galaxy. What data does SDSS have? What can SDSS tell me about the sky? The SDSS releases […]
Completed Spectroscopic Surveys
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey started routine observing in 2000, and since then has completed through four generations of surveys. The current generation is the Fifth Generation of Sloan Digital Sky Surveys (SDSS-V), and the data of its mapper programs can be found in Data Release 20. The following is a list of all the […]
Imaging
The SDSS imaging camera took its first science quality data the night of September 19, 1998, and was the world’s most productive wide-field imaging facility until its last night of science quality data on November 18, 2009. In between it took a total of around 35,000 square degrees of images, covering a unique footprint of […]
Tutorials
Welcome to the SDSS tutorial section. This section contains a series of hands-on tutorials to learn how to work with different aspects of the SDSS data. If you are unsure what kind of SDSS data or which SDSS survey is best for your science, then go the the mapper overview page: this page contains short […]
Cross-match
Target selection in SDSS-V relies on a large number of parent catalogs, which form the pool from which we select targets that will be observed. Any object observed in SDSS-V’s FPS program belongs to one or more of these parent catalogs. Examples of parent catalogs include Gaia DR2/3, Legacy Survey DR8/10, Pan-STARRS, etc. With few […]