The Eighth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Data from SDSS-III

H. Aihara , C. Allende Prieto (1) , D. An (2) , S. F. Anderson , É. Aubourg (3, 4) , E. Balbinot (5) , T. C. Beers (6) , A. A. Berlind , S. J. Bickerton , D. Bizyaev (7) , M. R. Blanton , J. J. Bochanski , A. S. Bolton , J. Bovy , W. N. Brandt (8) , J. Brinkmann , P. J. Brown , J. R. Brownstein , N. G. Busca (9) , H. Campbell , M. A. Carr , Y. Chen , C. Chiappini , J. Comparat (10) , N. Connolly , M. Cortes , R. A. C. Croft , A. J. Cuesta , L. N. Da Costa , J. R. A. Davenport , K. Dawson , S. Dhital , A. Ealet (11) , G. L. Ebelke , E. M. Edmondson , D. J. Eisenstein , S. Escoffier (11) , M. Esposito , M. L. Evans , X. Fan , B. F. a Castell Á , A. Font-Ribera , P. M. Frinchaboy , J. Ge , B. A. Gillespie , G. Gilmore , J. I. Gonz Ález Hern Ández , J. R. Gott , A. Gould , E. K. Grebel , J. E. Gunn , J.-C. Hamilton , P. Harding , D. W. Harris , S. L. Hawley , F. R. Hearty , S. Ho , D. W. Hogg , J. A. Holtzman , K. Honscheid , N. Inada , I. I. Ivans , L. Jiang , J. A. Johnson , C. Jordan , W. P. Jordan , E. A. Kazin , D. Kirkby , M. A. Klaene , G. R. Knapp , J.-P. Kneib (10) , C. S. Kochanek , L. Koesterke , J. A. Kollmeier , R. G. Kron , D. Lang , J.-M. Le Goff (4) , Y. S. Lee , Y.-T. Lin , D. C. Long , C. P. Loomis , S. Lucatello , B. Lundgren , R. H. Lupton , Z. Ma , N. Macdonald , S. Mahadevan , M. A. G. Maia , M. Makler , E. Malanushenko , V. Malanushenko , R. Mandelbaum , C. Maraston , D. Margala , K. L. Masters , C. K. Mcbride , P. M. Mcgehee , I. D. Mcgreer , B. Ménard , J. Miralda-Escudé , H. L. Morrison , F. Mullally , D. Muna , J. A. Munn , H. Murayama , A. D. Myers , T. Naugle , A. Fausti Neto , D. Cuong Nguyen , R. C. Nichol , R. W. O'Connell , R. L. C. Ogando , M. D. Olmstead , D. J. Oravetz , N. Padmanabhan , N. Palanque-Delabrouille (4) , K. Pan , P. Pandey , I. Pâris , W. J. Percival , P. Petitjean (12) , R. Pfaffenberger , J. Pforr , S. Phleps , C. Pichon (12) , M. M. Pieri , F. Prada , A. M. Price-Whelan , M. J. Raddick , B. H. F. Ramos , C. Reylé (13) , J. Rich (4) , G. T. Richards , H.-W. Rix , A.C. Robin (13) , H. J. Rocha-Pinto , C. M. Rockosi , N. A. Roe , E. Rollinde (12) , A. J. Ross , N. P. Ross , B. M. Rossetto , A. G. S Ánchez , C. Sayres , D. J. Schlegel , K. J. Schlesinger , S. J. Schmidt , D. P. Schneider , E. Sheldon , Y. Shu , J. Simmerer , A. E. Simmons , T. Sivarani , S. A. Snedden , M. Steinmetz , M. A. Strauss , M. Tanaka , A. R. Thakar , D. Thomas , J. L. Tinker , B. M. Tofflemire , R. Tojeiro , C. A. Tremonti , M. Vargas Magaña (3) , L. Verde , N. P. Vogt , D. A. Wake , J. Wang , B. A. Weaver , D. H. Weinberg , M. White , S. D. M. White , B. Yanny , N. Yasuda , C. Yeche (4) , I. Zehavi

1 IAC - Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias
2 EWHA - EWHA Womans University
3 APC - Cosmologie
4 DPhP - Département de Physique des Particules (ex SPP)
5 Kapteyn Astronomical Institute [Groningen]
6 Department of Physics and Astronomy [East Lansing]
7 Apache point observatory
8 Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics [PennState]
9 APC (UMR_7164) - AstroParticule et Cosmologie
10 LAM - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille
11 CPPM - Centre de Physique des Particules de Marseille
12 IAP - Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
13 UTINAM - Univers, Transport, Interfaces, Nanostructures, Atmosphère et environnement, Molécules (UMR 6213)

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) started a new phase in 2008 August, with new instrumentation and new surveys focused on Galactic structure and chemical evolution, measurements of the baryon oscillation feature in the clustering of galaxies and the quasar Lyα forest, and a radial velocity search for planets around ~8000 stars. This paper describes the first data release of SDSS-III (and the eighth counting from the beginning of the SDSS). The release includes five-band imaging of roughly 5200 deg2 in the southern Galactic cap, bringing the total footprint of the SDSS imaging to 14,555 deg2, or over a third of the Celestial Sphere. All the imaging data have been reprocessed with an improved sky-subtraction algorithm and a final, self-consistent photometric recalibration and flat-field determination. This release also includes all data from the second phase of the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE-2), consisting of spectroscopy of approximately 118,000 stars at both high and low Galactic latitudes. All the more than half a million stellar spectra obtained with the SDSS spectrograph have been reprocessed through an improved stellar parameter pipeline, which has better determination of metallicity for high-metallicity stars.

Mots clés: atlases; catalogs; surveys

Domaines: Astrophysique [astro-ph]; Instrumentation et méthodes pour l'astrophysique [astro-ph.IM]; Astrophysique galactique [astro-ph.GA]

H. Aihara, C. Allende Prieto, D. An, S. F. Anderson, É. Aubourg, et al.. The Eighth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Data from SDSS-III. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement, 2011, 193, pp.29. ⟨10.1088/0067-0049/193/2/29⟩. ⟨hal-00591478⟩