WorldWideScience

Sample records for digitized sky survey

  1. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Status and prospects

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Loveday, J.; SDSS Collaboration

    1996-05-01

    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is a project to definitively map {pi} steradians of the local Universe. An array of CCD detectors used in drift-scan mode will digitally image the sky in five passbands to a limiting magnitude of r{prime} {approximately} 23. Selected from the imaging survey, 10{sup 6} galaxies and 10{sup 5} quasars will be observed spectroscopically. I describe the current status of the survey, which is due to begin observations early in 1997, and its prospects for constraining models for dark matter in the Universe. 8 refs., 7 figs.

  2. The sloan digital sky survey-II supernova survey

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Frieman, Joshua A.; Bassett, Bruce; Becker, Andrew

    2008-01-01

    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II (SDSS-II) has embarked on a multi-year project to identify and measure light curves for intermediate-redshift (0.05 < z < 0.35) Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) using repeated five-band (ugriz) imaging over an area of 300 sq. deg. The survey region is a stripe 2.5° wide...

  3. The Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sako, Masao; Bassett, Bruce; C. Becker, Andrew

    2014-01-01

    This paper describes the data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II (SDSS-II) Supernova Survey conducted between 2005 and 2007. Light curves, spectra, classifications, and ancillary data are presented for 10,258 variable and transient sources discovered through repeat ugriz imaging of SDSS S...

  4. Sloan Digital Sky Survey Photometric Calibration Revisited

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Marriner, John

    2012-01-01

    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey calibration is revisited to obtain the most accurate photometric calibration. A small but significant error is found in the flat-fielding of the Photometric telescope used for calibration. Two SDSS star catalogs are compared and the average difference in magnitude as a function of right ascension and declination exhibits small systematic errors in relative calibration. The photometric transformation from the SDSS Photometric Telescope to the 2.5 m telescope is recomputed and compared to synthetic magnitudes computed from measured filter bandpasses.

  5. Sloan Digital Sky Survey Photometric Calibration Revisited

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Marriner, John; /Fermilab

    2012-06-29

    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey calibration is revisited to obtain the most accurate photometric calibration. A small but significant error is found in the flat-fielding of the Photometric telescope used for calibration. Two SDSS star catalogs are compared and the average difference in magnitude as a function of right ascension and declination exhibits small systematic errors in relative calibration. The photometric transformation from the SDSS Photometric Telescope to the 2.5 m telescope is recomputed and compared to synthetic magnitudes computed from measured filter bandpasses.

  6. The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Abolfathi, Bela; Aguado, D. S.; Aguilar, Gabriela

    2018-01-01

    The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since 2014 July. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the 14th from SDSS overall (making this Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes the data taken by SDSS-IV in its firs...

  7. A Survey of z>5.7 Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fan, Xiaohui; Strauss, Michael A.; Richards, Gordon T.

    2005-01-01

    We present the discovery of seven quasars at z>5.7, selected from ~2000 deg^2 of multicolor imaging data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The new quasars have redshifts z from 5.79 to 6.13. Five are selected as part of a complete flux-limited sample in the SDSS Northern Galactic Cap; two...

  8. The First Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    CERN Document Server

    Abazajian, Kevork; Agüeros, Marcel A.; Allam, Sahar S.; Anderson, Scott F.; Annis, James; Bahcall, Neta A.; Baldry, Ivan K.; Bastian, Steven; AndreasBerlind; Bernardi, Mariangela; Blanton, Michael R.; Blythe, Norman; Bochanski, John J.; Boroski, William N.; Brewington, Howard; Briggs, John W.; Brinkmann, J.; Brunner, Robert J.; Budavari, Tamas; Carey, Larry N.; Carr, Michael A.; Castander, Francisco J.; Chiu, Kuenley; Collinge, Matthew J.; Connolly, A. J.; Covey, Kevin R.; Csabai, István; J.Dalcanton, Julianne; Dodelson, Scott; Doi, Mamoru; Dong, Feng; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; L.Evans, Michael; Fan, Xiaohui; Feldman, Paul D.; Finkbeiner, Douglas P.; Friedman, Scott D.; Frieman, JoshuaA.; Fukugita, Masataka; Gal, Roy R.; Gillespie, Bruce; Glazebrook, Karl; F.Gonzalez, Carlos; Gray, Jim; Grebel, Eva K.; Grodnicki, Lauren; Gunn, James E.; K.Gurbani, Vijay; Hall, Patrick B.; Hao, Lei; Harbeck, Daniel; Harris, Frederick H.; C.Harris, Hugh; Harvanek, Michael; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Heckman, Timothy M.; Helmboldt, J. F.; Hendry, John S.; Hennessy, Gregory S.; Hindsley, Robert B.; Hogg, David W.; J.Holmgren, Donald; Holtzman, Jon A.; Homer, Lee; Hui, Lam; Ichikawa, Shin-ichi; Ichikawa, Takashi; Inkmann, John P.; ˇ, Zeljko Ivezíc; Jester, Sebastian; Johnston, David E.; Jordan, Beatrice; Jordan, Wendell P.; Jorgensen, Anders M.; Juríc, Mario; Kauffmann, Guinevere; M.Kent, Stephen; Kleinman, S. J.; Knapp, G. R.; Kniazev, Alexei Yu.; Kron, Richard G.; JurekKrzesinski; Kunszt, Peter Z.; Kuropatkin, Nickolai; Lamb, Donald Q.; Lampeitl, Hubert; Laubscher, Bryan E.; Lee, Brian C.; Leger, R. French; Li, Nolan; Lidz, Adam; Lin, Huan; Loh, Yeong-Shang; Long, Daniel C.; Loveday, Jon; Lupton, Robert H.; Malik, Tanu; BruceMargon; McGehee, Peregrine M.; McKay, Timothy A.; Meiksin, Avery; A.Miknaitis, Gajus; Moorthy, Bhasker K.; Munn, Jeffrey A.; Murphy, Tara; Nakajima, Reiko; Narayanan, VijayK.; Nash, Thomas; Neilsen, Eric H. Jr.; Newberg, Heidi Jo; Newman, Peter R.; Nichol, Robert C.; Nicinski, Tom; Nieto-Santisteban, Maria; Nitta, Atsuko; MichaelOdenkirchen; Okamura, Sadanori; Ostriker, Jeremiah P.; Owen, Russell; NikhilPadmanabhan; Peoples, John; Pier, Jeffrey R.; Pindor, Bartosz; Pope, Adrian C.; R.Quinn, Thomas; Rafikov, R. R.; Raymond, Sean N.; Richards, Gordon T.; Richmond, Michael W.; Rix, Hans-Walter; Rockosi, Constance M.; Schaye, Joop; Schlegel, David J.; P.Schneider, Donald; Schroeder, Joshua; Scranton, Ryan; Sekiguchi, Maki; Seljak, Uros; Sergey, Gary; Sesar, Branimir; Sheldon, Erin; Shimasaku, Kazu; Siegmund, Walter A.; Silvestri, Nicole M.; Sinisgalli, Allan J.; Sirko, Edwin; Smith, J. Allyn; Smolčíc, Vernesa; Snedden, Stephanie A.; Stebbins, Albert; Steinhardt, Charles; Stinson, Gregory; Stoughton, Chris; Strateva, Iskra V.; Strauss, Michael A.; SubbaRao, Mark; Szalay, Alexander S.; Szapudi, István; Szkody, Paula; Tasca, Lidia; Tegmark, Max; Thakar, Aniruddha R.; Tremonti, Christy; Tucker, Douglas L.; Uomoto, Alan; Vanden Berk, Daniel E.; Vandenberg, Jan; Vogeley, Michael S.; WolfgangVoges; Vogt, Nicole P.; Walkowicz, Lucianne M.; Weinberg, David H.; West, Andrew A.; White, Simon D.M.; Wilhite, Brian C.; Willman, Beth; Xu, Yongzhong; Yanny, Brian; JeanYarger; Yasuda, Naoki; Yip, Ching-Wa; Yocum, D. R.; York, Donald G.; L.Zakamska, Nadia; Zehavi, Idit; Zheng, Wei; Zibetti, Stefano; Zucker, Daniel B.

    2003-01-01

    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has validated and made publicly available its First Data Release. This consists of 2099 square degrees of five-band (u, g, r, i, z) imaging data, 186,240 spectra of galaxies, quasars, stars and calibrating blank sky patches selected over 1360 square degrees of this area, and tables of measured parameters from these data. The imaging data go to a depth of r ~ 22.6 and are photometrically and astrometrically calibrated to 2% rms and 100 milli-arcsec rms per coordinate, respectively. The spectra cover the range 3800--9200 A, with a resolution of 1800--2100. Further characteristics of the data are described, as are the data products themselves.

  9. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey COADD: 275 deg2 of deep Sloan Digital Sky Survey imaging on stripe 82

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Annis, James; Soares-Santos, Marcelle; Dodelson, Scott; Hao, Jiangang; Jester, Sebastian; Johnston, David E.; Kubo, Jeffrey M.; Lampeitl, Hubert; Lin, Huan; Miknaitis, Gajus; Yanny, Brian; Strauss, Michael A.; Gunn, James E.; Lupton, Robert H.; Becker, Andrew C.; Ivezić, Željko; Fan, Xiaohui; Jiang, Linhua; Seo, Hee-Jong; Simet, Melanie

    2014-01-01

    We present details of the construction and characterization of the coaddition of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe 82 ugriz imaging data. This survey consists of 275 deg 2 of repeated scanning by the SDSS camera over –50° ≤ α ≤ 60° and –1.°25 ≤ δ ≤ +1.°25 centered on the Celestial Equator. Each piece of sky has ∼20 runs contributing and thus reaches ∼2 mag fainter than the SDSS single pass data, i.e., to r ∼ 23.5 for galaxies. We discuss the image processing of the coaddition, the modeling of the point-spread function (PSF), the calibration, and the production of standard SDSS catalogs. The data have an r-band median seeing of 1.''1 and are calibrated to ≤1%. Star color-color, number counts, and PSF size versus modeled size plots show that the modeling of the PSF is good enough for precision five-band photometry. Structure in the PSF model versus magnitude plot indicates minor PSF modeling errors, leading to misclassification of stars as galaxies, as verified using VVDS spectroscopy. There are a variety of uses for this wide-angle deep imaging data, including galactic structure, photometric redshift computation, cluster finding and cross wavelength measurements, weak lensing cluster mass calibrations, and cosmic shear measurements.

  10. X-RAY-EMITTING STARS IDENTIFIED FROM THE ROSAT ALL-SKY SURVEY AND THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Agueeros, Marcel A.; Newsom, Emily R.; Anderson, Scott F.; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Silvestri, Nicole M.; Szkody, Paula; Covey, Kevin R.; Posselt, Bettina; Margon, Bruce; Voges, Wolfgang

    2009-01-01

    The ROSAT All-Sky Survey (RASS) was the first imaging X-ray survey of the entire sky. Combining the RASS Bright and Faint Source Catalogs yields an average of about three X-ray sources per square degree. However, while X-ray source counterparts are known to range from distant quasars to nearby M dwarfs, the RASS data alone are often insufficient to determine the nature of an X-ray source. As a result, large-scale follow-up programs are required to construct samples of known X-ray emitters. We use optical data produced by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to identify 709 stellar X-ray emitters cataloged in the RASS and falling within the SDSS Data Release 1 footprint. Most of these are bright stars with coronal X-ray emission unsuitable for SDSS spectroscopy, which is designed for fainter objects (g > 15 [mag]). Instead, we use SDSS photometry, correlations with the Two Micron All Sky Survey and other catalogs, and spectroscopy from the Apache Point Observatory 3.5 m telescope to identify these stellar X-ray counterparts. Our sample of 707 X-ray-emitting F, G, K, and M stars is one of the largest X-ray-selected samples of such stars. We derive distances to these stars using photometric parallax relations appropriate for dwarfs on the main sequence, and use these distances to calculate L X . We also identify a previously unknown cataclysmic variable (CV) as a RASS counterpart. Separately, we use correlations of the RASS and the SDSS spectroscopic catalogs of CVs and white dwarfs (WDs) to study the properties of these rarer X-ray-emitting stars. We examine the relationship between (f X /f g ) and the equivalent width of the Hβ emission line for 46 X-ray-emitting CVs and discuss tentative classifications for a subset based on these quantities. We identify 17 new X-ray-emitting DA (hydrogen) WDs, of which three are newly identified WDs. We report on follow-up observations of three candidate cool X-ray-emitting WDs (one DA and two DB (helium) WDs); we have not

  11. RADIO-SELECTED QUASARS IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    McGreer, Ian D.; Helfand, David J.; White, Richard L.

    2009-01-01

    We have conducted a pilot survey for z > 3.5 quasars by combining the FIRST radio survey with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). While SDSS already targets FIRST sources for spectroscopy as quasar candidates, our survey includes fainter quasars and greatly improves the discovery rate by using strict astrometric criteria for matching the radio and optical positions. Our method allows for selection of high-redshift quasars with less color bias than with optical selection, as using radio selection essentially eliminates stellar contamination. We report the results of spectroscopy for 45 candidates, including 29 quasars in the range 0.37 3.5. We compare quasars selected using radio and optical criteria, and find that radio-selected quasars have a much higher fraction of moderately reddened objects. We derive a radio-loud quasar luminosity function at 3.5 < z < 4.0, and find that it is in good agreement with expectations from prior SDSS results.

  12. IMPROVED BACKGROUND SUBTRACTION FOR THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY IMAGES

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Blanton, Michael R.; Kazin, Eyal; Muna, Demitri; Weaver, Benjamin A.; Price-Whelan, Adrian

    2011-01-01

    We describe a procedure for background subtracting Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) imaging that improves the resulting detection and photometry of large galaxies on the sky. Within each SDSS drift scan run, we mask out detected sources and then fit a smooth function to the variation of the sky background. This procedure has been applied to all SDSS-III Data Release 8 images, and the results are available as part of that data set. We have tested the effect of our background subtraction on the photometry of large galaxies by inserting fake galaxies into the raw pixels, reanalyzing the data, and measuring them after background subtraction. Our technique results in no size-dependent bias in galaxy fluxes up to half-light radii r 50 ∼ 100 arcsec; in contrast, for galaxies of that size the standard SDSS photometric catalog underestimates fluxes by about 1.5 mag. Our results represent a substantial improvement over the standard SDSS catalog results and should form the basis of any analysis of nearby galaxies using the SDSS imaging data.

  13. Finding Clusters of Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey using Voronoi Tessellation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rita S.J., Kim

    2001-01-01

    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has obtained 450 square degrees of photometric scan data, in five bands (u', g', r', i', z'), which the authors use to identify clusters of galaxies. They illustrate how they do star-galaxy separation, and present a simple and elegant method of detecting over-densities in the galaxy distribution, using the Voronoi Tessellation

  14. The Universe of Digital Sky Surveys : Meeting to Honour the 70th Birthday of Massimo Capaccioli

    CERN Document Server

    Longo, Giuseppe; Marconi, Marcella; Paolillo, Maurizio; Iodice, Enrichetta

    2016-01-01

    These are the proceedings of a meeting in honour of Massimo Capaccioli at the occasion of his 70th birthday. The conference aimed at summarizing the results from the main current and past digital sky survey projects and at discussing how these can be used to inspire ongoing projects and better plan the future ones. Over the last decades, digital sky surveys performed with dedicated telescopes and finely-tuned wide-field cameras, have revolutionized astronomy. They have become the main tool to investigate the nearby and far away universe, thus providing new insights in the understanding of the galaxy structure and assembly across time, the dark components of the universe, as well as the history of our own galaxy. They have also opened the time domain leading to a new understanding of the transient phenomena in the universe. By providing public access to top quality data, digital surveys have also changed the everyday practice of astronomers who have become less dependent on direct access to large observing ...

  15. Dynamical Black Hole Masses of BL Lac Objects from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Plotkin, Richard M.; Markoff, Sera; Trager, Scott C.; Anderson, Scott F.

    2012-01-01

    We measure black hole masses for 71 BL Lac objects from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) with redshifts out to z ∼ 0.4. We perform spectral decompositions of their nuclei from their host galaxies and measure their stellar velocity dispersions. Black hole masses are then derived from the black

  16. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey: Technical Summary

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Frieman, Joshua A.; /Fermilab /KICP, Chicago /Chicago U., Astron. Astrophys. Ctr.; Bassett, Bruce; /Cape Town U. /South African Astron. Observ.; Becker, Andrew; /Washington; Choi, Changsu; /Seoul Natl. U.; Cinabro, David; /Wayne State U.; DeJongh, Don Frederic; /Fermilab; Depoy, Darren L.; /Ohio State U.; Doi, Mamoru; /Tokyo U.; Garnavich, Peter M.; /Notre Dame U.; Hogan, Craig J.; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Holtzman, Jon; /New Mexico State U.; Im, Myungshin; /Seoul Natl. U.; Jha, Saurabh; /Stanford U., Phys. Dept.; Konishi, Kohki; /Tokyo U.; Lampeitl, Hubert; /Baltimore, Space Telescope Sci.; Marriner, John; /Fermilab; Marshall, Jennifer L.; /Ohio State U.; McGinnis,; /Fermilab; Miknaitis, Gajus; /Fermilab; Nichol, Robert C.; /Portsmouth U.; Prieto, Jose Luis; /Ohio State U. /Rochester Inst. Tech. /Stanford U., Phys. Dept. /Pennsylvania U.

    2007-09-14

    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II (SDSS-II) has embarked on a multi-year project to identify and measure light curves for intermediate-redshift (0.05 < z < 0.35) Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) using repeated five-band (ugriz) imaging over an area of 300 sq. deg. The survey region is a stripe 2.5 degrees wide centered on the celestial equator in the Southern Galactic Cap that has been imaged numerous times in earlier years, enabling construction of a deep reference image for discovery of new objects. Supernova imaging observations are being acquired between 1 September and 30 November of 2005-7. During the first two seasons, each region was imaged on average every five nights. Spectroscopic follow-up observations to determine supernova type and redshift are carried out on a large number of telescopes. In its first two three-month seasons, the survey has discovered and measured light curves for 327 spectroscopically confirmed SNe Ia, 30 probable SNe Ia, 14 confirmed SNe Ib/c, 32 confirmed SNe II, plus a large number of photometrically identified SNe Ia, 94 of which have host-galaxy spectra taken so far. This paper provides an overview of the project and briefly describes the observations completed during the first two seasons of operation.

  17. Searching for white dwarfs candidates in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nalezyty, Miroslaw; Majczyna, Agnieszka; Ciechanowska, Anna; Madej, Jerzy

    2009-01-01

    Large amount of observational spectroscopic data are recently available from different observational projects, like Sloan Digital Sky Survey. It's become more urgent to identify white dwarfs stars based on data itself i.e. without modelling white dwarf atmospheres. In particular, existing methods of white dwarfs identification presented in Kleinman et al. (2004) and in Eisenstein et al. (2006) did not allow to find all the white dwarfs in examined data. We intend to test various criteria of searching for white dwarf candidates, based on photometric and spectral features.

  18. Two-dimensional Topology of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoyle, Fiona; Vogeley, Michael S.; Gott, J. Richard, III; Blanton, Michael; Tegmark, Max; Weinberg, David H.; Bahcall, N.; Brinkmann, J.; York, D.

    2002-12-01

    We present the topology of a volume-limited sample of 11,884 galaxies, selected from an apparent magnitude limited sample of over 100,000 galaxies observed as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The data currently cover three main regions on the sky: one in the Galactic north and one in the south, both at zero degrees declination, and one area in the north at higher declination. Each of these areas covers a wide range of survey longitude but a narrow range of survey latitude, allowing the two-dimensional genus to be measured. The genus curves of the SDSS subsamples are similar, after appropriately normalizing these measurements for the different areas. We sum the genus curves from the three areas to obtain the total genus curve of the SDSS. The total curve has a shape similar to the genus curve derived from mock catalogs drawn from the Hubble volume ΛCDM simulation and is similar to that of a Gaussian random field. Likewise, comparison with the genus of the Two-Degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey, after normalization for the difference in area, reveals remarkable similarity in the topology of these samples. We test for the effects of galaxy-type segregation by splitting the SDSS data into thirds, based on the u*-r* colors of the galaxies, and measure the genus of the reddest and bluest subsamples. This red/blue split in u*-r* is essentially a split by morphology, as explained by Strateva and coworkers. We find that the genus curve for the reddest galaxies exhibits a ``meatball'' shift of the topology-reflecting the concentration of red galaxies in high-density regions-compared to the bluest galaxies and the full sample, in agreement with predictions from simulations.

  19. THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY CO-ADD: A GALAXY PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFT CATALOG

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Reis, Ribamar R. R.; Soares-Santos, Marcelle; Annis, James; Dodelson, Scott; Hao Jiangang; Johnston, David; Kubo, Jeffrey; Lin Huan; Seo, Hee-Jong; Simet, Melanie

    2012-01-01

    We present and describe a catalog of galaxy photometric redshifts (photo-z) for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Co-add Data. We use the artificial neural network (ANN) technique to calculate the photo-z and the nearest neighbor error method to estimate photo-z errors for ∼13 million objects classified as galaxies in the co-add with r 68 = 0.031. After presenting our results and quality tests, we provide a short guide for users accessing the public data.

