SDSS-III

Building on the legacy of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and SDSS-II, the SDSS-III Collaboration is working to map the Milky Way, search for extrasolar planets, and solve the mystery of dark energy.

SDSS-III's newest release is Data Release 9 (DR9). DR9 contains the first spectra of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), and improved stellar parameters from SEGUE-2.

All of DR9's images, spectra, and measurements are available to anyone online. You can browse through sky images, look up data for individual objects, or search for objects anywhere using any criteria.

SDSS-III's first release, Data Release 8 (DR8), is still available. DR8 contains all the images ever taken by the Sloan Foundation 2.5-m Telescope. Together, these images make up the largest color image of the sky ever made. A version of the DR8 image is shown to the right. DR8 also includes measurements for nearly 500 million stars, galaxies, and quasars, and spectra for nearly two million.

SDSS-III Surveys

SDSS-III began to collect data in 2008, and will continue until 2014, using the Sloan Foundation 2.5-meter Telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico. SDSS-III consists of four surveys, each focused on a different scientific theme. Click on one of the images below for more information about each survey.

 

The SDSS-III Collaboration

The SDSS-III Collaboration includes many institutions from around the globe. Inquiries from interested parties to join the collaboration are welcome. For a detailed description of SDSS-III, see the Project Description, available as a PDF document.

Funding for SDSS-III has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. The SDSS-III web site is http://www.sdss3.org/.

SDSS-III is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions of the SDSS-III Collaboration including the University of Arizona, the Brazilian Participation Group, Brookhaven National Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Florida, the French Participation Group, the German Participation Group, Harvard University, the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, the Michigan State/Notre Dame/JINA Participation Group, Johns Hopkins University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, New Mexico State University, New York University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the Spanish Participation Group, University of Tokyo, University of Utah, Vanderbilt University, University of Virginia, University of Washington, and Yale University.