The Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Abstract

We summarize the plans for and the current status of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a digital imaging and spectroscopic survey of $π$ steradians in the northern Galactic cap. The CCD photometric survey will produce images in five bands to limiting magnitudes of order 23. The spectroscopic survey will obtain redshifts of $10^6$ galaxies (a complete sample to a limiting magnitude $r' \sim 18$) and $10^5$ quasars ($g' \sim 19$). Repeated imaging of a 200 deg$^2$ strip in the southern Galactic cap will yield information about variable objects and a co-added photometric catalog roughly two magnitudes deeper than the northern survey. A dedicated 2.5-meter telescope, a large multi-CCD camera, and two fiber-fed double spectrographs are under construction and should be operational by fall of 1995. The main galaxy redshift sample will have a median redshift $\langle z \rangle \approx 0.1$.