  20. The Second Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    CERN Document Server

    Abazajian, Kevork; ̈ueros, Marcel A. Ag; Allam, Sahar S.; Anderson, KurtS. J.; Anderson, Scott F.; Annis, James; Bahcall, Neta A.; Baldry, Ivan K.; StevenBastian; Berlind, Andreas; Bernardi, Mariangela; Blanton, Michael R.; BochanskiJr., John J.; Boroski, William N.; Briggs, John W.; Brinkmann, J.; Brunner, Robert J.; ́ari, Tam ́asBudav; Carey, Larry N.; Carliles, Samuel; Castander, Francisco J.; Connolly, A. J.; Csabai, Istvan; Doi, Mamoru; Dong, Feng; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Evans, Michael L.; Fan, Xiaohui; Finkbeiner, Douglas P.; Friedman, Scott D.; Frieman, Joshua A.; Fukugita, Masataka; Gal, RoyR.; Gillespie, Bruce; Glazebrook, Karl; Gray, Jim; Grebel, Eva K.; Gunn, James E.; Gurbani, Vijay K.; Hall, Patrick B.; Hamabe, Masaru; Harris, Frederick H.; C.Harris, Hugh; Harvanek, Michael; Heckman, Timothy M.; Hendry, John S.; Hennessy, Gregory S.; Hindsley, Robert B.; Hogan, Craig J.; Hogg, David W.; Holmgren, Donald J.; Ichikawa, Shin-ichi; Ichikawa, Takashi; Ivezic, Zeljko; Jester, Sebastian; Johnston, David E.; Jorgensen, AndersM.; Kent, Stephen M.; Kleinman, S. J.; Knapp, G. R.; Kniazev, Alexei Yu.; Kron, Richard G.; Krzesinski, Jurek; Kunszt, Peter Z.; Kuropatkin, Nickolai; Q.Lamb, Donald; Lampeitl, Hubert; Lee, Brian C.; Leger, R. French; Li, Nolan; Lin, Huan; Loh, Yeong-Shang; Long, Daniel C.; Loveday, Jon; Lupton, Robert H.; Malik, Tanu; BruceMargon; Matsubara, Takahiko; McGehee, Peregrine M.; McKay, Timothy A.; AveryMeiksin; Munn, Jeffrey A.; Nakajima, Reiko; Nash, Thomas; Neilsen, Eric H. Jr.; JoNewberg, Heidi; Newman, Peter R.; Nichol, Robert C.; Nicinski, Tom; Nieto-Santisteban, Maria; Nitta, Atsuko; Okamura, Sadanori; O'Mullane, William; Ostriker, Jeremiah P.; Owen, Russell; Padmanabhan, Nikhil; Peoples, John; Pier, Jeffrey R.; Pope, Adrian C.; Quinn, Thomas R.; Richards, Gordon T.; Richmond, Michael W.; Rix, Hans-Walter; Rockosi, Constance M.; Schlegel, David J.; Schneider, Donald P.; Scranton, Ryan; Sekiguchi, Maki; Seljak, Uros; Sergey, Gary; Sesar, Branimir; Sheldon, Erin; Shimasaku, Kazu; Siegmund, Walter A.; Silvestri, Nicole M.; Smith, J. Allyn; ́c, Vernesa Smolči; Snedden, Stephanie A.; AlbertStebbins; Stoughton, Chris; Strauss, Michael A.; SubbaRao, Mark; Szalay, Alexander S.; Szapudi, Istv ́an; Szkody, Paula; Szokoly, Gyula P.; Tegmark, Max; Teodoro, Luis; Thakar, AniruddhaR.; Tremonti, Christy; Tucker, Douglas L.; Uomoto, Alan; Vanden Berk, Daniel E.; Vandenberg, Jan; Vogeley, Michael S.; Voges, Wolfgang; Vogt, Nicole P.; M.Walkowicz, Lucianne; Wang, Shu-i; Weinberg, David H.; West, Andrew A.; White, Simon D.M.; Wilhite, BrianC.; Xu, Yongzhong; Yanny, Brian; Yasuda, Naoki; Yip, Ching-Wa; Yocum, D. R.; York, Donald G.; Zehavi, Idit; Zibetti, Stefano; Zucker, Daniel B.

    2004-01-01

    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has validated and made publicly available its Second Data Release. This data release consists of 3324 square degrees of five-band (u g r i z) imaging data with photometry for over 88 million unique objects, 367,360 spectra of galaxies, quasars, stars and calibrating blank sky patches selected over 2627 degrees of this area, and tables of measured parameters from these data. The imaging data reach a depth of r ~ 22.2 (95% completeness limit for point sources) and are photometrically and astrometrically calibrated to 2% rms and 100 milli-arcsec rms per coordinate, respectively. The imaging data have all been processed through a new version of the SDSS imaging pipeline, in which the most important improvement since the last data release is fixing an error in the model fits to each object. The result is that model magnitudes are now a good proxy for point spread function (PSF) magnitudes for point sources, and Petrosian magnitudes for extended sources. The spectroscopy extends from 38...

  1. New High Proper Motion Stars from the Digitized Sky Survey. II. Northern Stars with 0.5" yr-1 < μ < 2.0" yr-1 at High Galactic Latitudes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lépine, Sébastien; Shara, Michael M.; Rich, R. Michael

    2003-08-01

    In a continuation of our systematic search for high proper motion stars in the Digitized Sky Survey, we have completed the analysis of northern sky fields at Galactic latitudes above 25°. With the help of our SUPERBLINK software, a powerful automated blink comparator developed by us, we have identified 1146 stars in the magnitude range 8data mining of the Digitized Sky Survey, developed and operated by the Catalogs and Surveys Branch of the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore.

  2. Distribution Of Maximal Luminosity Of Galaxies In The Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    CERN Document Server

    Regós, E; Rácz, Z; Taghizadeh, M; Ozogany, K

    2010-01-01

    Extreme value statistics (EVS) is applied to the pixelized distribution of galaxy luminosities in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We analyze the DR6 Main Galaxy Sample (MGS), divided into red and blue subsamples, as well as the Luminous Red Galaxy Sample (LRGS). A non-parametric comparison of the EVS of the luminosities with the Fisher-Tippett-Gumbel distribution (limit distribution for independent variables distributed by the Press-Schechter law) indicates a good agreement provided uncertainties arising both from the finite size of the samples and from the sample size distribution are accounted for.

  3. Computer analysis of digital sky surveys using citizen science and manual classification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kuminski, Evan; Shamir, Lior

    2015-01-01

    As current and future digital sky surveys such as SDSS, LSST, DES, Pan-STARRS and Gaia create increasingly massive databases containing millions of galaxies, there is a growing need to be able to efficiently analyze these data. An effective way to do this is through manual analysis, however, this may be insufficient considering the extremely vast pipelines of astronomical images generated by the present and future surveys. Some efforts have been made to use citizen science to classify galaxies by their morphology on a larger scale than individual or small groups of scientists can. While these citizen science efforts such as Zooniverse have helped obtain reasonably accurate morphological information about large numbers of galaxies, they cannot scale to provide complete analysis of billions of galaxy images that will be collected by future ventures such as LSST. Since current forms of manual classification cannot scale to the masses of data collected by digital sky surveys, it is clear that in order to keep up with the growing databases some form of automation of the data analysis will be required, and will work either independently or in combination with human analysis such as citizen science. Here we describe a computer vision method that can automatically analyze galaxy images and deduce galaxy morphology. Experiments using Galaxy Zoo 2 data show that the performance of the method increases as the degree of agreement between the citizen scientists gets higher, providing a cleaner dataset. For several morphological features, such as the spirality of the galaxy, the algorithm agreed with the citizen scientists on around 95% of the samples. However, the method failed to analyze some of the morphological features such as the number of spiral arms, and provided accuracy of just ~36%.

  4. Distribution to the Astronomy Community of the Compressed Digitized Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Postman, Marc

    1996-03-01

    The Space Telescope Science Institute has compressed an all-sky collection of ground-based images and has printed the data on a two volume, 102 CD-ROM disc set. The first part of the survey (containing images of the southern sky) was published in May 1994. The second volume (containing images of the northern sky) was published in January 1995. Software which manages the image retrieval is included with each volume. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) is handling the distribution of the lOx compressed data and has sold 310 sets as of October 1996. ASP is also handling the distribution of the recently published 100x version of the northern sky survey which is publicly available at a low cost. The target markets for the 100x compressed data set are the amateur astronomy community, educational institutions, and the general public. During the next year, we plan to publish the first version of a photometric calibration database which will allow users of the compressed sky survey to determine the brightness of stars in the images.

  5. An Improved Photometric Calibration of the Sloan Digital SkySurvey Imaging Data

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Padmanabhan, Nikhil; Schlegel, David J.; Finkbeiner, Douglas P.; Barentine, J.C.; Blanton, Michael R.; Brewington, Howard J.; Gunn, JamesE.; Harvanek, Michael; Hogg, David W.; Ivezic, Zeljko; Johnston, David; Kent, Stephen M.; Kleinman, S.J.; Knapp, Gillian R.; Krzesinski, Jurek; Long, Dan; Neilsen Jr., Eric H.; Nitta, Atsuko; Loomis, Craig; Lupton,Robert H.; Roweis, Sam; Snedden, Stephanie A.; Strauss, Michael A.; Tucker, Douglas L.

    2007-09-30

    We present an algorithm to photometrically calibrate widefield optical imaging surveys, that simultaneously solves for thecalibration parameters and relative stellar fluxes using overlappingobservations. The algorithm decouples the problem of "relative"calibrations from that of "absolute" calibrations; the absolutecalibration is reduced to determining a few numbers for the entiresurvey. We pay special attention to the spatial structure of thecalibration errors, allowing one to isolate particular error modes indownstream analyses. Applying this to the SloanDigital Sky Survey imagingdata, we achieve ~;1 percent relative calibration errors across 8500sq.deg/ in griz; the errors are ~;2 percent for the u band. These errorsare dominated by unmodelled atmospheric variations at Apache PointObservatory. These calibrations, dubbed ubercalibration, are now publicwith SDSS Data Release 6, and will be a part of subsequent SDSS datareleases.

  6. We’re Working On It: Transferring the Sloan Digital Sky Survey from Laboratory to Library

    OpenAIRE

    Sands, Ashley E.; Borgman, Christine L.; Traweek, Sharon; Wynholds, Laura A.

    2014-01-01

    This article reports on the transfer of a massive scientific dataset from a national laboratory to a university library, and from one kind of workforce to another. We use the transfer of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) archive to examine the emergence of a new workforce for scientific research data management. Many individuals with diverse educational backgrounds and domain experience are involved in SDSS data management: domain scientists, computer scientists, software and systems engin...

  7. H I-SELECTED GALAXIES IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY. I. OPTICAL DATA

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    West, Andrew A.; Garcia-Appadoo, Diego A.; Dalcanton, Julianne J.; Ivezic, Zeljko; Bentz, Misty C.; Disney, Mike J.; Rockosi, Constance M.; Brinkmann, J.

    2010-01-01

    We present the optical data for 195 H I-selected galaxies that fall within both the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Parkes Equatorial Survey (ES). The photometric quantities have been independently recomputed for our sample using a new photometric pipeline optimized for large galaxies, thus correcting for SDSS's limited reliability for automatic photometry of angularly large or low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies. We outline the magnitude of the uncertainty in the SDSS catalog-level photometry and derive a quantitative method for correcting the over-sky subtraction in the SDSS photometric pipeline. The main thrust of this paper is to present the ES/SDSS sample and discuss the methods behind the improved photometry, which will be used in future scientific analysis. We present the overall optical properties of the sample and briefly compare to a volume-limited, optically selected sample. Compared to the optically selected SDSS sample (in the similar volume), H I-selected galaxies are bluer and more luminous (fewer dwarf ellipticals and more star formation). However, compared to typical SDSS galaxy studies, which have their own selection effect, our sample is bluer, fainter, and less massive.

  8. New white dwarf and subdwarf stars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 12

    OpenAIRE

    Kepler, S. O.; Pelisoli, Ingrid; Koester, Detlev; Ourique, Gustavo; Romero, Alejandra Daniela; Reindl, Nicole; Kleinman, Scot J.; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Valois, A. Dean M.; Amaral, Larissa A.

    2015-01-01

    We report the discovery of 6576 new spectroscopically confirmed white dwarf and subdwarf stars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 12. We obtain Teff, log g and mass for hydrogen atmospherewhite dwarf stars (DAs) and helium atmospherewhite dwarf stars (DBs), estimate the calcium/helium abundances for the white dwarf stars with metallic lines (DZs) and carbon/helium for carbon-dominated spectra (DQs). We found one central star of a planetary nebula, one ultracompact helium binary (AM ...

  9. Managing Astronomy Research Data: Data Practices in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Projects

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sands, Ashley Elizabeth

    2017-01-01

    Ground-based astronomy sky surveys are massive, decades-long investments in scientific data collection. Stakeholders expect these datasets to retain scientific value well beyond the lifetime of the sky survey. However, the necessary investments in knowledge infrastructures for managing sky survey data are not yet in place to ensure the long-term…

  10. Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Performance and Lessons Learned from the First Two Years of Operations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boroski, William N.; Gunn, James E.; Kron, Richard G.; Peoples, John, Jr.

    2002-12-01

    Over a 5-year observing period, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) will acquire data to construct a digital 5-color photometric map of the Northern Galactic sky to about 23rd magnitude, and a correspondingly large and homogeneous spectroscopic survey. The SDSS is in a unique class of projects, in that all aspects of the SDSS infrastructure, from the telescopes and instruments, to software and operations staffing, were designed and assembled specifically to conduct this Survey. To ensure success, observing operations are run in production mode and performance metrics are used to measure progress over time. The methodology of preparing the performance baseline plan, and an assessment of Survey progress after two full years of operation, are reviewed and some lessons learned discussed. In particular, the SDSS has benefited greatly by asking peers in the field to participate in external reviews that periodically assess performance and offer independent, fresh views of potential areas of concerns. Additionally, difficulties caused by the absence of an experienced systems-engineering staff during the final phase of construction and commissioning are reviewed. The challenges of building a production machine out of complex and state-of-the-art sub-systems cannot be overstated. In the case of the SDSS, insufficient systems engineering led to problems meeting initial image quality requirements, primarily because of problems with the thermal performance of the telescope and its environment. A concerted campaign to deal with these issues was successful, but that success came rather later than we would have liked. The improvements made to address the situation, and the resulting increase in operational performance, are discussed.

  11. A SURVEY FOR NEW MEMBERS OF THE TAURUS STAR-FORMING REGION WITH THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Luhman, K. L.; Mamajek, E. E.; Shukla, S. J.; Loutrel, N. P.

    2017-01-01

    Previous studies have found that ∼1 deg 2 fields surrounding the stellar aggregates in the Taurus star-forming region exhibit a surplus of solar-mass stars relative to denser clusters like IC 348 and the Orion Nebula Cluster. To test whether this difference reflects mass segregation in Taurus or a variation in the initial mass function, we have performed a survey for members of Taurus across a large field (∼40 deg 2 ) that was imaged by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We obtained optical and near-infrared spectra of candidate members identified with those images and the Two Micron All Sky Survey, as well as miscellaneous candidates that were selected with several other diagnostics of membership. We have classified 22 of the candidates as new members of Taurus, which includes one of the coolest known members (M9.75). Our updated census of members within the SDSS field shows a surplus of solar-mass stars relative to clusters, although it is less pronounced than in the smaller fields toward the stellar aggregates that were surveyed for previously measured mass functions in Taurus. In addition to spectra of our new members, we include in our study near-IR spectra of roughly half of the known members of Taurus, which are used to refine their spectral types and extinctions. We also present an updated set of near-IR standard spectra for classifying young stars and brown dwarfs at M and L types.

  12. A SURVEY FOR NEW MEMBERS OF THE TAURUS STAR-FORMING REGION WITH THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Luhman, K. L. [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States); Mamajek, E. E. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627 (United States); Shukla, S. J. [Institute of Astronomy, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA (United Kingdom); Loutrel, N. P., E-mail: kluhman@astro.psu.edu [eXtreme Gravity Institute, Department of Physics, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59715 (United States)

    2017-01-01

    Previous studies have found that ∼1 deg{sup 2} fields surrounding the stellar aggregates in the Taurus star-forming region exhibit a surplus of solar-mass stars relative to denser clusters like IC 348 and the Orion Nebula Cluster. To test whether this difference reflects mass segregation in Taurus or a variation in the initial mass function, we have performed a survey for members of Taurus across a large field (∼40 deg{sup 2}) that was imaged by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We obtained optical and near-infrared spectra of candidate members identified with those images and the Two Micron All Sky Survey, as well as miscellaneous candidates that were selected with several other diagnostics of membership. We have classified 22 of the candidates as new members of Taurus, which includes one of the coolest known members (M9.75). Our updated census of members within the SDSS field shows a surplus of solar-mass stars relative to clusters, although it is less pronounced than in the smaller fields toward the stellar aggregates that were surveyed for previously measured mass functions in Taurus. In addition to spectra of our new members, we include in our study near-IR spectra of roughly half of the known members of Taurus, which are used to refine their spectral types and extinctions. We also present an updated set of near-IR standard spectra for classifying young stars and brown dwarfs at M and L types.

  13. A NEAR-INFRARED SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY OF COOL WHITE DWARFS IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kilic, Mukremin; Kowalski, Piotr M.; Von Hippel, Ted

    2009-01-01

    We present near-infrared photometric observations of 15 and spectroscopic observations of 38 cool white dwarfs (WDs). This is the largest near-infrared spectroscopic survey of cool WDs to date. Combining the Sloan Digital Sky Survey photometry and our near-infrared data, we perform a detailed model atmosphere analysis. The spectral energy distributions of our objects are explained fairly well by model atmospheres with temperatures ranging from 6300 K down to 4200 K. Two WDs show significant absorption in the infrared, and are best explained with mixed H/He atmosphere models. Based on the up-to-date model atmosphere calculations by Kowalski and Saumon, we find that the majority of the stars in our sample have hydrogen-rich atmospheres. We do not find any pure helium atmosphere WDs below 5000 K, and we find a trend of increasing hydrogen to helium ratio with decreasing temperature. These findings present an important challenge to understanding the spectral evolution of WDs.

  14. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog: Fourteenth data release

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pâris, Isabelle; Petitjean, Patrick; Aubourg, Éric; Myers, Adam D.; Streblyanska, Alina; Lyke, Brad W.; Anderson, Scott F.; Armengaud, Éric; Bautista, Julian; Blanton, Michael R.; Blomqvist, Michael; Brinkmann, Jonathan; Brownstein, Joel R.; Brandt, William Nielsen; Burtin, Étienne; Dawson, Kyle; de la Torre, Sylvain; Georgakakis, Antonis; Gil-Marín, Héctor; Green, Paul J.; Hall, Patrick B.; Kneib, Jean-Paul; LaMassa, Stephanie M.; Le Goff, Jean-Marc; MacLeod, Chelsea; Mariappan, Vivek; McGreer, Ian D.; Merloni, Andrea; Noterdaeme, Pasquier; Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie; Percival, Will J.; Ross, Ashley J.; Rossi, Graziano; Schneider, Donald P.; Seo, Hee-Jong; Tojeiro, Rita; Weaver, Benjamin A.; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Yèche, Christophe; Zarrouk, Pauline; Zhao, Gong-Bo

    2018-05-01

    We present the data release 14 Quasar catalog (DR14Q) from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV). This catalog includes all SDSS-IV/eBOSS objects that were spectroscopically targeted as quasar candidates and that are confirmed as quasars via a new automated procedure combined with a partial visual inspection of spectra, have luminosities Mi [z = 2] < -20.5 (in a Λ CDM cosmology with H0 = 70 km s-1 Mpc-1, Ω M =0.3, and Ω Λ = 0.7), and either display at least one emission line with a full width at half maximum larger than 500 km s-1 or, if not, have interesting/complex absorption features. The catalog also includes previously spectroscopically-confirmed quasars from SDSS-I, II, and III. The catalog contains 526 356 quasars (144 046 are new discoveries since the beginning of SDSS-IV) detected over 9376 deg2 (2044 deg2 having new spectroscopic data available) with robust identification and redshift measured by a combination of principal component eigenspectra. The catalog is estimated to have about 0.5% contamination. Redshifts are provided for the Mg II emission line. The catalog identifies 21 877 broad absorption line quasars and lists their characteristics. For each object, the catalog presents five-band (u, g, r, i, z) CCD-based photometry with typical accuracy of 0.03 mag. The catalog also contains X-ray, ultraviolet, near-infrared, and radio emission properties of the quasars, when available, from other large-area surveys. The calibrated digital spectra, covering the wavelength region 3610-10 140 Å at a spectral resolution in the range 1300 < R < 2500, can be retrieved from the SDSS Science Archiver Server. http://www.sdss.org/dr14/algorithms/qso_catalog

  15. THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY DATA RELEASE 7 SPECTROSCOPIC M DWARF CATALOG. I. DATA

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    West, Andrew A.; Morgan, Dylan P.; Andersen, Jan Marie; Covey, Kevin R.; Schluns, Kyle; Jones, David O.; Bochanski, John J.; Pineda, J. Sebastian; Bell, Keaton J.; Kowalski, Adam F.; Davenport, James R. A.; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Schmidt, Sarah J.; Hilton, Eric J.; Bernat, David; Muirhead, Philip; Rojas-Ayala, Barbara; Schlawin, Everett; Gooding, Mary; Dhital, Saurav

    2011-01-01

    We present a spectroscopic catalog of 70,841 visually inspected M dwarfs from the seventh data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. For each spectrum, we provide measurements of the spectral type, a number of molecular band heads, and the Hα, Hβ, Hγ, Hδ, and Ca II K emission lines. In addition, we calculate the metallicity-sensitive parameter ζ and identify a relationship between ζ and the g - r and r - z colors of M dwarfs. We assess the precision of our spectral types (which were assigned by individual examination), review the bulk attributes of the sample, and examine the magnetic activity properties of M dwarfs, in particular those traced by the higher order Balmer transitions. Our catalog is cross-matched to Two Micron All Sky Survey infrared data, and contains photometric distances for each star. Finally, we identify eight new late-type M dwarfs that are possibly within 25 pc of the Sun. Future studies will use these data to thoroughly examine magnetic activity and kinematics in late-type M dwarfs and examine the chemical and dynamical history of the local Milky Way.

  16. SPATIAL ANISOTROPY OF GALAXY KINEMATICS IN SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY GALAXY CLUSTERS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Skielboe, Andreas; Wojtak, Radosław; Pedersen, Kristian; Rozo, Eduardo; Rykoff, Eli S.

    2012-01-01

    Measurements of galaxy cluster kinematics are important in understanding the dynamical state and evolution of clusters of galaxies, as well as constraining cosmological models. While it is well established that clusters exhibit non-spherical geometries, evident in the distribution of galaxies on the sky, azimuthal variations of galaxy kinematics within clusters have yet to be observed. Here we measure the azimuthal dependence of the line-of-sight velocity dispersion profile in a stacked sample of 1743 galaxy clusters from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The clusters are drawn from the SDSS DR8 redMaPPer catalog. We find that the line-of-sight velocity dispersion of galaxies lying along the major axis of the central galaxy is larger than those that lie along the minor axis. This is the first observational detection of anisotropic kinematics of galaxies in clusters. We show that the result is consistent with predictions from numerical simulations. Furthermore, we find that the degree of projected anisotropy is strongly dependent on the line-of-sight orientation of the galaxy cluster, opening new possibilities for assessing systematics in optical cluster finding.

  17. The sloan digital sky Survey-II supernova survey: search algorithm and follow-up observations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Sako, Masao [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, 209 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (United States); Bassett, Bruce [Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7701 (South Africa); Becker, Andrew; Hogan, Craig J. [Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States); Cinabro, David [Department of Physics, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202 (United States); DeJongh, Fritz; Frieman, Joshua A.; Marriner, John; Miknaitis, Gajus [Center for Particle Astrophysics, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510 (United States); Depoy, D. L.; Prieto, Jose Luis [Department of Astronomy, Ohio State University, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210-1173 (United States); Dilday, Ben; Kessler, Richard [Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, The University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue Chicago, IL 60637 (United States); Doi, Mamoru [Institute of Astronomy, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo 2-21-1, Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-0015 (Japan); Garnavich, Peter M. [University of Notre Dame, 225 Nieuwland Science, Notre Dame, IN 46556-5670 (United States); Holtzman, Jon [Department of Astronomy, MSC 4500, New Mexico State University, P.O. Box 30001, Las Cruces, NM 88003 (United States); Jha, Saurabh [Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Stanford University, P.O. Box 20450, MS29, Stanford, CA 94309 (United States); Konishi, Kohki [Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, University of Tokyo, 5-1-5, Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba, 277-8582 (Japan); Lampeitl, Hubert [Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Nichol, Robert C. [Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, Mercantile House, Hampshire Terrace, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 2EG (United Kingdom); and others

    2008-01-01

    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey has identified a large number of new transient sources in a 300 deg{sup 2} region along the celestial equator during its first two seasons of a three-season campaign. Multi-band (ugriz) light curves were measured for most of the sources, which include solar system objects, galactic variable stars, active galactic nuclei, supernovae (SNe), and other astronomical transients. The imaging survey is augmented by an extensive spectroscopic follow-up program to identify SNe, measure their redshifts, and study the physical conditions of the explosions and their environment through spectroscopic diagnostics. During the survey, light curves are rapidly evaluated to provide an initial photometric type of the SNe, and a selected sample of sources are targeted for spectroscopic observations. In the first two seasons, 476 sources were selected for spectroscopic observations, of which 403 were identified as SNe. For the type Ia SNe, the main driver for the survey, our photometric typing and targeting efficiency is 90%. Only 6% of the photometric SN Ia candidates were spectroscopically classified as non-SN Ia instead, and the remaining 4% resulted in low signal-to-noise, unclassified spectra. This paper describes the search algorithm and the software, and the real-time processing of the SDSS imaging data. We also present the details of the supernova candidate selection procedures and strategies for follow-up spectroscopic and imaging observations of the discovered sources.

  18. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey:Search Algorithm and Follow-up Observations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Sako, Masao; /Pennsylvania U. /KIPAC, Menlo Park; Bassett, Bruce; /Cape Town U. /South African Astron. Observ.; Becker, Andrew; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Cinabro, David; /Wayne State U.; DeJongh, Don Frederic; /Fermilab; Depoy, D.L.; /Ohio State U.; Doi, Mamoru; /Tokyo U.; Garnavich, Peter M.; /Notre Dame U.; Craig, Hogan, J.; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Holtzman, Jon; /New Mexico State U.; Jha, Saurabh; /Stanford U., Phys. Dept.; Konishi, Kohki; /Tokyo U.; Lampeitl, Hubert; /Baltimore, Space; Marriner, John; /Fermilab; Miknaitis, Gajus; /Fermilab; Nichol, Robert C.; /Portsmouth U.; Prieto, Jose Luis; /Ohio State U.; Richmond, Michael W.; /Rochester Inst.; Schneider, Donald P.; /Penn State U., Astron. Astrophys.; Smith, Mathew; /Portsmouth U.; SubbaRao, Mark; /Chicago U. /Tokyo U. /Tokyo U. /South African Astron. Observ. /Tokyo

    2007-09-14

    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey has identified a large number of new transient sources in a 300 deg2 region along the celestial equator during its first two seasons of a three-season campaign. Multi-band (ugriz) light curves were measured for most of the sources, which include solar system objects, Galactic variable stars, active galactic nuclei, supernovae (SNe), and other astronomical transients. The imaging survey is augmented by an extensive spectroscopic follow-up program to identify SNe, measure their redshifts, and study the physical conditions of the explosions and their environment through spectroscopic diagnostics. During the survey, light curves are rapidly evaluated to provide an initial photometric type of the SNe, and a selected sample of sources are targeted for spectroscopic observations. In the first two seasons, 476 sources were selected for spectroscopic observations, of which 403 were identified as SNe. For the Type Ia SNe, the main driver for the Survey, our photometric typing and targeting efficiency is 90%. Only 6% of the photometric SN Ia candidates were spectroscopically classified as non-SN Ia instead, and the remaining 4% resulted in low signal-to-noise, unclassified spectra. This paper describes the search algorithm and the software, and the real-time processing of the SDSS imaging data. We also present the details of the supernova candidate selection procedures and strategies for follow-up spectroscopic and imaging observations of the discovered sources.

  19. Sloan Digital Sky Survey photometric telescope automation and observing software

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Eric H. Neilsen, Jr.; email = neilsen@fnal.gov

    2002-01-01

    The photometric telescope (PT) provides observations necessary for the photometric calibration of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Because the attention of the observing staff is occupied by the operation of the 2.5 meter telescope which takes the survey data proper, the PT must reliably take data with little supervision. In this paper we describe the PT's observing program, MOP, which automates most tasks necessary for observing. MOP's automated target selection is closely modeled on the actions a human observer might take, and is built upon a user interface that can be (and has been) used for manual operation. This results in an interface that makes it easy for an observer to track the activities of the automating procedures and intervene with minimum disturbance when necessary. MOP selects targets from the same list of standard star and calibration fields presented to the user, and chooses standard star fields covering ranges of airmass, color, and time necessary to monitor atmospheric extinction and produce a photometric solution. The software determines when additional standard star fields are unnecessary, and selects survey calibration fields according to availability and priority. Other automated features of MOP, such as maintaining the focus and keeping a night log, are also built around still functional manual interfaces, allowing the observer to be as active in observing as desired; MOP's automated features may be used as tools for manual observing, ignored entirely, or allowed to run the telescope with minimal supervision when taking routine data

  20. Ensemble Properties of Comets in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Solontoi, Michael; /Adler Planetarium, Chicago; Ivezic, Zeljko; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Juric, Mario; /Harvard Coll. Observ.; Becker, Andrew C.; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Jones, Lynne; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; West, Andrew A.; /Boston U.; Kent, Steve; /Fermilab; Lupton, Robert H.; /Princeton U. Observ.; Claire, Mark; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Knapp, Gillian R.; /Princeton U. Observ.; Quinn, Tom; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept. /Princeton U. Observ.

    2012-02-01

    We present the ensemble properties of 31 comets (27 resolved and 4 unresolved) observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). This sample of comets represents about 1 comet per 10 million SDSS photometric objects. Five-band (u, g, r, i, z) photometry is used to determine the comets colors, sizes, surface brightness profiles, and rates of dust production in terms of the Afp formalism. We find that the cumulative luminosity function for the Jupiter Family Comets in our sample is well fit by a power law of the form N(

  1. THE MILKY WAY TOMOGRAPHY WITH SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY. IV. DISSECTING DUST

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Berry, Michael; Ivezić, Željko; Brooks, Keira J.; Gibson, Robert R.; Jones, Lynne; Yoachim, Peter; Krughoff, Simon; Connolly, Andrew J.; Loebman, Sarah; Sesar, Branimir; Jurić, Mario; Schlafly, Edward F.; Finkbeiner, Douglas; Bellovary, Jillian; Vrbanec, Dijana; Beers, Timothy C.; Schneider, Donald P.; Kimball, Amy; Bond, Nicholas A.; Schlegel, David

    2012-01-01

    We use Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) photometry of 73 million stars to simultaneously constrain best-fit main-sequence stellar spectral energy distribution (SED) and amount of dust extinction along the line of sight toward each star. Using a subsample of 23 million stars with Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) photometry, whose addition enables more robust results, we show that SDSS photometry alone is sufficient to break degeneracies between intrinsic stellar color and dust amount when the shape of extinction curve is fixed. When using both SDSS and 2MASS photometry, the ratio of the total to selective absorption, R V , can be determined with an uncertainty of about 0.1 for most stars in high-extinction regions. These fits enable detailed studies of the dust properties and its spatial distribution, and of the stellar spatial distribution at low Galactic latitudes (|b| V = 3.0 ± 0.1(random)±0.1 (systematic) over most of the high-latitude sky. At low Galactic latitudes (|b| V and find that R V = 3.1 cannot be ruled out in any of the 10 SEGUE stripes at a precision level of ∼0.1-0.2. Our best estimate for the intrinsic scatter of R V in the regions probed by SEGUE stripes is ∼0.2. We introduce a method for efficient selection of candidate red giant stars in the disk, dubbed 'dusty parallax relation', which utilizes a correlation between distance and the extinction along the line of sight. We make these best-fit parameters, as well as all the input SDSS and 2MASS data, publicly available in a user-friendly format. These data can be used for studies of stellar number density distribution, the distribution of dust properties, for selecting sources whose SED differs from SEDs for high-latitude main-sequence stars, and for estimating distances to dust clouds and, in turn, to molecular gas clouds.

  2. TWO MICRON ALL SKY SURVEY PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFT CATALOG: A COMPREHENSIVE THREE-DIMENSIONAL CENSUS OF THE WHOLE SKY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bilicki, Maciej; Jarrett, Thomas H.; Cluver, Michelle E.; Steward, Louise; Peacock, John A.

    2014-01-01

    Key cosmological applications require the three-dimensional (3D) galaxy distribution on the entire celestial sphere. These include measuring the gravitational pull on the Local Group, estimating the large-scale bulk flow, and testing the Copernican principle. However, the largest all-sky redshift surveys—the 2MASS Redshift Survey and IRAS Point Source Catalog Redshift Survey—have median redshifts of only z = 0.03 and sample the very local universe. All-sky galaxy catalogs exist that reach much deeper—SuperCOSMOS in the optical, the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) in the near-IR, and WISE in the mid-IR—but these lack complete redshift information. At present, the only rapid way toward larger 3D catalogs covering the whole sky is through photometric redshift techniques. In this paper we present the 2MASS Photometric Redshift catalog (2MPZ) containing one million galaxies, constructed by cross-matching Two Micron All Sky Survey Extended Source Catalog (2MASS XSC), WISE, and SuperCOSMOS all-sky samples and employing the artificial neural network approach (the ANNz algorithm), trained on such redshift surveys as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, 6dFGS, and 2dFGRS. The derived photometric redshifts have errors nearly independent of distance, with an all-sky accuracy of σ z = 0.015 and a very small percentage of outliers. In this way, we obtain redshift estimates with a typical precision of 12% for all the 2MASS XSC galaxies that lack spectroscopy. In addition, we have made an early effort toward probing the entire 3D sky beyond 2MASS, by pairing up WISE with SuperCOSMOS and training the ANNz on GAMA redshift data currently reaching to z med ∼ 0.2. This has yielded photo-z accuracies comparable to those in the 2MPZ. These all-sky photo-z catalogs, with a median z ∼ 0.1 for the 2MPZ, and significantly deeper for future WISE-based samples, will be the largest and most complete of their kind for the foreseeable future

  3. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog. 3. Third data release

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Schneider, Donald P.; Hall, Patrick B.; Richards, Gordon T.; Vanden Berk, Daniel E.; Anderson, Scott F.; Fan, Xiao-Hui; Jester, Sebastian; Stoughton, Chris; Strauss,; SubbaRao, Mark; Brandt, W.N.; Gunn, James E.; Yanny, Brian; Bahcall, Neta A.; Barentine, J.C.; Blanton, Michael R.; Boroski, William N.; Brewington, Howard J.; Brinkmann, J.; Brunner, Robert; Csabai, Istvan; /Penn State U., Astron. Astrophys. /York U., Canada /Princeton U. Observ. /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept. /Arizona U.,

    2005-03-01

    We present the third edition of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Quasar Catalog. The catalog consists of the 46,420 objects in the SDSS Third Data Release that have luminosities larger than M{sub i} = -22 (in a cosmology with H{sub 0} = 70 km s{sup -1} Mpc{sup -1}, {Omega}{sub M} = 0.3, and {Omega}{sub {Lambda}} = 0.7), have at least one emission line with FWHM larger than 1000 km s{sup -1} or are unambiguously broad absorption line quasars, are fainter than i = 15.0, and have highly reliable redshifts. The area covered by the catalog is {approx} 4188 deg{sup 2}. The quasar redshifts range from 0.08 to 5.41, with a median value of 1.47; the high-redshift sample includes 520 quasars at redshifts greater than four, of which 17 are at redshifts greater than five. For each object the catalog presents positions accurate to better than 0.2'' rms per coordinate, five-band (ugriz) CCD-based photometry with typical accuracy of 0.03 mag, and information on the morphology and selection method. The catalog also contains radio, near-infrared, and X-ray emission properties of the quasars, when available, from other large-area surveys. The calibrated digital spectra cover the wavelength region 3800-9200 at a spectral resolution of {approx} 2000; the spectra can be retrieved from the public database using the information provided in the catalog. A total of 44,221 objects in the catalog were discovered by the SDSS; 28,400 of the SDSS discoveries are reported here for the first time.

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

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Aihara, Hiroaki; /Tokyo U.; Prieto, Carlos Allende; /Laguna U., Tenerife; An, Deokkeun; /Ewha Women' s U., Seoul; Anderson, Scott F.; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Aubourg, Eric; /APC, Paris /DAPNIA, Saclay; Balbinot, Eduardo; /Rio Grande do Sul U. /Rio de Janeiro Observ.; Beers, Timothy C.; /Michigan State U.; Berlind, Andreas A.; /Vanderbilt U.; Bickerton, Steven J.; /Princeton U.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; /Apache Point Observ.; Blanton, Michael R.; /New York U., CCPP /Penn State U.

    2011-01-01

    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) started a new phase in August 2008, 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 Ly{alpha} forest, and a radial velocity search for planets around {approx}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 5-band imaging of roughly 5200 deg{sup 2} in the Southern Galactic Cap, bringing the total footprint of the SDSS imaging to 14,555 deg{sup 2}, 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 recalibration and flat-field determination. This release also includes all data from the second phase of the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Evolution (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 parameters pipeline, which has better determination of metallicity for high metallicity stars.

  5. Narrow absorption lines with two observations from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Zhi-Fu; Gu, Qiu-Sheng; Chen, Yan-Mei; Cao, Yue

    2015-07-01

    We assemble 3524 quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) with repeated observations to search for variations of the narrow C IV λ λ 1548,1551 and Mg II λ λ 2796,2803 absorption doublets in spectral regions shortward of 7000 Å in the observed frame, which corresponds to time-scales of about 150-2643 d in the quasar rest frame. In these quasar spectra, we detect 3580 C IV absorption systems with zabs = 1.5188-3.5212 and 1809 Mg II absorption systems with zabs = 0.3948-1.7167. In term of the absorber velocity (β) distribution in the quasar rest frame, we find a substantial number of C IV absorbers with β Hacker et al. However, in our Mg II absorption sample, we find that neither shows variable absorption with confident levels of >4σ for λ2796 lines and >3σ for λ2803 lines.

  6. The Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sako, Masao; Bassett, Bruce; Becker, Andrew C.; Brown, Peter J.; Campbell, Heather; Wolf, Rachel; Cinabro, David; D’Andrea, Chris B.; Dawson, Kyle S.; DeJongh, Fritz; Depoy, Darren L.; Dilday, Ben; Doi, Mamoru; Filippenko, Alexei V.; Fischer, John A.; Foley, Ryan J.; Frieman, Joshua A.; Galbany, Lluis; Garnavich, Peter M.; Goobar, Ariel; Gupta, Ravi R.; Hill, Gary J.; Hayden, Brian T.; Hlozek, Renée; Holtzman, Jon A.; Hopp, Ulrich; Jha, Saurabh W.; Kessler, Richard; Kollatschny, Wolfram; Leloudas, Giorgos; Marriner, John; Marshall, Jennifer L.; Miquel, Ramon; Morokuma, Tomoki; Mosher, Jennifer; Nichol, Robert C.; Nordin, Jakob; Olmstead, Matthew D.; Östman, Linda; Prieto, Jose L.; Richmond, Michael; Romani, Roger W.; Sollerman, Jesper; Stritzinger, Max; Schneider, Donald P.; Smith, Mathew; Wheeler, J. Craig; Yasuda, Naoki; Zheng, Chen

    2018-06-01

    This paper describes the data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II (SDSS-II) Supernova Survey conducted between 2005 and 2007. Light curves, spectra, classifications, and ancillary data are presented for 10,258 variable and transient sources discovered through repeat ugriz imaging of SDSS Stripe 82, a 300 deg2 area along the celestial equator. This data release is comprised of all transient sources brighter than r ≃ 22.5 mag with no history of variability prior to 2004. Dedicated spectroscopic observations were performed on a subset of 889 transients, as well as spectra for thousands of transient host galaxies using the SDSS-III BOSS spectrographs. Photometric classifications are provided for the candidates with good multi-color light curves that were not observed spectroscopically, using host galaxy redshift information when available. From these observations, 4607 transients are either spectroscopically confirmed, or likely to be, supernovae, making this the largest sample of supernova candidates ever compiled. We present a new method for SN host-galaxy identification and derive host-galaxy properties including stellar masses, star formation rates, and the average stellar population ages from our SDSS multi-band photometry. We derive SALT2 distance moduli for a total of 1364 SN Ia with spectroscopic redshifts as well as photometric redshifts for a further 624 purely photometric SN Ia candidates. Using the spectroscopically confirmed subset of the three-year SDSS-II SN Ia sample and assuming a flat ΛCDM cosmology, we determine Ω M = 0.315 ± 0.093 (statistical error only) and detect a non-zero cosmological constant at 5.7σ.

  7. The Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Sako, Masao; et al.

    2014-01-14

    This paper describes the data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II (SDSS-II) Supernova Survey conducted between 2005 and 2007. Light curves, spectra, classifications, and ancillary data are presented for 10,258 variable and transient sources discovered through repeat ugriz imaging of SDSS Stripe 82, a 300 deg2 area along the celestial equator. This data release is comprised of all transient sources brighter than r~22.5 mag with no history of variability prior to 2004. Dedicated spectroscopic observations were performed on a subset of 889 transients, as well as spectra for thousands of transient host galaxies using the SDSS-III BOSS spectrographs. Photometric classifications are provided for the candidates with good multi-color light curves that were not observed spectroscopically. From these observations, 4607 transients are either spectroscopically confirmed, or likely to be, supernovae, making this the largest sample of supernova candidates ever compiled. We present a new method for SN host-galaxy identification and derive host-galaxy properties including stellar masses, star-formation rates, and the average stellar population ages from our SDSS multi-band photometry. We derive SALT2 distance moduli for a total of 1443 SN Ia with spectroscopic redshifts as well as photometric redshifts for a further 677 purely-photometric SN Ia candidates. Using the spectroscopically confirmed subset of the three-year SDSS-II SN Ia sample and assuming a flat Lambda-CDM cosmology, we determine Omega_M = 0.315 +/- 0.093 (statistical error only) and detect a non-zero cosmological constant at 5.7 sigmas.

  8. THE PITTSBURGH SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY Mg II QUASAR ABSORPTION-LINE SURVEY CATALOG

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Quider, Anna M.; Nestor, Daniel B.; Turnshek, David A.; Rao, Sandhya M.; Weyant, Anja N.; Monier, Eric M.; Busche, Joseph R.

    2011-01-01

    We present a catalog of intervening Mg II quasar absorption-line systems in the redshift interval 0.36 ≤ z ≤ 2.28. The catalog was built from Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release Four (SDSS DR4) quasar spectra. Currently, the catalog contains ∼17, 000 measured Mg II doublets. We also present data on the ∼44, 600 quasar spectra which were searched to construct the catalog, including redshift and magnitude information, continuum-normalized spectra, and corresponding arrays of redshift-dependent minimum rest equivalent widths detectable at our confidence threshold. The catalog is available online. A careful second search of 500 random spectra indicated that, for every 100 spectra searched, approximately one significant Mg II system was accidentally rejected. Current plans to expand the catalog beyond DR4 quasars are discussed. Many Mg II absorbers are known to be associated with galaxies. Therefore, the combination of large size and well understood statistics makes this catalog ideal for precision studies of the low-ionization and neutral gas regions associated with galaxies at low to moderate redshift. An analysis of the statistics of Mg II absorbers using this catalog will be presented in a subsequent paper.

  9. Exploring the diffuse interstellar bands with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lan, Ting-Wen; Ménard, Brice; Zhu, Guangtun

    2015-10-01

    We use star, galaxy and quasar spectra taken by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to map out the distribution of diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) induced by the Milky Way. After carefully removing the intrinsic spectral energy distribution of each source, we show that by stacking thousands of spectra, it is possible to measure statistical flux fluctuations at the 10-3 level, detect more than 20 DIBs and measure their strength as a function of position on the sky. We create a map of DIB absorption covering about 5000 deg2 and measure correlations with various tracers of the interstellar medium: atomic and molecular hydrogen, dust and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). After recovering known correlations, we show that each DIB has a different dependence on atomic and molecular hydrogen: while they are all positively correlated with N_{H I}, they exhibit a range of behaviours with N_{H_2} showing positive, negative or no correlation. We show that a simple parametrization involving only N_{H I} and N_{H_2} applied to all the DIBs is sufficient to reproduce a large collection of observational results reported in the literature: it allows us to naturally describe the relations between DIB strength and dust reddening (including the so-called skin effect), the related scatter, DIB pair-wise correlations and families, the affinity for σ/ζ-type environments and other correlations related to molecules. Our approach allows us to characterize DIB dependencies in a simple manner and provides us with a metric to characterize the similarity between different DIBs.

  10. High-Redshift Quasars Found in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Commissioning Data. II. The Spring Equatorial Stripe

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fan, Xiaohui; Strauss, Michael A.; Schneider, Donald P.; Gunn, James E.; Lupton, Robert H.; Anderson, Scott F.; Voges, Wolfgang; Margon, Bruce; Annis, James; Bahcall, Neta A.

    2000-01-01

    This is the second paper in a series aimed at finding high-redshift quasars from five-color (u ' g ' r ' i ' z ' ) imaging data taken along the Celestial Equator by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) during its commissioning phase. In this paper, we present 22 high-redshift quasars (z>3.6) discovered from ∼250 deg2 of data in the spring Equatorial Stripe, plus photometry for two previously known high-redshift quasars in the same region of the sky. Our success rate in identifying high-redshift quasars is 68%. Five of the newly discovered quasars have redshifts higher than 4.6 (z=4.62, 4.69, 4.70, 4.92, and 5.03). All the quasars have i * B 0 =0.5). Several of the quasars show unusual emission and absorption features in their spectra, including an object at z=4.62 without detectable emission lines, and a broad absorption line (BAL) quasar at z=4.92. (c) (c) 2000. The American Astronomical Society

  11. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog V. Seventh Data Release

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Schneider, Donald P.; /Penn State U.; Richards, Gordon T.; /Drexel U.; Hall, Patrick B.; /York U., Canada; Strauss, Michael A.; /Princeton U. Observ.; Anderson, Scott F.; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Boroson, Todd A.; /Kitt Peak Observ.; Ross, Nicholas P.; /Penn State U.; Shen, Yue; /Princeton U. Observ.; Brandt, W.N.; /Penn State U.; Fan, Xiaohui; /Arizona U., Astron. Dept. - Steward Observ.; Inada, Naohisa; /Wako, RIKEN /Southampton U. /Heidelberg, Max Planck Inst. Astron.

    2010-04-01

    We present the fifth edition of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Quasar Catalog, which is based upon the SDSS Seventh Data Release. The catalog, which contains 105,783 spectroscopically confirmed quasars, represents the conclusion of the SDSS-I and SDSS-II quasar survey. The catalog consists of the SDSS objects that have luminosities larger than M{sub i} = -22.0 (in a cosmology with H{sub 0} = 70 km s{sup -1} Mpc{sup -1}, {Omega}{sub M} = 0.3, and {Omega}{sub {Lambda}} = 0.7), have at least one emission line with FWHM larger than 1000 km s{sup -1} or have interesting/complex absorption features, are fainter than i {approx} 15.0, and have highly reliable redshifts. The catalog covers an area of {approx} 9380 deg{sup 2}. The quasar redshifts range from 0.065 to 5.46, with a median value of 1.49; the catalog includes 1248 quasars at redshifts greater than 4, of which 56 are at redshifts greater than 5. The catalog contains 9210 quasars with i < 18; slightly over half of the entries have i < 19. For each object the catalog presents positions accurate to better than 0.1-inch rms per coordinate, five-band (ugriz) CCD-based photometry with typical accuracy of 0.03 mag, and information on the morphology and selection method. The catalog also contains radio, near-infrared, and X-ray emission properties of the quasars, when available, from other large-area surveys. The calibrated digital spectra cover the wavelength region 3800-9200 {angstrom} at a spectral resolution of {approx_equal} 2000; the spectra can be retrieved from the SDSS public database using the information provided in the catalog. Over 96% of the objects in the catalog were discovered by the SDSS. We also include a supplemental list of an additional 207 quasars with SDSS spectra whose archive photometric information is incomplete.

  12. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog. 4. Fifth Data Release

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Schneider, Donald P.; Hall, Patrick B.; Richards, Gordon T.; Strauss, Michael A.; Vanden Berk, Daniel E.; Anderson, Scott F.; Brandt, W.N.; Fan, Xiao-Hui; Jester,; Gray, Jim; Gunn, James E.; /Penn State U., Astron. Astrophys. /York U., Canada /Johns Hopkins U. /Princeton U. Observ. /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept. /Arizona

    2007-04-01

    We present the fourth edition of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Quasar Catalog. The catalog contains 77,429 objects; this is an increase of over 30,000 entries since the previous edition. The catalog consists of the objects in the SDSS Fifth Data Release that have luminosities larger than M{sub i} = -22.0 (in a cosmology with H{sub 0} = 70 km s{sup -1} Mpc{sup -1}, {Omega}{sub M} = 0.3, and {Omega}{sub {Lambda}} = 0.7), have at least one emission line with FWHM larger than 1000 km s{sup -1} or have interesting/complex absorption features, are fainter than i {approx} 15.0, and have highly reliable redshifts. The area covered by the catalog is {approx} 5740 deg{sup 2}. The quasar redshifts range from 0.08 to 5.41, with a median value of 1.48; the catalog includes 891 quasars at redshifts greater than four, of which 36 are at redshifts greater than five. Approximately half of the catalog quasars have i < 19; nearly all have i < 21. For each object the catalog presents positions accurate to better than 0.2-minutes rms per coordinate, five-band (ugriz) CCD-based photometry with typical accuracy of 0.03 mag, and information on the morphology and selection method. The catalog also contains basic radio, near-infrared, and X-ray emission properties of the quasars, when available, from other large-area surveys. The calibrated digital spectra cover the wavelength region 3800-9200 {angstrom} at a spectral resolution of {approx_equal} 2000; the spectra can be retrieved from the public database using the information provided in the catalog. The average SDSS colors of quasars as a function of redshift, derived from the catalog entries, are presented in tabular form. Approximately 96% of the objects in the catalog were discovered by the SDSS.

  13. Discovery of three strongly lensed quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williams, P. R.; Agnello, A.; Treu, T.; Abramson, L. E.; Anguita, T.; Apostolovski, Y.; Chen, G. C.-F.; Fassnacht, C. D.; Hsueh, J. W.; Lemaux, B. C.; Motta, V.; Oldham, L.; Rojas, K.; Rusu, C. E.; Shajib, A. J.; Wang, X.

    2018-06-01

    We present the discovery of three quasar lenses in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, selected using two novel photometry-based selection techniques. The J0941+0518 system, with two point sources separated by 5.46 arcsec on either side of a galaxy, has source and lens redshifts 1.54 and 0.343. Images of J2257+2349 show two point sources separated by 1.67 arcsec on either side of an E/S0 galaxy. The extracted spectra show two images of the same quasar at zs = 2.10. SDSS J1640+1045 has two quasar spectra at zs = 1.70 and fits to the SDSS and Pan-STARRS images confirm the presence of a galaxy between the two point sources. We observed 56 photometrically selected lens candidates in this follow-up campaign, confirming three new lenses, re-discovering one known lens, and ruling out 36 candidates, with 16 still inconclusive. This initial campaign demonstrates the power of purely photometric selection techniques in finding lensed quasars.

  14. THE MULTI-OBJECT, FIBER-FED SPECTROGRAPHS FOR THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY AND THE BARYON OSCILLATION SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Smee, Stephen A.; Barkhouser, Robert H.; Gunn, James E.; Carr, Michael A.; Lupton, Robert H.; Loomis, Craig; Uomoto, Alan; Roe, Natalie; Schlegel, David; Rockosi, Constance M.; Leger, French; Owen, Russell; Anderson, Lauren; Dawson, Kyle S.; Olmstead, Matthew D.; Brinkmann, Jon; Long, Dan; Honscheid, Klaus; Harding, Paul; Annis, James

    2013-01-01

    We present the design and performance of the multi-object fiber spectrographs for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and their upgrade for the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). Originally commissioned in Fall 1999 on the 2.5 m aperture Sloan Telescope at Apache Point Observatory, the spectrographs produced more than 1.5 million spectra for the SDSS and SDSS-II surveys, enabling a wide variety of Galactic and extra-galactic science including the first observation of baryon acoustic oscillations in 2005. The spectrographs were upgraded in 2009 and are currently in use for BOSS, the flagship survey of the third-generation SDSS-III project. BOSS will measure redshifts of 1.35 million massive galaxies to redshift 0.7 and Lyα absorption of 160,000 high redshift quasars over 10,000 deg 2 of sky, making percent level measurements of the absolute cosmic distance scale of the universe and placing tight constraints on the equation of state of dark energy. The twin multi-object fiber spectrographs utilize a simple optical layout with reflective collimators, gratings, all-refractive cameras, and state-of-the-art CCD detectors to produce hundreds of spectra simultaneously in two channels over a bandpass covering the near-ultraviolet to the near-infrared, with a resolving power R = λ/FWHM ∼ 2000. Building on proven heritage, the spectrographs were upgraded for BOSS with volume-phase holographic gratings and modern CCD detectors, improving the peak throughput by nearly a factor of two, extending the bandpass to cover 360 nm < λ < 1000 nm, and increasing the number of fibers from 640 to 1000 per exposure. In this paper we describe the original SDSS spectrograph design and the upgrades implemented for BOSS, and document the predicted and measured performances

  15. THE MULTI-OBJECT, FIBER-FED SPECTROGRAPHS FOR THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY AND THE BARYON OSCILLATION SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Smee, Stephen A.; Barkhouser, Robert H. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Gunn, James E.; Carr, Michael A.; Lupton, Robert H.; Loomis, Craig [Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States); Uomoto, Alan [Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, CA 91101 (United States); Roe, Natalie; Schlegel, David [Physics Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States); Rockosi, Constance M. [UC Observatories and Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, 375 Interdisciplinary Sciences Building (ISB) Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States); Leger, French; Owen, Russell; Anderson, Lauren [Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 09195 (United States); Dawson, Kyle S.; Olmstead, Matthew D. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States); Brinkmann, Jon; Long, Dan [Apache Point Observatory, Sunspot, NM 88349 (United States); Honscheid, Klaus [Department of Physics and Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States); Harding, Paul [Department of Astronomy, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106 (United States); Annis, James, E-mail: smee@pha.jhu.edu [Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510 (United States); and others

    2013-08-01

    We present the design and performance of the multi-object fiber spectrographs for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and their upgrade for the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). Originally commissioned in Fall 1999 on the 2.5 m aperture Sloan Telescope at Apache Point Observatory, the spectrographs produced more than 1.5 million spectra for the SDSS and SDSS-II surveys, enabling a wide variety of Galactic and extra-galactic science including the first observation of baryon acoustic oscillations in 2005. The spectrographs were upgraded in 2009 and are currently in use for BOSS, the flagship survey of the third-generation SDSS-III project. BOSS will measure redshifts of 1.35 million massive galaxies to redshift 0.7 and Ly{alpha} absorption of 160,000 high redshift quasars over 10,000 deg{sup 2} of sky, making percent level measurements of the absolute cosmic distance scale of the universe and placing tight constraints on the equation of state of dark energy. The twin multi-object fiber spectrographs utilize a simple optical layout with reflective collimators, gratings, all-refractive cameras, and state-of-the-art CCD detectors to produce hundreds of spectra simultaneously in two channels over a bandpass covering the near-ultraviolet to the near-infrared, with a resolving power R = {lambda}/FWHM {approx} 2000. Building on proven heritage, the spectrographs were upgraded for BOSS with volume-phase holographic gratings and modern CCD detectors, improving the peak throughput by nearly a factor of two, extending the bandpass to cover 360 nm < {lambda} < 1000 nm, and increasing the number of fibers from 640 to 1000 per exposure. In this paper we describe the original SDSS spectrograph design and the upgrades implemented for BOSS, and document the predicted and measured performances.

  16. THE MULTI-OBJECT, FIBER-FED SPECTROGRAPHS FOR THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY AND THE BARYON OSCILLATION SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    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.

    2013-07-12

    We present the design and performance of the multi-object fiber spectrographs for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and their upgrade for the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). Originally commissioned in Fall 1999 on the 2.5-m aperture Sloan Telescope at Apache Point Observatory, the spectrographs produced more than 1.5 million spectra for the SDSS and SDSS-II surveys, enabling a wide variety of Galactic and extra-galactic science including the first observation of baryon acoustic oscillations in 2005. The spectrographs were upgraded in 2009 and are currently in use for BOSS, the flagship survey of the third-generation SDSS-III project. BOSS will measure redshifts of 1.35 million massive galaxies to redshift 0.7 and Lyman-alpha absorption of 160,000 high redshift quasars over 10,000 square degrees of sky, making percent level measurements of the absolute cosmic distance scale of the Universe and placing tight constraints on the equation of state of dark energy. The twin multi-object fiber spectrographs utilize a simple optical layout with reflective collimators, gratings, all-refractive cameras, and state-of-the-art CCD detectors to produce hundreds of spectra simultaneously in two channels over a bandpass covering the near ultraviolet to the near infrared, with a resolving power R = \\lambda/FWHM ~ 2000. Building on proven heritage, the spectrographs were upgraded for BOSS with volume-phase holographic gratings and modern CCD detectors, improving the peak throughput by nearly a factor of two, extending the bandpass to cover 360 < \\lambda < 1000 nm, and increasing the number of fibers from 640 to 1000 per exposure. In this paper we describe the original SDSS spectrograph design and the upgrades implemented for BOSS, and document the predicted and measured performances.

  17. Digital all-sky polarization imaging of partly cloudy skies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pust, Nathan J; Shaw, Joseph A

    2008-12-01

    Clouds reduce the degree of linear polarization (DOLP) of skylight relative to that of a clear sky. Even thin subvisual clouds in the "twilight zone" between clouds and aerosols produce a drop in skylight DOLP long before clouds become visible in the sky. In contrast, the angle of polarization (AOP) of light scattered by a cloud in a partly cloudy sky remains the same as in the clear sky for most cases. In unique instances, though, select clouds display AOP signatures that are oriented 90 degrees from the clear-sky AOP. For these clouds, scattered light oriented parallel to the scattering plane dominates the perpendicularly polarized Rayleigh-scattered light between the instrument and the cloud. For liquid clouds, this effect may assist cloud particle size identification because it occurs only over a relatively limited range of particle radii that will scatter parallel polarized light. Images are shown from a digital all-sky-polarization imager to illustrate these effects. Images are also shown that provide validation of previously published theories for weak (approximately 2%) polarization parallel to the scattering plane for a 22 degrees halo.

  18. Candidate isolated neutron stars and other optically blank x-ray fields identified from the rosat all-sky and sloan digital sky surveys

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Agueros, Marcel A.; Anderson, Scott F.; /Washington U., Seattle, Astron. Dept.; Margon, Bruce; /Baltimore, Space Telescope Sci.; Haberl, Frank; Voges, Wolfgang; /Garching,; Annis, James; /Fermilab; Schneider, Donald P.; /Penn State U., Astron. Astrophys.; Brinkmann, Jonathan; /Apache Point Observ.

    2005-11-01

    Only seven radio-quiet isolated neutron stars (INSs) emitting thermal X rays are known, a sample that has yet to definitively address such fundamental issues as the equation of state of degenerate neutron matter. We describe a selection algorithm based on a cross-correlation of the ROSAT All-Sky Survey (RASS) and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) that identifies X-ray error circles devoid of plausible optical counterparts to the SDSS g {approx} 22 magnitudes limit. We quantitatively characterize these error circles as optically blank; they may host INSs or other similarly exotic X-ray sources such as radio-quiet BL Lacs, obscured AGN, etc. Our search is an order of magnitude more selective than previous searches for optically blank RASS error circles, and excludes the 99.9% of error circles that contain more common X-ray-emitting subclasses. We find 11 candidates, nine of which are new. While our search is designed to find the best INS candidates and not to produce a complete list of INSs in the RASS, it is reassuring that our number of candidates is consistent with predictions from INS population models. Further X-ray observations will obtain pinpoint positions and determine whether these sources are entirely optically blank at g {approx} 22, supporting the presence of likely isolated neutron stars and perhaps enabling detailed follow-up studies of neutron star physics.

  19. Topology Analysis of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. I. Scale and Luminosity Dependence

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, Changbom; Choi, Yun-Young; Vogeley, Michael S.; Gott, J. Richard, III; Kim, Juhan; Hikage, Chiaki; Matsubara, Takahiko; Park, Myeong-Gu; Suto, Yasushi; Weinberg, David H.; SDSS Collaboration

    2005-11-01

    We measure the topology of volume-limited galaxy samples selected from a parent sample of 314,050 galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), which is now complete enough to describe the fully three-dimensional topology and its dependence on galaxy properties. We compare the observed genus statistic G(νf) to predictions for a Gaussian random field and to the genus measured for mock surveys constructed from new large-volume simulations of the ΛCDM cosmology. In this analysis we carefully examine the dependence of the observed genus statistic on the Gaussian smoothing scale RG from 3.5 to 11 h-1 Mpc and on the luminosity of galaxies over the range -22.50meatball'' (i.e., cluster dominated) topology, while faint galaxies show a positive shift toward a ``bubble'' (i.e., void dominated) topology. The transition from negative to positive shift occurs approximately at the characteristic absolute magnitude Mr*=-20.4. Even in this analysis of the largest galaxy sample to date, we detect the influence of individual large-scale structures, as the shift parameter Δν and cluster multiplicity AC reflect (at ~3 σ) the presence of the Sloan Great Wall and an X-shaped structure that runs for several hundred megaparsecs across the survey volume.

  20. Infrared Sky Surveys

    Science.gov (United States)

    Price, Stephan D.

    2009-02-01

    A retrospective is given on infrared sky surveys from Thomas Edison’s proposal in the late 1870s to IRAS, the first sensitive mid- to far-infrared all-sky survey, and the mid-1990s experiments that filled in the IRAS deficiencies. The emerging technology for space-based surveys is highlighted, as is the prominent role the US Defense Department, particularly the Air Force, played in developing and applying detector and cryogenic sensor advances to early mid-infrared probe-rocket and satellite-based surveys. This technology was transitioned to the infrared astronomical community in relatively short order and was essential to the success of IRAS, COBE and ISO. Mention is made of several of the little known early observational programs that were superseded by more successful efforts.

  1. CHARACTERIZATION OF SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY STELLAR PHOTOMETRY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fukugita, Masataka; Yasuda, Naoki; Doi, Mamoru; Gunn, James E.; York, Donald G.

    2011-01-01

    We study the photometric properties of stars in the data archive of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the prime aim being to understand the photometric calibration over the entire data set. It is confirmed that the photometric calibration of point sources is accurately on the system defined by the SDSS standard stars. We have also confirmed that the photometric synthesis of the SDSS spectrophotometric data gives broadband fluxes that agree with the photometry with errors of no more than 0.04 mag and little systematic tilt with wavelength. This verifies that the response functions of the 2.5 m telescope system are well characterized. We locate stars in the SDSS photometric system, so that stars can roughly be classified into spectral classes from the color information. We show how metallicity and surface gravity affect colors, and that stars contained in the SDSS general catalog, plotted in color space, show a distribution that matches well with what is anticipated from the variations of metallicity and surface gravity. The color-color plots are perfectly consistent among the three samples-stars in the SDSS general catalog, SDSS standard stars, and spectrophotometric stars of Gunn and Stryker-especially when some considerations are taken into account of the differences (primarily metallicity) of the samples. We show that the g - r-inverse temperature relation is tight and can be used as a good estimator of the effective temperature of stars over a fairly wide range of effective temperatures. We also confirm that the colors of G2V stars in the SDSS photometric system match well with the Sun.

  2. A PRECISION MULTI-BAND TWO-EPOCH PHOTOMETRIC CATALOG OF 44 MILLION SOURCES IN THE NORTHERN SKY FROM A COMBINATION OF THE USNO-B AND SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY CATALOGS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Madsen, G. J.; Gaensler, B. M.

    2013-01-01

    A key science driver for the next generation of wide-field optical and radio surveys is the exploration of the time variable sky. These surveys will have unprecedented sensitivity and areal coverage, but will be limited in their ability to detect variability on time scales longer than the lifetime of the surveys. We present a new precision, multi-epoch photometric catalog that spans 60 yr by combining the US Naval Observatory-B (USNO-B) and Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 9 (DR9) catalogs. We recalibrate the photometry of the original USNO-B catalog and create a catalog with two epochs of photometry in up to five different bands for 43,647,887 optical point sources that lie in the DR9 footprint of the northern sky. The recalibrated objects span a magnitude range 14 ≲ m ≲ 20 and are accurate to ≈0.1 mag. We minimize the presence of spurious objects and those with inaccurate magnitudes by identifying and removing several sources of systematic errors in the two originating catalogs, with a focus on spurious objects that exhibit large apparent magnitude variations. After accounting for these effects, we find ≈250,000 stars and quasars that show significant (≥4σ) changes in brightness between the USNO-B and SDSS DR9 epochs. We discuss the historical value of the catalog and its application to the study of long time scale, large amplitude variable stars and quasars

  3. CATACLYSMIC VARIABLES FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY. VIII. THE FINAL YEAR (2007–2008)

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Szkody, Paula; Anderson, Scott F.; Brooks, Keira; Kronberg, Martin; Riecken, Thomas; Gänsicke, Boris T.; Ross, Nicholas P.; Schmidt, Gary D.; Schneider, Donald P.; Agüeros, Marcel A.; Gomez-Moran, Ada N.; Schwope, Axel D.; Knapp, Gillian R.; Schreiber, Matthias R.

    2011-01-01

    This paper completes the series of cataclysmic variables (CVs) identified from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) I/II. The coordinates, magnitudes, and spectra of 33 CVs are presented. Among the 33 are eight systems known prior to SDSS (CT Ser, DO Leo, HK Leo, IR Com, V849 Her, V405 Peg, PG1230+226, and HS0943+1404), as well as nine objects recently found through various photometric surveys. Among the systems identified since the SDSS are two polar candidates, two intermediate polar candidates, and one candidate for containing a pulsating white dwarf. Our follow-up data have confirmed a polar candidate from Paper VII and determined tentative periods for three of the newly identified CVs. A complete summary table of the 285 CVs with spectra from SDSS I/II is presented as well as a link to an online table of all known CVs from both photometry and spectroscopy that will continue to be updated as future data appear.

  4. TOPOLOGY OF LUMINOUS RED GALAXIES FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Choi, Yun-Young; Kim, Juhan; Rossi, Graziano; Kim, Sungsoo S.; Lee, Jeong-Eun

    2013-01-01

    We present measurements of the genus topology of luminous red galaxies (LRGs) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 catalog, with unprecedented statistical significance. To estimate the uncertainties in the measured genus, we construct 81 mock SDSS LRG surveys along the past light cone from Horizon Run 3, one of the largest N-body simulations to date, which evolved 7210 3 particles in a 10,815 h –1  Mpc box. After carefully modeling and removing all known systematic effects due to finite pixel size, survey boundary, radial and angular selection functions, shot noise, and galaxy biasing, we find that the observed genus amplitude reaches 272 at a 22 h –1  Mpc smoothing scale, with an uncertainty of 4.2%; the estimated error fully incorporates cosmic variance. This is the most accurate constraint on the genus amplitude to date and significantly improves on our previous results. In particular, the shape of the genus curve agrees very well with the mean topology of the SDSS LRG mock surveys in a Λ cold dark matter universe. However, comparison with simulations also shows small deviations of the observed genus curve from the theoretical expectation for Gaussian initial conditions. While these discrepancies are mainly driven by known systematic effects such as shot noise and redshift-space distortions, they do contain important cosmological information on the physical effects connected with galaxy formation, gravitational evolution, and primordial non-Gaussianity. We address the key role played by systematics on the genus curve and show how to accurately correct for their effects to recover the topology of the underlying matter. A future work will provide an interpretation of these deviations in the context of the local model of non-Gaussianity

  5. A Search for Nontoroidal Topological Lensing in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fujii, Hirokazu; Yoshii, Yuzuru

    2013-08-01

    Flat space models with multiply connected topology, which have compact dimensions, are tested against the distribution of high-redshift (z >= 4) quasars of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). When the compact dimensions are smaller in size than the observed universe, topological lensing occurs, in which multiple images of single objects (ghost images) are observed. We improve on the recently introduced method to identify ghost images by means of four-point statistics. Our method is valid for any of the 17 multiply connected flat models, including nontoroidal ones that are compacted by screw motions or glide reflection. Applying the method to the data revealed one possible case of topological lensing caused by sixth-turn screw motion, however, it is consistent with the simply connected model by this test alone. Moreover, simulations suggest that we cannot exclude the other space models despite the absence of their signatures. This uncertainty mainly originates from the patchy coverage of SDSS in the south Galactic cap, and this situation will be improved by future wide-field spectroscopic surveys.

  6. A SEARCH FOR NONTOROIDAL TOPOLOGICAL LENSING IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY QUASAR CATALOG

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fujii, Hirokazu; Yoshii, Yuzuru

    2013-01-01

    Flat space models with multiply connected topology, which have compact dimensions, are tested against the distribution of high-redshift (z ≥ 4) quasars of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). When the compact dimensions are smaller in size than the observed universe, topological lensing occurs, in which multiple images of single objects (ghost images) are observed. We improve on the recently introduced method to identify ghost images by means of four-point statistics. Our method is valid for any of the 17 multiply connected flat models, including nontoroidal ones that are compacted by screw motions or glide reflection. Applying the method to the data revealed one possible case of topological lensing caused by sixth-turn screw motion, however, it is consistent with the simply connected model by this test alone. Moreover, simulations suggest that we cannot exclude the other space models despite the absence of their signatures. This uncertainty mainly originates from the patchy coverage of SDSS in the south Galactic cap, and this situation will be improved by future wide-field spectroscopic surveys

  7. NRAO Makes Available VLA Sky Survey Maps

    Science.gov (United States)

    1994-06-01

    community," Condon said. The survey will require about 2,500 hours of VLA observing time to complete. The data from the NVSS will become available in several forms, including complete processed maps, lists of the radio-emit- ting objects found, and data from which astronomers may produce maps tailored to their own interests. The data products are being placed in the public electronic repository as soon as NRAO scien- tists have verified their accuracy. Those interested should contact Condon at Internet address jcondon@nrao.edu for more information about accessing the data. The Very Large Array, in west-central New Mexico, is a radio telescope consisting of 27 dish antennas, each 82 feet in diameter, arranged in the shape of a Y. The arms of the Y are 13 miles long, and the 230-ton antennas are routinely moved into dif- ferent positions along the arms to provide a "zoom lens" capability for the telescope. Dedicated in 1980, the VLA is used annually by more than 600 astronomers from around the world. One of the most versatile instruments available to astronomers, it can observe ob- jects ranging from planets, comets and asteroids in our own solar system out to distant radio galaxies and quasars near the edge of the observable universe. In addition to the NVSS, the VLA also is making another, more detailed, survey of a smaller region of the sky. This survey, called FIRST (Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty centimeters), will yield very accurate positions of radio-emitting objects in the same area of the sky to be surveyed in visible light by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The FIRST survey is headed by Dr. Robert H. Becker of the University of California at Davis and Lawrence Liv- ermore National Laboratory.

  8. DISTRIBUTION OF MAXIMAL LUMINOSITY OF GALAXIES IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Taghizadeh-Popp, M.; Szalay, A. S. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Ozogany, K.; Racz, Z. [Institute for Theoretical Physics-HAS, Eoetvoes University, Pazmany setany 1/a, 1117 Budapest (Hungary); Regoes, E., E-mail: mtaghiza@pha.jhu.edu [European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN), Geneva (Switzerland)

    2012-11-10

    Extreme value statistics is applied to the distribution of galaxy luminosities in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We analyze the DR8 Main Galaxy Sample (MGS), as well as the luminous red galaxies (LRGs). Maximal luminosities are sampled from batches consisting of elongated pencil beams in the radial direction of sight. For the MGS, results suggest a small and positive tail index {xi}, effectively ruling out the possibility of having a finite maximum cutoff luminosity, and implying that the luminosity distribution function may decay as a power law at the high-luminosity end. Assuming, however, {xi} = 0, a non-parametric comparison of the maximal luminosities with the Fisher-Tippett-Gumbel distribution (limit distribution for variables distributed by the Schechter fit) indicates a good agreement provided that uncertainties arising from both the finite batch size and the batch-size distribution are accounted for. For a volume-limited sample of LRGs, results show that they can be described as being the extremes of a luminosity distribution with an exponentially decaying tail, provided that the uncertainties related to batch-size distribution are taken care of.

  9. A deep proper motion catalog within the Sloan digital sky survey footprint

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Munn, Jeffrey A.; Harris, Hugh C.; Tilleman, Trudy M.; Hippel, Ted von; Kilic, Mukremin; Liebert, James W.; Williams, Kurtis A.; DeGenarro, Steven; Jeffery, Elizabeth

    2014-01-01

    A new proper motion catalog is presented, combining the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) with second epoch observations in the r band within a portion of the SDSS imaging footprint. The new observations were obtained with the 90prime camera on the Steward Observatory Bok 90 inch telescope, and the Array Camera on the U.S. Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station, 1.3 m telescope. The catalog covers 1098 square degrees to r = 22.0, an additional 1521 square degrees to r = 20.9, plus a further 488 square degrees of lesser quality data. Statistical errors in the proper motions range from 5 mas year −1 at the bright end to 15 mas year −1 at the faint end, for a typical epoch difference of six years. Systematic errors are estimated to be roughly 1 mas year −1 for the Array Camera data, and as much as 2–4 mas year −1 for the 90prime data (though typically less). The catalog also includes a second epoch of r band photometry.

  10. A deep proper motion catalog within the Sloan digital sky survey footprint

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Munn, Jeffrey A.; Harris, Hugh C.; Tilleman, Trudy M. [US Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station, 10391 West Naval Observatory Road, Flagstaff, AZ 86005-8521 (United States); Hippel, Ted von [Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Physical Sciences, 600 South Clyde Morris Boulevard Daytona Beach, FL 32114-3900 (United States); Kilic, Mukremin [University of Oklahoma, Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, 440 West Brooks Street, Norman, OK 73019 (United States); Liebert, James W. [University of Arizona, Steward Observatory, Tucson, AZ 85721 (United States); Williams, Kurtis A. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A and M University-Commerce, P.O. Box 3011, Commerce, TX 75429 (United States); DeGenarro, Steven [Department of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station C1400, Austin, TX 78712-0259 (United States); Jeffery, Elizabeth, E-mail: jam@nofs.navy.mil, E-mail: hch@nofs.navy.mil, E-mail: trudy@nofs.navy.mil, E-mail: ted.vonhippel@erau.edu, E-mail: kilic@ou.edu, E-mail: jamesliebert@gmail.com, E-mail: kurtis.williams@tamuc.edu, E-mail: studiofortytwo@yahoo.com, E-mail: ejeffery@byu.edu [BYU Department of Physics and Astronomy, N283 ESC, Provo, UT 84602 (United States)

    2014-12-01

    A new proper motion catalog is presented, combining the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) with second epoch observations in the r band within a portion of the SDSS imaging footprint. The new observations were obtained with the 90prime camera on the Steward Observatory Bok 90 inch telescope, and the Array Camera on the U.S. Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station, 1.3 m telescope. The catalog covers 1098 square degrees to r = 22.0, an additional 1521 square degrees to r = 20.9, plus a further 488 square degrees of lesser quality data. Statistical errors in the proper motions range from 5 mas year{sup −1} at the bright end to 15 mas year{sup −1} at the faint end, for a typical epoch difference of six years. Systematic errors are estimated to be roughly 1 mas year{sup −1} for the Array Camera data, and as much as 2–4 mas year{sup −1} for the 90prime data (though typically less). The catalog also includes a second epoch of r band photometry.

  11. GALAXY ZOO MORPHOLOGY AND PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFTS IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Way, M. J.

    2011-01-01

    It has recently been demonstrated that one can accurately derive galaxy morphology from particular primary and secondary isophotal shape estimates in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) imaging catalog. This was accomplished by applying Machine Learning techniques to the Galaxy Zoo morphology catalog. Using the broad bandpass photometry of the SDSS in combination with precise knowledge of galaxy morphology should help in estimating more accurate photometric redshifts for galaxies. Using the Galaxy Zoo separation for spirals and ellipticals in combination with SDSS photometry we attempt to calculate photometric redshifts. In the best case we find that the root-mean-square error for luminous red galaxies classified as ellipticals is as low as 0.0118. Given these promising results we believe better photometric redshift estimates for all galaxies in the SDSS (∼350 million) will be feasible if researchers can also leverage their derived morphologies via Machine Learning. These initial results look to be promising for those interested in estimating weak lensing, baryonic acoustic oscillation, and other fields dependent upon accurate photometric redshifts.

  12. RELIABLE IDENTIFICATIONS OF ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI FROM THE WISE, 2MASS, AND ROSAT ALL-SKY SURVEYS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Edelson, R.; Malkan, M.

    2012-01-01

    We have developed the ''S IX '' statistic to identify bright, highly likely active galactic nucleus (AGN) candidates solely on the basis of Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS), and ROSAT all-sky survey (RASS) data. This statistic was optimized with data from the preliminary WISE survey and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and tested with Lick 3 m Kast spectroscopy. We find that sources with S IX 95% likelihood of being an AGN (defined in this paper as a Seyfert 1, quasar, or blazar). This statistic was then applied to the full WISE/2MASS/RASS dataset, including the final WISE data release, to yield the ''W2R'' sample of 4316 sources with S IX 2 , permitting construction of AGN samples in any sufficiently large region of sky.

  13. INNOCENT BYSTANDERS: CARBON STARS FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Green, Paul

    2013-01-01

    Among stars showing carbon molecular bands (C stars), the main-sequence dwarfs, likely in post-mass transfer binaries, are numerically dominant in the Galaxy. Via spectroscopic selection from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we retrieve 1220 high galactic latitude C stars, ∼5 times more than previously known, including a wider variety than past techniques such as color or grism selection have netted, and additionally yielding 167 DQ white dwarfs. Of the C stars with proper motion measurements, we identify 69% clearly as dwarfs (dCs), while ∼7% are giants. The dCs likely span absolute magnitudes M i from ∼6.5 to 10.5. 'G-type' dC stars with weak CN and relatively blue colors are probably the most massive dCs still cool enough to show C 2 bands. We report Balmer emission in 22 dCs, none of which are G-types. We find 8 new DA/dC stars in composite spectrum binaries, quadrupling the total sample of these 'smoking guns' for AGB binary mass transfer. Eleven very red C stars with strong red CN bands appear to be 'N'-type AGB stars at large Galactocentric distances, one likely a new discovery in the dIrr galaxy Leo A. Two such stars within 30' of each other may trace a previously unidentified dwarf galaxy or tidal stream at ∼40 kpc. We explore the multiwavelength properties of the sample and report the first X-ray detection of a dC star, which shows strong Balmer emission. Our own spectroscopic survey additionally provides the dC surface density from a complete sample of dwarfs limited by magnitude, color, and proper motion.

  14. Innocent Bystanders: Carbon Stars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Green, Paul

    2013-03-01

    Among stars showing carbon molecular bands (C stars), the main-sequence dwarfs, likely in post-mass transfer binaries, are numerically dominant in the Galaxy. Via spectroscopic selection from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we retrieve 1220 high galactic latitude C stars, ~5 times more than previously known, including a wider variety than past techniques such as color or grism selection have netted, and additionally yielding 167 DQ white dwarfs. Of the C stars with proper motion measurements, we identify 69% clearly as dwarfs (dCs), while ~7% are giants. The dCs likely span absolute magnitudes Mi from ~6.5 to 10.5. "G-type" dC stars with weak CN and relatively blue colors are probably the most massive dCs still cool enough to show C2 bands. We report Balmer emission in 22 dCs, none of which are G-types. We find 8 new DA/dC stars in composite spectrum binaries, quadrupling the total sample of these "smoking guns" for AGB binary mass transfer. Eleven very red C stars with strong red CN bands appear to be "N"-type AGB stars at large Galactocentric distances, one likely a new discovery in the dIrr galaxy Leo A. Two such stars within 30' of each other may trace a previously unidentified dwarf galaxy or tidal stream at ~40 kpc. We explore the multiwavelength properties of the sample and report the first X-ray detection of a dC star, which shows strong Balmer emission. Our own spectroscopic survey additionally provides the dC surface density from a complete sample of dwarfs limited by magnitude, color, and proper motion.

  15. Continuing Long Term Optical and Infrared Reverberation Mapping of 17 Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasars

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gorjian, Varoujan; Barth, Aaron; Brandt, Niel; Dawson, Kyle; Green, Paul; Ho, Luis; Horne, Keith; Jiang, Linhua; McGreer, Ian; Schneider, Donald; Shen, Yue; Tao, Charling

    2018-05-01

    Previous Spitzer reverberation monitoring projects searching for UV/optical light absorbed and re-emitted in the IR by dust have been limited to low luminosity active galactic nuclei (AGN) that could potentially show reverberation within a single cycle ( 1 year). Cycle 11-12's two year baseline allowed for the reverberation mapping of 17 high-luminosity quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping project. We continued this monitoring in Cycle 13 and now propose to extend this program in Cycle 14. By combining ground-based monitoring from Pan-STARRS, CFHT, and Steward Observatory telescopes with Spitzer data we have for the first time detected dust reverberation in quasars. By continuing observations with this unqiue combination of resources we should detect reverberation in more objects and reduce the uncertainties for the remaining sources.

  16. XMM-NEWTON AND OPTICAL OBSERVATIONS OF CATACLYSMIC VARIABLES FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hilton, Eric J.; Szkody, Paula; Mukadam, Anjum; Henden, Arne; Dillon, William; Schmidt, Gary D.

    2009-01-01

    We report on XMM-Newton and optical results for six cataclysmic variables that were selected from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) spectra because they showed strong He II emission lines, indicative of being candidates for containing white dwarfs with strong magnetic fields. While high X-ray background rates prevented optimum results, we are able to confirm SDSS J233325.92+152222.1 as an intermediate polar from its strong pulse signature at 21 minutes and its obscured hard X-ray spectrum. Ground-based circular polarization and photometric observations were also able to confirm SDSS J142256.31 - 022108.1 as a polar with a period near 4 hr. Photometry of SDSS J083751.00+383012.5 and SDSS J093214.82+495054.7 solidifies the orbital period of the former as 3.18 hr and confirms the latter as a high-inclination system with deep eclipses.

  17. M DWARF FLARES FROM TIME-RESOLVED SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY SPECTRA

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hilton, Eric J.; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Kowalski, Adam F.; West, Andrew A.

    2010-01-01

    We have identified 63 flares on M dwarfs from the individual component spectra in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) using a novel measurement of emission-line strength called the Flare Line Index. Each of the ∼38,000 M dwarfs in the SDSS low-mass star spectroscopic sample of West et al. was observed several times (usually 3-5) in exposures that were typically 9-25 minutes in duration. Our criteria allowed us to identify flares that exhibit very strong Hα and Hβ emission-line strength and/or significant variability in those lines throughout the course of the exposures. The flares we identified have characteristics consistent with flares observed by classical spectroscopic monitoring. The flare duty cycle for the objects in our sample is found to increase from 0.02% for early M dwarfs to 3% for late M dwarfs. We find that the flare duty cycle is larger in the population near the Galactic plane and that the flare stars are more spatially restricted than the magnetically active but non-flaring stars. This suggests that flare frequency may be related to stellar age (younger stars are more likely to flare) and that the flare stars are younger than the mean active population.

  18. INTERNAL EXTINCTION IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY LATE-TYPE GALAXIES

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cho, Jungyeon; Park, Changbom

    2009-01-01

    We study internal extinction of late-type galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We find that the degree of internal extinction depends on both the concentration index c and K s -band absolute magnitude M K . We give simple fitting functions for internal extinction. In particular, we present analytic formulae giving the extinction-corrected magnitudes from the observed optical parameters. For example, the extinction-corrected r-band absolute magnitude can be obtained by M r,0 =-20.77 +(-1+√(1+4Δ(M r,obs +20.77+4.93Δ)))/2Δ, where Δ = 0.236{1.35(c - 2.48) 2 - 1.14} log(a/b), c = R 90 /R 50 is the the concentration index, and a/b is the isophotal axis ratio of the 25 mag arcsec -2 isophote in the i band. The 1σ error in M r,0 is 0.21 log(a/b). Late-type galaxies with very different inclinations are found to trace almost the same sequence in the (u - r)-M r diagram when our prescriptions for extinction correction are applied. We also find that (u - r) color can be a third independent parameter that determines the degree of internal extinction.

  19. INNOCENT BYSTANDERS: CARBON STARS FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Green, Paul [Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)

    2013-03-01

    Among stars showing carbon molecular bands (C stars), the main-sequence dwarfs, likely in post-mass transfer binaries, are numerically dominant in the Galaxy. Via spectroscopic selection from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we retrieve 1220 high galactic latitude C stars, {approx}5 times more than previously known, including a wider variety than past techniques such as color or grism selection have netted, and additionally yielding 167 DQ white dwarfs. Of the C stars with proper motion measurements, we identify 69% clearly as dwarfs (dCs), while {approx}7% are giants. The dCs likely span absolute magnitudes M{sub i} from {approx}6.5 to 10.5. 'G-type' dC stars with weak CN and relatively blue colors are probably the most massive dCs still cool enough to show C{sub 2} bands. We report Balmer emission in 22 dCs, none of which are G-types. We find 8 new DA/dC stars in composite spectrum binaries, quadrupling the total sample of these 'smoking guns' for AGB binary mass transfer. Eleven very red C stars with strong red CN bands appear to be 'N'-type AGB stars at large Galactocentric distances, one likely a new discovery in the dIrr galaxy Leo A. Two such stars within 30' of each other may trace a previously unidentified dwarf galaxy or tidal stream at {approx}40 kpc. We explore the multiwavelength properties of the sample and report the first X-ray detection of a dC star, which shows strong Balmer emission. Our own spectroscopic survey additionally provides the dC surface density from a complete sample of dwarfs limited by magnitude, color, and proper motion.

  20. THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY QUASAR LENS SEARCH. V. FINAL CATALOG FROM THE SEVENTH DATA RELEASE

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Inada, Naohisa; Oguri, Masamune; Kayo, Issha; Fukugita, Masataka; Shin, Min-Su; Strauss, Michael A.; Bahcall, Neta A.; Morokuma, Tomoki; Rusu, Cristian E.; Kochanek, Christopher S.; Richards, Gordon T.; Schneider, Donald P.; York, Donald G.; Frieman, Joshua A.; Hall, Patrick B.; White, Richard L.

    2012-01-01

    We present the final statistical sample of lensed quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Quasar Lens Search (SQLS). The well-defined statistical lens sample consists of 26 lensed quasars brighter than i = 19.1 and in the redshift range of 0.6 < z < 2.2 selected from 50,826 spectroscopically confirmed quasars in the SDSS Data Release 7 (DR7), where we restrict the image separation range to 1'' < θ < 20'' and the i-band magnitude differences in two images to be smaller than 1.25 mag. The SDSS DR7 quasar catalog also contains 36 additional lenses identified with various techniques. In addition to these lensed quasars, we have identified 81 pairs of quasars from follow-up spectroscopy, 26 of which are physically associated binary quasars. The statistical lens sample covers a wide range of image separations, redshifts, and magnitudes, and therefore is suitable for systematic studies of cosmological parameters and surveys of the structure and evolution of galaxies and quasars.

  1. The VLA Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lacy, Mark; VLASS Survey Team, VLASS Survey Science Group

    2018-01-01

    The VLA Sky Survey (VLASS), which began in September 2017, is a seven year project to image the entire sky north of Declination -40 degrees in three epochs. The survey is being carried out in I,Q and U polarization at a frequency of 2-4GHz, and a resolution of 2.5 arcseconds, with each epoch being separated by 32 months. Raw data from the survey, along with basic "quicklook" images are made freely available shortly after observation. Within a few months, NRAO will begin making available further basic data products, including refined images and source lists. In this talk I shall describe the science goals and methodology of the survey, the current survey status, and some early results, along with plans for collaborations with external groups to produce enhanced, high level data products.

  2. The Missing Link: Early Methane ("T") Dwarfs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leggett; Geballe; Fan; Schneider; Gunn; Lupton; Knapp; Strauss; McDaniel; Golimowski; Henry; Peng; Tsvetanov; Uomoto; Zheng; Hill; Ramsey; Anderson; Annis; Bahcall; Brinkmann; Chen; Csabai; Fukugita; Hennessy; Hindsley; Ivezic; Lamb; Munn; Pier; Schlegel; Smith; Stoughton; Thakar; York

    2000-06-10

    We report the discovery of three cool brown dwarfs that fall in the effective temperature gap between the latest L dwarfs currently known, with no methane absorption bands in the 1-2.5 µm range, and the previously known methane (T) dwarfs, whose spectra are dominated by methane and water. The newly discovered objects were detected as very red objects in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey imaging data and have JHK colors between the red L dwarfs and the blue Gl 229B-like T dwarfs. They show both CO and CH(4) absorption in their near-infrared spectra in addition to H(2)O, with weaker CH(4) absorption features in the H and K bands than those in all other methane dwarfs reported to date. Due to the presence of CH(4) in these bands, we propose that these objects are early T dwarfs. The three form part of the brown dwarf spectral sequence and fill in the large gap in the overall spectral sequence from the hottest main-sequence stars to the coolest methane dwarfs currently known.

  3. The C4 clustering algorithm: Clusters of galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Miller, Christopher J.; Nichol, Robert; Reichart, Dan; Wechsler, Risa H.; Evrard, August; Annis, James; McKay, Timothy; Bahcall, Neta; Bernardi, Mariangela; Boehringer,; Connolly, Andrew; Goto, Tomo; Kniazev, Alexie; Lamb, Donald; Postman, Marc; Schneider, Donald; Sheth, Ravi; Voges, Wolfgang; /Cerro-Tololo InterAmerican Obs. /Portsmouth U.,

    2005-03-01

    We present the ''C4 Cluster Catalog'', a new sample of 748 clusters of galaxies identified in the spectroscopic sample of the Second Data Release (DR2) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The C4 cluster-finding algorithm identifies clusters as overdensities in a seven-dimensional position and color space, thus minimizing projection effects that have plagued previous optical cluster selection. The present C4 catalog covers {approx}2600 square degrees of sky and ranges in redshift from z = 0.02 to z = 0.17. The mean cluster membership is 36 galaxies (with redshifts) brighter than r = 17.7, but the catalog includes a range of systems, from groups containing 10 members to massive clusters with over 200 cluster members with redshifts. The catalog provides a large number of measured cluster properties including sky location, mean redshift, galaxy membership, summed r-band optical luminosity (L{sub r}), velocity dispersion, as well as quantitative measures of substructure and the surrounding large-scale environment. We use new, multi-color mock SDSS galaxy catalogs, empirically constructed from the {Lambda}CDM Hubble Volume (HV) Sky Survey output, to investigate the sensitivity of the C4 catalog to the various algorithm parameters (detection threshold, choice of passbands and search aperture), as well as to quantify the purity and completeness of the C4 cluster catalog. These mock catalogs indicate that the C4 catalog is {approx_equal}90% complete and 95% pure above M{sub 200} = 1 x 10{sup 14} h{sup -1}M{sub {circle_dot}} and within 0.03 {le} z {le} 0.12. Using the SDSS DR2 data, we show that the C4 algorithm finds 98% of X-ray identified clusters and 90% of Abell clusters within 0.03 {le} z {le} 0.12. Using the mock galaxy catalogs and the full HV dark matter simulations, we show that the L{sub r} of a cluster is a more robust estimator of the halo mass (M{sub 200}) than the galaxy line-of-sight velocity dispersion or the richness of the cluster

  4. Extreme Variability Quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Dark Energy Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rumbaugh, N.; Shen, Yue; Morganson, Eric; Liu, Xin; Banerji, M.; McMahon, R. G.; Abdalla, F. B.; Benoit-Lévy, A.; Bertin, E.; Brooks, D.; Buckley-Geer, E.; Capozzi, D.; Carnero Rosell, A.; Carrasco Kind, M.; Carretero, J.; Cunha, C. E.; D’Andrea, C. B.; da Costa, L. N.; DePoy, D. L.; Desai, S.; Doel, P.; Frieman, J.; García-Bellido, J.; Gruen, D.; Gruendl, R. A.; Gschwend, J.; Gutierrez, G.; Honscheid, K.; James, D. J.; Kuehn, K.; Kuhlmann, S.; Kuropatkin, N.; Lima, M.; Maia, M. A. G.; Marshall, J. L.; Martini, P.; Menanteau, F.; Plazas, A. A.; Reil, K.; Roodman, A.; Sanchez, E.; Scarpine, V.; Schindler, R.; Schubnell, M.; Sheldon, E.; Smith, M.; Soares-Santos, M.; Sobreira, F.; Suchyta, E.; Swanson, M. E. C.; Walker, A. R.; Wester, W.; (DES Collaboration

    2018-02-01

    We perform a systematic search for long-term extreme variability quasars (EVQs) in the overlapping Sloan Digital Sky Survey and 3 Year Dark Energy Survey imaging, which provide light curves spanning more than 15 years. We identified ∼1000 EVQs with a maximum change in g-band magnitude of more than 1 mag over this period, about 10% of all quasars searched. The EVQs have L bol ∼ 1045–1047 erg s‑1 and L/L Edd ∼ 0.01–1. Accounting for selection effects, we estimate an intrinsic EVQ fraction of ∼30%–50% among all g≲ 22 quasars over a baseline of ∼15 yr. We performed detailed multi-wavelength, spectral, and variability analyses for the EVQs and compared them to their parent quasar sample. We found that EVQs are distinct from a control sample of quasars matched in redshift and optical luminosity: (1) their UV broad emission lines have larger equivalent widths; (2) their Eddington ratios are systematically lower; and (3) they are more variable on all timescales. The intrinsic difference in quasar properties for EVQs suggests that internal processes associated with accretion are the main driver for the observed extreme long-term variability. However, despite their different properties, EVQs seem to be in the tail of a continuous distribution of quasar properties, rather than standing out as a distinct population. We speculate that EVQs are normal quasars accreting at relatively low rates, where the accretion flow is more likely to experience instabilities that drive the changes in flux by a factor of a few on multi-year timescales.

  5. THE FIFTH DATA RELEASE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY/XMM-NEWTON QUASAR SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Young, M.; Elvis, M.; Risaliti, G.

    2009-01-01

    We present a catalog of 792 Fifth Data Release Sloan Digital Sky Survey quasars with optical spectra that have been observed serendipitously in the X-rays with the XMM-Newton. These quasars cover a redshift range of z = 0.11-5.41 and a magnitude range of i = 15.3-20.7. Substantial numbers of radio-loud (70) and broad absorption line (51) quasars exist within this sample. Significant X-ray detections at ≥2σ account for 87% of the sample (685 quasars), and 473 quasars are detected at ≥6σ, sufficient to allow X-ray spectral fits. For detected sources, ∼60% have X-ray fluxes between F 2-10keV = (1-10) x10 -14 erg cm -2 s -1 . We fit a single power law, a fixed power law with intrinsic absorption left free to vary, and an absorbed power-law model to all quasars with X-ray signal-to-noise ratio ≥ 6, resulting in a weighted mean photon index Γ = 1.91 ± 0.08, with an intrinsic dispersion σ Γ = 0.38. For the 55 sources (11.6%) that prefer intrinsic absorption, we find a weighted mean N H = 1.5 ± 0.3 x 10 21 cm -2 . We find that Γ correlates significantly with optical color, Δ(g - i), the optical-to-X-ray spectral index (α ox ), and the X-ray luminosity. While the first two correlations can be explained as artifacts of undetected intrinsic absorption, the correlation between Γ and X-ray luminosity appears to be a real physical correlation, indicating a pivot in the X-ray slope.

  6. THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY QUASAR LENS SEARCH. IV. STATISTICAL LENS SAMPLE FROM THE FIFTH DATA RELEASE

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Inada, Naohisa; Oguri, Masamune; Shin, Min-Su; Kayo, Issha; Fukugita, Masataka; Strauss, Michael A.; Gott, J. Richard; Hennawi, Joseph F.; Morokuma, Tomoki; Becker, Robert H.; Gregg, Michael D.; White, Richard L.; Kochanek, Christopher S.; Chiu, Kuenley; Johnston, David E.; Clocchiatti, Alejandro; Richards, Gordon T.; Schneider, Donald P.; Frieman, Joshua A.

    2010-01-01

    We present the second report of our systematic search for strongly lensed quasars from the data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). From extensive follow-up observations of 136 candidate objects, we find 36 lenses in the full sample of 77,429 spectroscopically confirmed quasars in the SDSS Data Release 5. We then define a complete sample of 19 lenses, including 11 from our previous search in the SDSS Data Release 3, from the sample of 36,287 quasars with i Λ = 0.84 +0.06 -0.08 (stat.) +0.09 -0.07 (syst.) assuming a flat universe, which is in good agreement with other cosmological observations. We also report the discoveries of seven binary quasars with separations ranging from 1.''1 to 16.''6, which are identified in the course of our lens survey. This study concludes the construction of our statistical lens sample in the full SDSS-I data set.

  7. THE ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH DATA RELEASES OF THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY: FINAL DATA FROM SDSS-III

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Alam, Shadab; Albareti, Franco D.; Prieto, Carlos Allende; Anders, F.; Anderson, Scott F.; Anderton, Timothy; Andrews, Brett H.; Armengaud, Eric; Aubourg, Éric; Bautista, Julian E.; Bailey, Stephen; Basu, Sarbani; Beaton, Rachael L.; Beers, Timothy C.

    2015-01-01

    The third generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) took data from 2008 to 2014 using the original SDSS wide-field imager, the original and an upgraded multi-object fiber-fed optical spectrograph, a new near-infrared high-resolution spectrograph, and a novel optical interferometer. All of the data from SDSS-III are now made public. In particular, this paper describes Data Release 11 (DR11) including all data acquired through 2013 July, and Data Release 12 (DR12) adding data acquired through 2014 July (including all data included in previous data releases), marking the end of SDSS-III observing. Relative to our previous public release (DR10), DR12 adds one million new spectra of galaxies and quasars from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) over an additional 3000 deg 2 of sky, more than triples the number of H-band spectra of stars as part of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE), and includes repeated accurate radial velocity measurements of 5500 stars from the Multi-object APO Radial Velocity Exoplanet Large-area Survey (MARVELS). The APOGEE outputs now include the measured abundances of 15 different elements for each star. In total, SDSS-III added 5200 deg 2 of ugriz imaging; 155,520 spectra of 138,099 stars as part of the Sloan Exploration of Galactic Understanding and Evolution 2 (SEGUE-2) survey; 2,497,484 BOSS spectra of 1,372,737 galaxies, 294,512 quasars, and 247,216 stars over 9376 deg 2 ; 618,080 APOGEE spectra of 156,593 stars; and 197,040 MARVELS spectra of 5513 stars. Since its first light in 1998, SDSS has imaged over 1/3 of the Celestial sphere in five bands and obtained over five million astronomical spectra

  8. The Eleventh and Twelfth Data Releases of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Final Data from SDSS-III

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alam, Shadab; Albareti, Franco D.; Allende Prieto, Carlos; Anders, F.; Anderson, Scott F.; Anderton, Timothy; Andrews, Brett H.; Armengaud, Eric; Aubourg, Éric; Bailey, Stephen; Basu, Sarbani; Bautista, Julian E.; Beaton, Rachael L.; Beers, Timothy C.; Bender, Chad F.; Berlind, Andreas A.; Beutler, Florian; Bhardwaj, Vaishali; Bird, Jonathan C.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Blake, Cullen H.; Blanton, Michael R.; Blomqvist, Michael; Bochanski, John J.; Bolton, Adam S.; Bovy, Jo; Shelden Bradley, A.; Brandt, W. N.; Brauer, D. E.; Brinkmann, J.; Brown, Peter J.; Brownstein, Joel R.; Burden, Angela; Burtin, Etienne; Busca, Nicolás G.; Cai, Zheng; Capozzi, Diego; Carnero Rosell, Aurelio; Carr, Michael A.; Carrera, Ricardo; Chambers, K. C.; Chaplin, William James; Chen, Yen-Chi; Chiappini, Cristina; Chojnowski, S. Drew; Chuang, Chia-Hsun; Clerc, Nicolas; Comparat, Johan; Covey, Kevin; Croft, Rupert A. C.; Cuesta, Antonio J.; Cunha, Katia; da Costa, Luiz N.; Da Rio, Nicola; Davenport, James R. A.; Dawson, Kyle S.; De Lee, Nathan; Delubac, Timothée; Deshpande, Rohit; Dhital, Saurav; Dutra-Ferreira, Letícia; Dwelly, Tom; Ealet, Anne; Ebelke, Garrett L.; Edmondson, Edward M.; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Ellsworth, Tristan; Elsworth, Yvonne; Epstein, Courtney R.; Eracleous, Michael; Escoffier, Stephanie; Esposito, Massimiliano; Evans, Michael L.; Fan, Xiaohui; Fernández-Alvar, Emma; Feuillet, Diane; Filiz Ak, Nurten; Finley, Hayley; Finoguenov, Alexis; Flaherty, Kevin; Fleming, Scott W.; Font-Ribera, Andreu; Foster, Jonathan; Frinchaboy, Peter M.; Galbraith-Frew, J. G.; García, Rafael A.; García-Hernández, D. A.; García Pérez, Ana E.; Gaulme, Patrick; Ge, Jian; Génova-Santos, R.; Georgakakis, A.; Ghezzi, Luan; Gillespie, Bruce A.; Girardi, Léo; Goddard, Daniel; Gontcho, Satya Gontcho A.; González Hernández, Jonay I.; Grebel, Eva K.; Green, Paul J.; Grieb, Jan Niklas; Grieves, Nolan; Gunn, James E.; Guo, Hong; Harding, Paul; Hasselquist, Sten; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Hayden, Michael; Hearty, Fred R.; Hekker, Saskia; Ho, Shirley; Hogg, David W.; Holley-Bockelmann, Kelly; Holtzman, Jon A.; Honscheid, Klaus; Huber, Daniel; Huehnerhoff, Joseph; Ivans, Inese I.; Jiang, Linhua; Johnson, Jennifer A.; Kinemuchi, Karen; Kirkby, David; Kitaura, Francisco; Klaene, Mark A.; Knapp, Gillian R.; Kneib, Jean-Paul; Koenig, Xavier P.; Lam, Charles R.; Lan, Ting-Wen; Lang, Dustin; Laurent, Pierre; Le Goff, Jean-Marc; Leauthaud, Alexie; Lee, Khee-Gan; Lee, Young Sun; Licquia, Timothy C.; Liu, Jian; Long, Daniel C.; López-Corredoira, Martín; Lorenzo-Oliveira, Diego; Lucatello, Sara; Lundgren, Britt; Lupton, Robert H.; Mack, Claude E., III; Mahadevan, Suvrath; Maia, Marcio A. G.; Majewski, Steven R.; Malanushenko, Elena; Malanushenko, Viktor; Manchado, A.; Manera, Marc; Mao, Qingqing; Maraston, Claudia; Marchwinski, Robert C.; Margala, Daniel; Martell, Sarah L.; Martig, Marie; Masters, Karen L.; Mathur, Savita; McBride, Cameron K.; McGehee, Peregrine M.; McGreer, Ian D.; McMahon, Richard G.; Ménard, Brice; Menzel, Marie-Luise; Merloni, Andrea; Mészáros, Szabolcs; Miller, Adam A.; Miralda-Escudé, Jordi; Miyatake, Hironao; Montero-Dorta, Antonio D.; More, Surhud; Morganson, Eric; Morice-Atkinson, Xan; Morrison, Heather L.; Mosser, Benôit; Muna, Demitri; Myers, Adam D.; Nandra, Kirpal; Newman, Jeffrey A.; Neyrinck, Mark; Nguyen, Duy Cuong; Nichol, Robert C.; Nidever, David L.; Noterdaeme, Pasquier; Nuza, Sebastián E.; O'Connell, Julia E.; O'Connell, Robert W.; O'Connell, Ross; Ogando, Ricardo L. C.; Olmstead, Matthew D.; Oravetz, Audrey E.; Oravetz, Daniel J.; Osumi, Keisuke; Owen, Russell; Padgett, Deborah L.; Padmanabhan, Nikhil; Paegert, Martin; Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie; Pan, Kaike; Parejko, John K.; Pâris, Isabelle; Park, Changbom; Pattarakijwanich, Petchara; Pellejero-Ibanez, M.; Pepper, Joshua; Percival, Will J.; Pérez-Fournon, Ismael; P´rez-Ra`fols, Ignasi; Petitjean, Patrick; Pieri, Matthew M.; Pinsonneault, Marc H.; Porto de Mello, Gustavo F.; Prada, Francisco; Prakash, Abhishek; Price-Whelan, Adrian M.; Protopapas, Pavlos; Raddick, M. Jordan; Rahman, Mubdi; Reid, Beth A.; Rich, James; Rix, Hans-Walter; Robin, Annie C.; Rockosi, Constance M.; Rodrigues, Thaíse S.; Rodríguez-Torres, Sergio; Roe, Natalie A.; Ross, Ashley J.; Ross, Nicholas P.; Rossi, Graziano; Ruan, John J.; Rubiño-Martín, J. A.; Rykoff, Eli S.; Salazar-Albornoz, Salvador; Salvato, Mara; Samushia, Lado; Sánchez, Ariel G.; Santiago, Basílio; Sayres, Conor; Schiavon, Ricardo P.; Schlegel, David J.; Schmidt, Sarah J.; Schneider, Donald P.; Schultheis, Mathias; Schwope, Axel D.; Scóccola, C. G.; Scott, Caroline; Sellgren, Kris; Seo, Hee-Jong; Serenelli, Aldo; Shane, Neville; Shen, Yue; Shetrone, Matthew; Shu, Yiping; Silva Aguirre, V.; Sivarani, Thirupathi; Skrutskie, M. F.; Slosar, Anže; Smith, Verne V.; Sobreira, Flávia; Souto, Diogo; Stassun, Keivan G.; Steinmetz, Matthias; Stello, Dennis; Strauss, Michael A.; Streblyanska, Alina; Suzuki, Nao; Swanson, Molly E. C.; Tan, Jonathan C.; Tayar, Jamie; Terrien, Ryan C.; Thakar, Aniruddha R.; Thomas, Daniel; Thomas, Neil; Thompson, Benjamin A.; Tinker, Jeremy L.; Tojeiro, Rita; Troup, Nicholas W.; Vargas-Magaña, Mariana; Vazquez, Jose A.; Verde, Licia; Viel, Matteo; Vogt, Nicole P.; Wake, David A.; Wang, Ji; Weaver, Benjamin A.; Weinberg, David H.; Weiner, Benjamin J.; White, Martin; Wilson, John C.; Wisniewski, John P.; Wood-Vasey, W. M.; Ye`che, Christophe; York, Donald G.; Zakamska, Nadia L.; Zamora, O.; Zasowski, Gail; Zehavi, Idit; Zhao, Gong-Bo; Zheng, Zheng; Zhou, Xu; Zhou, Zhimin; Zou, Hu; Zhu, Guangtun

    2015-07-01

    The third generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) took data from 2008 to 2014 using the original SDSS wide-field imager, the original and an upgraded multi-object fiber-fed optical spectrograph, a new near-infrared high-resolution spectrograph, and a novel optical interferometer. All of the data from SDSS-III are now made public. In particular, this paper describes Data Release 11 (DR11) including all data acquired through 2013 July, and Data Release 12 (DR12) adding data acquired through 2014 July (including all data included in previous data releases), marking the end of SDSS-III observing. Relative to our previous public release (DR10), DR12 adds one million new spectra of galaxies and quasars from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) over an additional 3000 deg2 of sky, more than triples the number of H-band spectra of stars as part of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE), and includes repeated accurate radial velocity measurements of 5500 stars from the Multi-object APO Radial Velocity Exoplanet Large-area Survey (MARVELS). The APOGEE outputs now include the measured abundances of 15 different elements for each star. In total, SDSS-III added 5200 deg2 of ugriz imaging; 155,520 spectra of 138,099 stars as part of the Sloan Exploration of Galactic Understanding and Evolution 2 (SEGUE-2) survey; 2,497,484 BOSS spectra of 1,372,737 galaxies, 294,512 quasars, and 247,216 stars over 9376 deg2; 618,080 APOGEE spectra of 156,593 stars; and 197,040 MARVELS spectra of 5513 stars. Since its first light in 1998, SDSS has imaged over 1/3 of the Celestial sphere in five bands and obtained over five million astronomical spectra.

  9. The eleventh and twelfth data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Final data from SDSS-III

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Alam, Shadab; Albareti, Franco D.; Prieto, Carlos Allende; Anders, F.; Anderson, Scott F.; Anderton, Timothy; Andrews, Brett H.; Armengaud, Eric; Aubourg, Éric; Bailey, Stephen; Basu, Sarbani; Bautista, Julian E.; Beaton, Rachael L.; Beers, Timothy C.; Bender, Chad F.; Berlind, Andreas A.; Beutler, Florian; Bhardwaj, Vaishali; Bird, Jonathan C.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Blake, Cullen H.; Blanton, Michael R.; Blomqvist, Michael; Bochanski, John J.; Bolton, Adam S.; Bovy, Jo; Bradley, A. Shelden; Brandt, W. N.; Brauer, D. E.; Brinkmann, J.; Brown, Peter J.; Brownstein, Joel R.; Burden, Angela; Burtin, Etienne; Busca, Nicolás G.; Cai, Zheng; Capozzi, Diego; Rosell, Aurelio Carnero; Carr, Michael A.; Carrera, Ricardo; Chambers, K. C.; Chaplin, William James; Chen, Yen-Chi; Chiappini, Cristina; Chojnowski, S. Drew; Chuang, Chia-Hsun; Clerc, Nicolas; Comparat, Johan; Covey, Kevin; Croft, Rupert A. C.; Cuesta, Antonio J.; Cunha, Katia; Costa, Luiz N. da; Rio, Nicola Da; Davenport, James R. A.; Dawson, Kyle S.; Lee, Nathan De; Delubac, Timothée; Deshpande, Rohit; Dhital, Saurav; Dutra-Ferreira, Letícia; Dwelly, Tom; Ealet, Anne; Ebelke, Garrett L.; Edmondson, Edward M.; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Ellsworth, Tristan; Elsworth, Yvonne; Epstein, Courtney R.; Eracleous, Michael; Escoffier, Stephanie; Esposito, Massimiliano; Evans, Michael L.; Fan, Xiaohui; Fernández-Alvar, Emma; Feuillet, Diane; Ak, Nurten Filiz; Finley, Hayley; Finoguenov, Alexis; Flaherty, Kevin; Fleming, Scott W.; Font-Ribera, Andreu; Foster, Jonathan; Frinchaboy, Peter M.; Galbraith-Frew, J. G.; García, Rafael A.; García-Hernández, D. A.; Pérez, Ana E. García; Gaulme, Patrick; Ge, Jian; Génova-Santos, R.; Georgakakis, A.; Ghezzi, Luan; Gillespie, Bruce A.; Girardi, Léo; Goddard, Daniel; Gontcho, Satya Gontcho A.; Hernández, Jonay I. González; Grebel, Eva K.; Green, Paul J.; Grieb, Jan Niklas; Grieves, Nolan; Gunn, James E.; Guo, Hong; Harding, Paul; Hasselquist, Sten; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Hayden, Michael; Hearty, Fred R.; Hekker, Saskia; Ho, Shirley; Hogg, David W.; Holley-Bockelmann, Kelly; Holtzman, Jon A.; Honscheid, Klaus; Huber, Daniel; Huehnerhoff, Joseph; Ivans, Inese I.; Jiang, Linhua; Johnson, Jennifer A.; Kinemuchi, Karen; Kirkby, David; Kitaura, Francisco; Klaene, Mark A.; Knapp, Gillian R.; Kneib, Jean-Paul; Koenig, Xavier P.; Lam, Charles R.; Lan, Ting-Wen; Lang, Dustin; Laurent, Pierre; Goff, Jean-Marc Le; Leauthaud, Alexie; Lee, Khee-Gan; Lee, Young Sun; Licquia, Timothy C.; Liu, Jian; Long, Daniel C.; López-Corredoira, Martín; Lorenzo-Oliveira, Diego; Lucatello, Sara; Lundgren, Britt; Lupton, Robert H.; III, Claude E. Mack; Mahadevan, Suvrath; Maia, Marcio A. G.; Majewski, Steven R.; Malanushenko, Elena; Malanushenko, Viktor; Manchado, A.; Manera, Marc; Mao, Qingqing; Maraston, Claudia; Marchwinski, Robert C.; Margala, Daniel; Martell, Sarah L.; Martig, Marie; Masters, Karen L.; Mathur, Savita; McBride, Cameron K.; McGehee, Peregrine M.; McGreer, Ian D.; McMahon, Richard G.; Ménard, Brice; Menzel, Marie-Luise; Merloni, Andrea; Mészáros, Szabolcs; Miller, Adam A.; Miralda-Escudé, Jordi; Miyatake, Hironao; Montero-Dorta, Antonio D.; More, Surhud; Morganson, Eric; Morice-Atkinson, Xan; Morrison, Heather L.; Mosser, Benôit; Muna, Demitri; Myers, Adam D.; Nandra, Kirpal; Newman, Jeffrey A.; Neyrinck, Mark; Nguyen, Duy Cuong; Nichol, Robert C.; Nidever, David L.; Noterdaeme, Pasquier; Nuza, Sebastián E.; O’Connell, Julia E.; O’Connell, Robert W.; O’Connell, Ross; Ogando, Ricardo L. C.; Olmstead, Matthew D.; Oravetz, Audrey E.; Oravetz, Daniel J.; Osumi, Keisuke; Owen, Russell; Padgett, Deborah L.; Padmanabhan, Nikhil; Paegert, Martin; Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie; Pan, Kaike; Parejko, John K.; Pâris, Isabelle; Park, Changbom; Pattarakijwanich, Petchara; Pellejero-Ibanez, M.; Pepper, Joshua; Percival, Will J.; Pérez-Fournon, Ismael; Pe´rez-Ra`fols, Ignasi; Petitjean, Patrick; Pieri, Matthew M.; Pinsonneault, Marc H.; Mello, Gustavo F. Porto de; Prada, Francisco; Prakash, Abhishek; Price-Whelan, Adrian M.; Protopapas, Pavlos; Raddick, M. Jordan; Rahman, Mubdi; Reid, Beth A.; Rich, James; Rix, Hans-Walter; Robin, Annie C.; Rockosi, Constance M.; Rodrigues, Thaíse S.; Rodríguez-Torres, Sergio; Roe, Natalie A.; Ross, Ashley J.; Ross, Nicholas P.; Rossi, Graziano; Ruan, John J.; Rubiño-Martín, J. A.; Rykoff, Eli S.; Salazar-Albornoz, Salvador; Salvato, Mara; Samushia, Lado; Sánchez, Ariel G.; Santiago, Basílio; Sayres, Conor; Schiavon, Ricardo P.; Schlegel, David J.; Schmidt, Sarah J.; Schneider, Donald P.; Schultheis, Mathias; Schwope, Axel D.; Scóccola, C. G.; Scott, Caroline; Sellgren, Kris; Seo, Hee-Jong; Serenelli, Aldo; Shane, Neville; Shen, Yue; Shetrone, Matthew; Shu, Yiping; Aguirre, V. Silva; Sivarani, Thirupathi; Skrutskie, M. F.; Slosar, Anže; Smith, Verne V.; Sobreira, Flávia; Souto, Diogo; Stassun, Keivan G.; Steinmetz, Matthias; Stello, Dennis; Strauss, Michael A.; Streblyanska, Alina; Suzuki, Nao; Swanson, Molly E. C.; Tan, Jonathan C.; Tayar, Jamie; Terrien, Ryan C.; Thakar, Aniruddha R.; Thomas, Daniel; Thomas, Neil; Thompson, Benjamin A.; Tinker, Jeremy L.; Tojeiro, Rita; Troup, Nicholas W.; Vargas-Magaña, Mariana; Vazquez, Jose A.; Verde, Licia; Viel, Matteo; Vogt, Nicole P.; Wake, David A.; Wang, Ji; Weaver, Benjamin A.; Weinberg, David H.; Weiner, Benjamin J.; White, Martin; Wilson, John C.; Wisniewski, John P.; Wood-Vasey, W. M.; Ye`che, Christophe; York, Donald G.; Zakamska, Nadia L.; Zamora, O.; Zasowski, Gail; Zehavi, Idit; Zhao, Gong-Bo; Zheng, Zheng; Zhou (周旭), Xu; Zhou (周志民), Zhimin; Zou (邹虎), Hu; Zhu, Guangtun

    2015-07-20

    The third generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) took data from 2008 to 2014 using the original SDSS wide-field imager, the original and an upgraded multi-object fiber-fed optical spectrograph, a new near-infrared high-resolution spectrograph, and a novel optical interferometer. All of the data from SDSS-III are now made public. In particular, this paper describes Data Release 11 (DR11) including all data acquired through 2013 July, and Data Release 12 (DR12) adding data acquired through 2014 July (including all data included in previous data releases), marking the end of SDSS-III observing. Relative to our previous public release (DR10), DR12 adds one million new spectra of galaxies and quasars from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) over an additional 3000 deg2 of sky, more than triples the number of H-band spectra of stars as part of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE), and includes repeated accurate radial velocity measurements of 5500 stars from the Multi-object APO Radial Velocity Exoplanet Large-area Survey (MARVELS). The APOGEE outputs now include the measured abundances of 15 different elements for each star. In total, SDSS-III added 5200 deg2 of ugriz imaging; 155,520 spectra of 138,099 stars as part of the Sloan Exploration of Galactic Understanding and Evolution 2 (SEGUE-2) survey; 2,497,484 BOSS spectra of 1,372,737 galaxies, 294,512 quasars, and 247,216 stars over 9376 deg2; 618,080 APOGEE spectra of 156,593 stars; and 197,040 MARVELS spectra of 5513 stars. Since its first light in 1998, SDSS has imaged over 1/3 of the Celestial sphere in five bands and obtained over five million astronomical spectra.

  10. COSMOLOGICAL CONSTRAINTS FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY MaxBCG CLUSTER CATALOG

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rozo, Eduardo; Weinberg, David H.; Wechsler, Risa H.; Rykoff, Eli S.; Annis, James T.; Frieman, Joshua A.; Becker, Matthew R.; Evrard, August E.; Hao Jiangang; McKay, Timothy A.; Hansen, Sarah M.; Johnston, David E.; Koester, Benjamin P.; Sheldon, Erin S.

    2010-01-01

    We use the abundance and weak-lensing mass measurements of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey maxBCG cluster catalog to simultaneously constrain cosmology and the richness-mass relation of the clusters. Assuming a flat ΛCDM cosmology, we find σ 8 (Ω m /0.25) 0.41 = 0.832 ± 0.033 after marginalization over all systematics. In common with previous studies, our error budget is dominated by systematic uncertainties, the primary two being the absolute mass scale of the weak-lensing masses of the maxBCG clusters, and uncertainty in the scatter of the richness-mass relation. Our constraints are fully consistent with the WMAP five-year data, and in a joint analysis we find σ 8 = 0.807 ± 0.020 and Ω m = 0.265 ± 0.016, an improvement of nearly a factor of 2 relative to WMAP5 alone. Our results are also in excellent agreement with and comparable in precision to the latest cosmological constraints from X-ray cluster abundances. The remarkable consistency among these results demonstrates that cluster abundance constraints are not only tight but also robust, and highlight the power of optically selected cluster samples to produce precision constraints on cosmological parameters.

  11. Extreme Variability Quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Dark Energy Survey

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Rumbaugh, N.; Shen, Yue; Morganson, Eric; Liu, Xin; Banerji, M.; McMahon, R. G.; Abdalla, F. B.; Benoit-Lévy, A.; Bertin, E.; Brooks, D.; Buckley-Geer, E.; Capozzi, D.; Carnero Rosell, A.; Carrasco Kind, M.; Carretero, J.; Cunha, C. E.; D’Andrea, C. B.; da Costa, L. N.; DePoy, D. L.; Desai, S.; Doel, P.; Frieman, J.; García-Bellido, J.; Gruen, D.; Gruendl, R. A.; Gschwend, J.; Gutierrez, G.; Honscheid, K.; James, D. J.; Kuehn, K.; Kuhlmann, S.; Kuropatkin, N.; Lima, M.; Maia, M. A. G.; Marshall, J. L.; Martini, P.; Menanteau, F.; Plazas, A. A.; Reil, K.; Roodman, A.; Sanchez, E.; Scarpine, V.; Schindler, R.; Schubnell, M.; Sheldon, E.; Smith, M.; Soares-Santos, M.; Sobreira, F.; Suchyta, E.; Swanson, M. E. C.; Walker, A. R.; Wester, W.

    2018-02-20

    We perform a systematic search for long-term extreme variability quasars (EVQs) in the overlapping Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and 3-Year Dark Energy Survey (DES) imaging, which provide light curves spanning more than 15 years. We identified ~1000 EVQs with a maximum g band magnitude change of more than 1 mag over this period, about 10% of all quasars searched. The EVQs have L_bol~10^45-10^47 erg/s and L/L_Edd~0.01-1. Accounting for selection effects, we estimate an intrinsic EVQ fraction of ~30-50% among all g<~22 quasars over a baseline of ~15 years. These EVQs are good candidates for so-called "changing-look quasars", where a spectral transition between the two types of quasars (broad-line and narrow-line) is observed between the dim and bright states. We performed detailed multi-wavelength, spectral and variability analyses for the EVQs and compared to their parent quasar sample. We found that EVQs are distinct from a control sample of quasars matched in redshift and optical luminosity: (1) their UV broad emission lines have larger equivalent widths; (2) their Eddington ratios are systematically lower; and (3) they are more variable on all timescales. The intrinsic difference in quasar properties for EVQs suggest that internal processes associated with accretion are the main driver for the observed extreme long-term variability. However, despite their different properties, EVQs seem to be in the tail of a continuous distribution of quasar properties, rather than standing out as a distinct population. We speculate that EVQs are normal quasars accreting at relatively low accretion rates, where the accretion flow is more likely to experience instabilities that drive the factor of few changes in flux on multi-year timescales.

  12. THE BLACK HOLE MASS-GALAXY LUMINOSITY RELATIONSHIP FOR SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY QUASARS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Salviander, S.; Shields, G. A.; Bonning, E. W.

    2015-01-01

    We investigate the relationship between the mass of the central supermassive black hole, M BH , and the host galaxy luminosity, L gal , in a sample of quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7. We use composite quasar spectra binned by black hole mass and redshift to assess galaxy features that would otherwise be overwhelmed by noise in individual spectra. The black hole mass is calculated using the photoionization method, and the host galaxy luminosity is inferred from the depth of the Ca II H+K features in the composite spectra. We evaluate the evolution in the M BH -L gal relationship by examining the redshift dependence of Δ log M BH , the offset in M BH from the local M BH -L gal relationship. There is little systematic trend in Δ log M BH out to z = 0.8. Using the width of the [O III] emission line as a proxy for the stellar velocity dispersion, σ * , we find agreement of our derived host luminosities with the locally observed Faber-Jackson relation. This supports the utility of the width of the [O III] line as a proxy for σ * in statistical studies

  13. Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV: Mapping the Milky Way, Nearby Galaxies, and the Distant Universe

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blanton, Michael R.; Bershady, Matthew A.; Abolfathi, Bela; Albareti, Franco D.; Allende Prieto, Carlos; Almeida, Andres; Alonso-García, Javier; Anders, Friedrich; Anderson, Scott F.; Andrews, Brett; Aquino-Ortíz, Erik; Aragón-Salamanca, Alfonso; Argudo-Fernández, Maria; Armengaud, Eric; Aubourg, Eric; Avila-Reese, Vladimir; Badenes, Carles; Bailey, Stephen; Barger, Kathleen A.; Barrera-Ballesteros, Jorge; Bartosz, Curtis; Bates, Dominic; Baumgarten, Falk; Bautista, Julian; Beaton, Rachael; Beers, Timothy C.; Belfiore, Francesco; Bender, Chad F.; Berlind, Andreas A.; Bernardi, Mariangela; Beutler, Florian; Bird, Jonathan C.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Blanc, Guillermo A.; Blomqvist, Michael; Bolton, Adam S.; Boquien, Médéric; Borissova, Jura; van den Bosch, Remco; Bovy, Jo; Brandt, William N.; Brinkmann, Jonathan; Brownstein, Joel R.; Bundy, Kevin; Burgasser, Adam J.; Burtin, Etienne; Busca, Nicolás G.; Cappellari, Michele; Delgado Carigi, Maria Leticia; Carlberg, Joleen K.; Carnero Rosell, Aurelio; Carrera, Ricardo; Chanover, Nancy J.; Cherinka, Brian; Cheung, Edmond; Gómez Maqueo Chew, Yilen; Chiappini, Cristina; Doohyun Choi, Peter; Chojnowski, Drew; Chuang, Chia-Hsun; Chung, Haeun; Cirolini, Rafael Fernando; Clerc, Nicolas; Cohen, Roger E.; Comparat, Johan; da Costa, Luiz; Cousinou, Marie-Claude; Covey, Kevin; Crane, Jeffrey D.; Croft, Rupert A. C.; Cruz-Gonzalez, Irene; Garrido Cuadra, Daniel; Cunha, Katia; Damke, Guillermo J.; Darling, Jeremy; Davies, Roger; Dawson, Kyle; de la Macorra, Axel; Dell'Agli, Flavia; De Lee, Nathan; Delubac, Timothée; Di Mille, Francesco; Diamond-Stanic, Aleks; Cano-Díaz, Mariana; Donor, John; Downes, Juan José; Drory, Niv; du Mas des Bourboux, Hélion; Duckworth, Christopher J.; Dwelly, Tom; Dyer, Jamie; Ebelke, Garrett; Eigenbrot, Arthur D.; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Emsellem, Eric; Eracleous, Mike; Escoffier, Stephanie; Evans, Michael L.; Fan, Xiaohui; Fernández-Alvar, Emma; Fernandez-Trincado, J. G.; Feuillet, Diane K.; Finoguenov, Alexis; Fleming, Scott W.; Font-Ribera, Andreu; Fredrickson, Alexander; Freischlad, Gordon; Frinchaboy, Peter M.; Fuentes, Carla E.; Galbany, Lluís; Garcia-Dias, R.; García-Hernández, D. A.; Gaulme, Patrick; Geisler, Doug; Gelfand, Joseph D.; Gil-Marín, Héctor; Gillespie, Bruce A.; Goddard, Daniel; Gonzalez-Perez, Violeta; Grabowski, Kathleen; Green, Paul J.; Grier, Catherine J.; Gunn, James E.; Guo, Hong; Guy, Julien; Hagen, Alex; Hahn, ChangHoon; Hall, Matthew; Harding, Paul; Hasselquist, Sten; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Hearty, Fred; Gonzalez Hernández, Jonay I.; Ho, Shirley; Hogg, David W.; Holley-Bockelmann, Kelly; Holtzman, Jon A.; Holzer, Parker H.; Huehnerhoff, Joseph; Hutchinson, Timothy A.; Hwang, Ho Seong; Ibarra-Medel, Héctor J.; da Silva Ilha, Gabriele; Ivans, Inese I.; Ivory, KeShawn; Jackson, Kelly; Jensen, Trey W.; Johnson, Jennifer A.; Jones, Amy; Jönsson, Henrik; Jullo, Eric; Kamble, Vikrant; Kinemuchi, Karen; Kirkby, David; Kitaura, Francisco-Shu; Klaene, Mark; Knapp, Gillian R.; Kneib, Jean-Paul; Kollmeier, Juna A.; Lacerna, Ivan; Lane, Richard R.; Lang, Dustin; Law, David R.; Lazarz, Daniel; Lee, Youngbae; Le Goff, Jean-Marc; Liang, Fu-Heng; Li, Cheng; Li, Hongyu; Lian, Jianhui; Lima, Marcos; Lin, Lihwai; Lin, Yen-Ting; Bertran de Lis, Sara; Liu, Chao; de Icaza Lizaola, Miguel Angel C.; Long, Dan; Lucatello, Sara; Lundgren, Britt; MacDonald, Nicholas K.; Deconto Machado, Alice; MacLeod, Chelsea L.; Mahadevan, Suvrath; Geimba Maia, Marcio Antonio; Maiolino, Roberto; Majewski, Steven R.; Malanushenko, Elena; Malanushenko, Viktor; Manchado, Arturo; Mao, Shude; Maraston, Claudia; Marques-Chaves, Rui; Masseron, Thomas; Masters, Karen L.; McBride, Cameron K.; McDermid, Richard M.; McGrath, Brianne; McGreer, Ian D.; Medina Peña, Nicolás; Melendez, Matthew; Merloni, Andrea; Merrifield, Michael R.; Meszaros, Szabolcs; Meza, Andres; Minchev, Ivan; Minniti, Dante; Miyaji, Takamitsu; More, Surhud; Mulchaey, John; Müller-Sánchez, Francisco; Muna, Demitri; Munoz, Ricardo R.; Myers, Adam D.; Nair, Preethi; Nandra, Kirpal; Correa do Nascimento, Janaina; Negrete, Alenka; Ness, Melissa; Newman, Jeffrey A.; Nichol, Robert C.; Nidever, David L.; Nitschelm, Christian; Ntelis, Pierros; O'Connell, Julia E.; Oelkers, Ryan J.; Oravetz, Audrey; Oravetz, Daniel; Pace, Zach; Padilla, Nelson; Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie; Alonso Palicio, Pedro; Pan, Kaike; Parejko, John K.; Parikh, Taniya; Pâris, Isabelle; Park, Changbom; Patten, Alim Y.; Peirani, Sebastien; Pellejero-Ibanez, Marcos; Penny, Samantha; Percival, Will J.; Perez-Fournon, Ismael; Petitjean, Patrick; Pieri, Matthew M.; Pinsonneault, Marc; Pisani, Alice; Poleski, Radosław; Prada, Francisco; Prakash, Abhishek; Queiroz, Anna Bárbara de Andrade; Raddick, M. Jordan; Raichoor, Anand; Barboza Rembold, Sandro; Richstein, Hannah; Riffel, Rogemar A.; Riffel, Rogério; Rix, Hans-Walter; Robin, Annie C.; Rockosi, Constance M.; Rodríguez-Torres, Sergio; Roman-Lopes, A.; Román-Zúñiga, Carlos; Rosado, Margarita; Ross, Ashley J.; Rossi, Graziano; Ruan, John; Ruggeri, Rossana; Rykoff, Eli S.; Salazar-Albornoz, Salvador; Salvato, Mara; Sánchez, Ariel G.; Aguado, D. S.; Sánchez-Gallego, José R.; Santana, Felipe A.; Santiago, Basílio Xavier; Sayres, Conor; Schiavon, Ricardo P.; da Silva Schimoia, Jaderson; Schlafly, Edward F.; Schlegel, David J.; Schneider, Donald P.; Schultheis, Mathias; Schuster, William J.; Schwope, Axel; Seo, Hee-Jong; Shao, Zhengyi; Shen, Shiyin; Shetrone, Matthew; Shull, Michael; Simon, Joshua D.; Skinner, Danielle; Skrutskie, M. F.; Slosar, Anže; Smith, Verne V.; Sobeck, Jennifer S.; Sobreira, Flavia; Somers, Garrett; Souto, Diogo; Stark, David V.; Stassun, Keivan; Stauffer, Fritz; Steinmetz, Matthias; Storchi-Bergmann, Thaisa; Streblyanska, Alina; Stringfellow, Guy S.; Suárez, Genaro; Sun, Jing; Suzuki, Nao; Szigeti, Laszlo; Taghizadeh-Popp, Manuchehr; Tang, Baitian; Tao, Charling; Tayar, Jamie; Tembe, Mita; Teske, Johanna; Thakar, Aniruddha R.; Thomas, Daniel; Thompson, Benjamin A.; Tinker, Jeremy L.; Tissera, Patricia; Tojeiro, Rita; Hernandez Toledo, Hector; de la Torre, Sylvain; Tremonti, Christy; Troup, Nicholas W.; Valenzuela, Octavio; Martinez Valpuesta, Inma; Vargas-González, Jaime; Vargas-Magaña, Mariana; Vazquez, Jose Alberto; Villanova, Sandro; Vivek, M.; Vogt, Nicole; Wake, David; Walterbos, Rene; Wang, Yuting; Weaver, Benjamin Alan; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Weinberg, David H.; Westfall, Kyle B.; Whelan, David G.; Wild, Vivienne; Wilson, John; Wood-Vasey, W. M.; Wylezalek, Dominika; Xiao, Ting; Yan, Renbin; Yang, Meng; Ybarra, Jason E.; Yèche, Christophe; Zakamska, Nadia; Zamora, Olga; Zarrouk, Pauline; Zasowski, Gail; Zhang, Kai; Zhao, Gong-Bo; Zheng, Zheng; Zheng, Zheng; Zhou, Xu; Zhou, Zhi-Min; Zhu, Guangtun B.; Zoccali, Manuela; Zou, Hu

    2017-07-01

    We describe the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV), a project encompassing three major spectroscopic programs. The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2) is observing hundreds of thousands of Milky Way stars at high resolution and high signal-to-noise ratios in the near-infrared. The Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey is obtaining spatially resolved spectroscopy for thousands of nearby galaxies (median z˜ 0.03). The extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) is mapping the galaxy, quasar, and neutral gas distributions between z˜ 0.6 and 3.5 to constrain cosmology using baryon acoustic oscillations, redshift space distortions, and the shape of the power spectrum. Within eBOSS, we are conducting two major subprograms: the SPectroscopic IDentification of eROSITA Sources (SPIDERS), investigating X-ray AGNs and galaxies in X-ray clusters, and the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS), obtaining spectra of variable sources. All programs use the 2.5 m Sloan Foundation Telescope at the Apache Point Observatory; observations there began in Summer 2014. APOGEE-2 also operates a second near-infrared spectrograph at the 2.5 m du Pont Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, with observations beginning in early 2017. Observations at both facilities are scheduled to continue through 2020. In keeping with previous SDSS policy, SDSS-IV provides regularly scheduled public data releases; the first one, Data Release 13, was made available in 2016 July.

  14. Gaia , an all sky astrometric and photometric survey

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Carrasco, J.M.

    2017-01-01

    Gaia space mission includes a low resolution spectroscopic instrument to classify and parametrize the observed sources. Gaia is a full-sky unbiased survey down to about 20th magnitude. The scanning law yields a rather uniform coverage of the sky over the full mission. The data reduction is a global one over the full mission. Both sky coverage and data reduction strategy ensure an unprecedented all-sky homogeneous spectrophotometric survey. Certainly, that survey is of interest for future on-ground and space projects (LSST, PLATO, EUCLID, ...). This work addresses the exploitation of the Gaia spectrophotometry as standard photometry reference through the discussion of the sky coverage, the spectrophotometric precision and the expected uncertainties of the synthetic photometry derived from the low resolution Gaia spectra and photometry.

  15. THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY CO-ADD: CROSS-CORRELATION WEAK LENSING AND TOMOGRAPHY OF GALAXY CLUSTERS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Simet, Melanie; Dodelson, Scott; Kubo, Jeffrey M.; Annis, James T.; Hao Jiangang; Johnston, David; Lin, Huan; Soares-Santos, Marcelle; Reis, Ribamar R. R.; Seo, Hee-Jong

    2012-01-01

    The shapes of distant galaxies are sheared by intervening galaxy clusters. We examine this effect in Stripe 82, a 275 deg 2 region observed multiple times in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and co-added to achieve greater depth. We obtain a mass-richness calibration that is similar to other SDSS analyses, demonstrating that the co-addition process did not adversely affect the lensing signal. We also propose a new parameterization of the effect of tomography on the cluster lensing signal which does not require binning in redshift, and we show that using this parameterization we can detect tomography for stacked clusters at varying redshifts. Finally, due to the sensitivity of the tomographic detection to accurately marginalize over the effect of the cluster mass, we show that tomography at low redshift (where dependence on exact cosmological models is weak) can be used to constrain mass profiles in clusters.

  16. C IV BROAD ABSORPTION LINE ACCELERATION IN SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY QUASARS

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Grier, C. J.; Brandt, W. N.; Trump, J. R.; Schneider, D. P.; Sun, M.; Beatty, T. G. [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Laboratory, University Park, PA 16802 (United States); Hall, P. B. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 (Canada); Filiz Ak, N. [Faculty of Sciences, Department of Astronomy and Space Sciences, Erciyes University, 38039 Kayseri (Turkey); Anderson, S. F. [Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States); Green, Paul J. [Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden St, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Vivek, M.; Brownstein, Joel R. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, 115 S. 1400 E., Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States); Roman-Lopes, Alexandre, E-mail: grier@psu.edu [Departamento de Fisica, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de La Serena, Cisternas 1200, La Serena (Chile)

    2016-06-20

    We present results from the largest systematic investigation of broad absorption line (BAL) acceleration to date. We use spectra of 140 quasars from three Sloan Digital Sky Survey programs to search for global velocity offsets in BALs over timescales of ≈2.5–5.5 years in the quasar rest frame. We carefully select acceleration candidates by requiring monolithic velocity shifts over the entire BAL trough, avoiding BALs with velocity shifts that might be caused by profile variability. The C iv BALs of two quasars show velocity shifts consistent with the expected signatures of BAL acceleration, and the BAL of one quasar shows a velocity-shift signature of deceleration. In our two acceleration candidates, we see evidence that the magnitude of the acceleration is not constant over time; the magnitudes of the change in acceleration for both acceleration candidates are difficult to produce with a standard disk-wind model or via geometric projection effects. We measure upper limits to acceleration and deceleration for 76 additional BAL troughs and find that the majority of BALs are stable to within about 3% of their mean velocities. The lack of widespread acceleration/deceleration could indicate that the gas producing most BALs is located at large radii from the central black hole and/or is not currently strongly interacting with ambient material within the host galaxy along our line of sight.

  17. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Science Archive: Migrating a Multi-Terabyte Astronomical Archive from Object to Relational DBMS

    CERN Document Server

    Thakar, A R; Kunszt, Peter Z; Gray, J; Thakar, Aniruddha R.; Szalay, Alexander S.; Kunszt, Peter Z.; Gray, Jim

    2004-01-01

    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Science Archive is the first in a series of multi-Terabyte digital archives in Astronomy and other data-intensive sciences. To facilitate data mining in the SDSS archive, we adapted a commercial database engine and built specialized tools on top of it. Originally we chose an object-oriented database management system due to its data organization capabilities, platform independence, query performance and conceptual fit to the data. However, after using the object database for the first couple of years of the project, it soon began to fall short in terms of its query support and data mining performance. This was as much due to the inability of the database vendor to respond our demands for features and bug fixes as it was due to their failure to keep up with the rapid improvements in hardware performance, particularly faster RAID disk systems. In the end, we were forced to abandon the object database and migrate our data to a relational database. We describe below the technical issu...

  18. THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY REVERBERATION MAPPING PROJECT: TECHNICAL OVERVIEW

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Shen, Yue [Carnegie Observatories, 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, CA 91101 (United States); Brandt, W. N. [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States); Dawson, Kyle S. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, 115 South 1400 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States); Hall, Patrick B. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 (Canada); McGreer, Ian D.; Fan, Xiaohui [Steward Observatory, The University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721-0065 (United States); Anderson, Scott F. [Astronomy Department, University of Washington, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States); Chen, Yuguang [Department of Astronomy, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China); Denney, Kelly D. [Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States); Eftekharzadeh, Sarah [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wyoming, 1000 East University Avenue, Laramie, WY 82071 (United States); Gao, Yang [Department of Engineering Physics and Center for Astrophysics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084 (China); Green, Paul J. [Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Greene, Jenny E. [Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States); Ho, Luis C. [Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China); Horne, Keith [SUPA Physics/Astronomy, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews KY16 9SS (United Kingdom); Jiang, Linhua [School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1504 (United States); Kelly, Brandon C. [Department of Physics, Broida Hall, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93107 (United States); and others

    2015-01-01

    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project is a dedicated multi-object RM experiment that has spectroscopically monitored a sample of 849 broad-line quasars in a single 7 deg{sup 2} field with the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey spectrograph. The RM quasar sample is flux-limited to i {sub psf} = 21.7 mag, and covers a redshift range of 0.1 < z < 4.5 without any other cuts on quasar properties. Optical spectroscopy was performed during 2014 January-July dark/gray time, with an average cadence of ∼4 days, totaling more than 30 epochs. Supporting photometric monitoring in the g and i bands was conducted at multiple facilities including the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) and the Steward Observatory Bok telescope in 2014, with a cadence of ∼2 days and covering all lunar phases. The RM field (R.A., decl. = 14:14:49.00, +53:05:00.0) lies within the CFHT-LS W3 field, and coincides with the Pan-STARRS 1 (PS1) Medium Deep Field MD07, with three prior years of multi-band PS1 light curves. The SDSS-RM six month baseline program aims to detect time lags between the quasar continuum and broad line region (BLR) variability on timescales of up to several months (in the observed frame) for ∼10% of the sample, and to anchor the time baseline for continued monitoring in the future to detect lags on longer timescales and at higher redshift. SDSS-RM is the first major program to systematically explore the potential of RM for broad-line quasars at z > 0.3, and will investigate the prospects of RM with all major broad lines covered in optical spectroscopy. SDSS-RM will provide guidance on future multi-object RM campaigns on larger scales, and is aiming to deliver more than tens of BLR lag detections for a homogeneous sample of quasars. We describe the motivation, design, and implementation of this program, and outline the science impact expected from the resulting data for RM and general quasar science.

  19. THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY REVERBERATION MAPPING PROJECT: TECHNICAL OVERVIEW

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shen, Yue; Brandt, W. N.; Dawson, Kyle S.; Hall, Patrick B.; McGreer, Ian D.; Fan, Xiaohui; Anderson, Scott F.; Chen, Yuguang; Denney, Kelly D.; Eftekharzadeh, Sarah; Gao, Yang; Green, Paul J.; Greene, Jenny E.; Ho, Luis C.; Horne, Keith; Jiang, Linhua; Kelly, Brandon C.

    2015-01-01

    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project is a dedicated multi-object RM experiment that has spectroscopically monitored a sample of 849 broad-line quasars in a single 7 deg 2 field with the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey spectrograph. The RM quasar sample is flux-limited to i psf = 21.7 mag, and covers a redshift range of 0.1 < z < 4.5 without any other cuts on quasar properties. Optical spectroscopy was performed during 2014 January-July dark/gray time, with an average cadence of ∼4 days, totaling more than 30 epochs. Supporting photometric monitoring in the g and i bands was conducted at multiple facilities including the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) and the Steward Observatory Bok telescope in 2014, with a cadence of ∼2 days and covering all lunar phases. The RM field (R.A., decl. = 14:14:49.00, +53:05:00.0) lies within the CFHT-LS W3 field, and coincides with the Pan-STARRS 1 (PS1) Medium Deep Field MD07, with three prior years of multi-band PS1 light curves. The SDSS-RM six month baseline program aims to detect time lags between the quasar continuum and broad line region (BLR) variability on timescales of up to several months (in the observed frame) for ∼10% of the sample, and to anchor the time baseline for continued monitoring in the future to detect lags on longer timescales and at higher redshift. SDSS-RM is the first major program to systematically explore the potential of RM for broad-line quasars at z > 0.3, and will investigate the prospects of RM with all major broad lines covered in optical spectroscopy. SDSS-RM will provide guidance on future multi-object RM campaigns on larger scales, and is aiming to deliver more than tens of BLR lag detections for a homogeneous sample of quasars. We describe the motivation, design, and implementation of this program, and outline the science impact expected from the resulting data for RM and general quasar science

  20. Correlations among Galaxy Properties from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Zhongmu; Mao, Caiyan

    2013-07-01

    Galaxies are complex systems with many properties. Correlations among galaxy properties can supply important clues for studying the formation and evolution of galaxies. Using principal component analysis and least-squares fitting, this paper investigates the correlations among galactic parameters involving more properties (color, morphology, stellar population, and absolute magnitude) than previous studies. We use a volume-limited sample (whole sample) of 75,423 galaxies that was selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 2 and divided into two subsamples (blue and red samples) using a critical color of (g - r) = 0.70 mag. In addition to recovering some previous results, we also obtain some new results. First, all separators for dividing galaxies into two groups can be related via good parameter-first principal component (PC1) correlations. A critical PC1 that indicates whether or not stellar age (or the evolution of a stellar population over time) is important can be used to separate galaxies. This suggests that a statistical parameter, PC1, is helpful in understanding the physical separators of galaxies. In addition, stellar age is shown to be unimportant for red galaxies, while both stellar age and mass are dominating parameters of blue galaxies. This suggests that the various numbers of dominating parameters of galaxies may result from the use of different samples. Finally, some parameters are shown to be correlated, and quantitative fits for a few correlations are obtained, e.g., log(t) = 8.57 + 1.65 (g - r) for the age (log t) and color (g - r) of blue galaxies and log (M *) = 4.31 - 0.30 M r for the stellar mass (log M *) and absolute magnitude (M r) of red galaxies. The median relationships between various parameter pairs are also presented for comparison.

  1. Red Misfits in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: properties of star-forming red galaxies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Evans, Fraser A.; Parker, Laura C.; Roberts, Ian D.

    2018-06-01

    We study Red Misfits, a population of red, star-forming galaxies in the local Universe. We classify galaxies based on inclination-corrected optical colours and specific star formation rates derived from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7. Although the majority of blue galaxies are star-forming and most red galaxies exhibit little to no ongoing star formation, a small but significant population of galaxies (˜11 per cent at all stellar masses) are classified as red in colour yet actively star-forming. We explore a number of properties of these galaxies and demonstrate that Red Misfits are not simply dusty or highly inclined blue cloud galaxies or quiescent red galaxies with poorly constrained star formation. The proportion of Red Misfits is nearly independent of environment, and this population exhibits both intermediate morphologies and an enhanced likelihood of hosting an active galactic nucleus. We conclude that Red Misfits are a transition population, gradually quenching on their way to the red sequence and this quenching is dominated by internal processes rather than environmentally driven processes. We discuss the connection between Red Misfits and other transition galaxy populations, namely S0s, red spirals, and green valley galaxies.

  2. COMMON PROPER-MOTION WIDE WHITE DWARF BINARIES SELECTED FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Andrews, Jeff J.; Agüeros, Marcel A.; Belczynski, Krzysztof; Dhital, Saurav; Kleinman, S. J.; West, Andrew A.

    2012-01-01

    Wide binaries made up of two white dwarfs (WDs) receive far less attention than their tight counterparts. However, our tests using the binary population synthesis code StarTrack indicate that, for any set of reasonable initial conditions, there exists a significant observable population of double white dwarfs (WDWDs) with orbital separations of 10 2 -10 5 AU. We adapt the technique of Dhital et al. to search for candidate common proper-motion WD companions separated by 12,000 spectroscopically confirmed hydrogen-atmosphere WDs recently identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Using two techniques to separate random alignments from high-confidence pairs, we find nine new high-probability wide WDWDs and confirm three previously identified candidate wide WDWDs. This brings the number of known wide WDWDs to 45; our new pairs are a significant addition to the sample, especially at small proper motions ( –1 ) and large angular separations (>10''). Spectroscopic follow-up and an extension of this method to a larger, photometrically selected set of SDSS WDs may eventually produce a large enough dataset for WDWDs to realize their full potential as testbeds for theories of stellar evolution.

  3. The Discovery of a Luminous Z=5.80 Quasar from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fan, Xiaohui; White, Richard L.; Davis, Marc; Becker, Robert H.; Strauss, Michael A.; Haiman, Zoltan; Schneider, Donald P.; Gregg, Michael D.; Gunn, James E.; Knapp, G. R.; Lupton, Robert H.; Anderson, John E., Jr.; Anderson, Scott F.; Annis, James; Bahcall, Neta A.; Boroski, William N.; Brunner, Robert J.; Chen, Bing; Connolly, Andrew J.; Csabai, István; Doi, Mamoru; Fukugita, Masataka; Hennessy, G. S.; Hindsley, Robert B.; Ichikawa, Takashi; Ivezić, Željko; Loveday, Jon; Meiksin, Avery; McKay, Timothy A.; Munn, Jeffrey A.; Newberg, Heidi Jo; Nichol, Robert; Okamura, Sadanori; Pier, Jeffrey R.; Sekiguchi, Maki; Shimasaku, Kazuhiro; Stoughton, Chris; Szalay, Alexander S.; Szokoly, Gyula P.; Thakar, Aniruddha R.; Vogeley, Michael S.; York, Donald G.

    2000-09-01

    We present observations of SDSSp J104433.04-012502.2, a luminous quasar at z=5.80 discovered from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) multicolor imaging data. This object was selected as an i'-band dropout object, with i*=21.8+/-0.2 and z*=19.2+/-0.1. It has an absolute magnitude M1450=-27.2 (H0=50 km s-1 Mpc-1, q0=0.5). The spectrum shows a strong and broad Lyα emission line, strong Lyα forest absorption lines with a mean continuum decrement DA=0.91 and a Lyman limit system at z=5.72. The spectrum also shows strong O I and Si IV emission lines similar to those of quasars at zuniverse is already highly ionized at z~5.8. Using a high-resolution spectrum in the Lyα forest region, we place a conservative upper limit on the optical depth because of the Gunn-Peterson effect of τUniversity of California, and NASA, and was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation.

  4. VLITE Surveys the Sky: A 340 MHz Companion to the VLA Sky Survey (VLASS)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peters, Wendy; Clarke, Tracy; Brisken, Walter; Cotton, William; Richards, Emily E.; Giacintucci, Simona; Kassim, Namir

    2018-01-01

    The VLA Low Band Ionosphere and Transient Experiment (VLITE; ) is a commensal observing system on the Karl G. Janksy Very Large Array (VLA) which was developed by the Naval Research Laboratory and NRAO. A 64 MHz sub-band from the prime focus 240-470 MHz dipoles is correlated during nearly all regular VLA observations. VLITE uses dedicated samplers and fibers, as well as a custom designed, real-time DiFX software correlator, and requires no additional resources from the VLA system running the primary science program. The experiment has been operating since November 2014 with 10 antennas; a recent expansion in summer 2017 increased that number to 16 and more than doubled the number of baselines.The VLA Sky Survey (VLASS; ), is an ongoing survey of the entire sky visible to the VLA at a frequency of 2-4 GHz. The observations are made using an "on-the-fly" (OTF) continuous RA scanning technique which fills in the sky by observing along rows of constant declination. VLITE breaks the data into 2-second integrations and correlates these at a central position every 1.5 degrees. All data for each correlator position is imaged separately, corrected and weighted by an appropriately elongated primary beam model, and then combined in the image plane to create a mosaic of the sky. A catalog of the sources is extracted to provide a 340 MHz sky model.We present preliminary images and catalogs from the 2017 VLASS observations which began in early September, 2017, and continued on a nearly daily basis throughout the fall. In addition to providing a unique sky model at 340 MHz, these data complement VLASS by providing spectral indices for all cataloged sources.

  5. A CATALOG OF DETAILED VISUAL MORPHOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATIONS FOR 14,034 GALAXIES IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nair, Preethi B.; Abraham, Roberto G.

    2010-01-01

    We present a catalog of detailed visual classifications for 14,034 galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 4 (DR4). Our sample includes nearly all spectroscopically targeted galaxies in the redshift range 0.01 < z < 0.1 down to an apparent extinction-corrected limit of g < 16 mag. In addition to T-Types, we record the existence of bars, rings, lenses, tails, warps, dust lanes, arm flocculence, and multiplicity. This sample defines a comprehensive local galaxy sample which we will use in future papers to study low-redshift morphology. It will also prove useful for calibrating automated galaxy classification algorithms. In this paper, we describe the classification methodology used, detail the systematics and biases of our sample, and summarize the overall statistical properties of the sample, noting the most obvious trends that are relevant for general comparisons of our catalog with previously published work.

  6. Design of the Digital Sky Survey DA and online system: A case history in the use of computer aided tools for data acquisition system design

    Science.gov (United States)

    Petravick, D.; Berman, E.; Nicinski, T.; Rechenmacher, R.; Oleynik, G.; Pordes, R.; Stoughton, C.

    1991-06-01

    As part of its expanding Astrophysics program, Fermilab is participating in the Digital Sky Survey (DSS). Fermilab is part of a collaboration involving University of Chicago, Princeton University, and the Institute of Advanced Studies (at Princeton). The DSS main results will be a photometric imaging survey and a redshift survey of galaxies and color-selected quasars over pi steradians of the Northern Galactic Cap. This paper focuses on our use of Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) in specifying the data system for DSS. Extensions to standard methodologies were necessary to compensate for tool shortcomings and to improve communication amongst the collaboration members. One such important extension was the incorporation of CASE information into the specification document.

  7. A high-resolution atlas of composite Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxy spectra

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dobos, László; Csabai, István.; Yip, Ching-Wa; Budavári, Tamás.; Wild, Vivienne; Szalay, Alexander S.

    2012-02-01

    In this work we present an atlas of composite spectra of galaxies based on the data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 (SDSS DR7). Galaxies are classified by colour, nuclear activity and star formation activity to calculate average spectra of high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) and resolution (? at Δλ= 1 Å), using an algorithm that is robust against outliers. Besides composite spectra, we also compute the first five principal components of the distributions in each galaxy class to characterize the nature of variations of individual spectra around the averages. The continua of the composite spectra are fitted with BC03 stellar population synthesis models to extend the wavelength coverage beyond the coverage of the SDSS spectrographs. Common derived parameters of the composites are also calculated: integrated colours in the most popular filter systems, line-strength measurements and continuum absorption indices (including Lick indices). These derived parameters are compared with the distributions of parameters of individual galaxies, and it is shown on many examples that the composites of the atlas cover much of the parameter space spanned by SDSS galaxies. By co-adding thousands of spectra, a total integration time of several months can be reached, which results in extremely low noise composites. The variations in redshift not only allow for extending the spectral coverage bluewards to the original wavelength limit of the SDSS spectrographs, but also make higher spectral resolution achievable. The composite spectrum atlas is available online at .

  8. Young stellar populations in early-type galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nolan, Louisa A.; Raychaudhury, Somak; Kabán, Ata

    2007-02-01

    We use a purely data-driven rectified factor analysis to identify early-type galaxies with recent star formation in Data Release 4 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Spectroscopic Catalogue. We compare the spectra and environment of these galaxies with those of `normal' early-type galaxies, and a sample of independently selected E+A galaxies. We calculate the projected local galaxy surface density from the nearest five and 10 neighbours (Σ5 and Σ10) for each galaxy in our sample, and find that the dependence on projected local density, of the properties of E+A galaxies, is not significantly different from that of early-type galaxies with young stellar populations, dropping off rapidly towards denser environments, and flattening off at densities ~10 per cent of the stellar mass in these galaxies. This, together with the similarity of the environments in which this `E+F' population and the E+A galaxy sample are found, suggests that E+F galaxies used to be E+A galaxies, but have evolved by a further ~ one to a few Gyr. Our rectified factor analysis is sensitive enough to identify this hidden population, which allows us to study the global and intrinsic properties of early-type galaxies created in major mergers or interactions, and compare them with those early-types which have had the bulk of their stars in place since a much earlier epoch.

  9. A catalogue of clusters of galaxies identified from all sky surveys of 2MASS, WISE, and SuperCOSMOS

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wen, Z. L.; Han, J. L.; Yang, F.

    2018-03-01

    We identify 47 600 clusters of galaxies from photometric data of Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), and SuperCOSMOS, among which 26 125 clusters are recognized for the first time and mostly in the sky outside the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) area. About 90 per cent of massive clusters of M500 > 3 × 1014 M⊙ in the redshift range of 0.025 < z < 0.3 have been detected from such survey data, and the detection rate drops down to 50 per cent for clusters with a mass of M500 ˜ 1 × 1014 M⊙. Monte Carlo simulations show that the false detection rate for the whole cluster sample is less than 5 per cent. By cross-matching with ROSAT and XMM-Newton sources, we get 779 new X-ray cluster candidates which have X-ray counterparts within a projected offset of 0.2 Mpc.

  10. The Low-Resolution Spectrograph of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope. II. Observations of Quasar Candidates from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Schneider, D. P.; Hill, Gary J.; Fan, X.; Ramsey, L. W.; MacQueen, P. J.; Weedman, D. W.; Booth, J. A.; Eracleous, M.; Gunn, J. E.; Lupton, R. H.

    2000-01-01

    This paper describes spectra of quasar candidates acquired during the commissioning phase of the Low-Resolution Spectrograph of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope. The objects were identified as possible quasars from multicolor image data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The 10 sources had typical r' magnitudes of 19-20, except for one extremely red object with r ' ≅23. The data, obtained with exposure times between 10 and 25 minutes, reveal that the spectra of four candidates are essentially featureless and are not quasars, five are quasars with redshifts between 2.92 and 4.15 (including one broad absorption line quasar), and the red source is a very late M star or early L dwarf. (c) (c) 2000. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific

  11. COMMON PROPER-MOTION WIDE WHITE DWARF BINARIES SELECTED FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Andrews, Jeff J.; Agueeros, Marcel A. [Department of Astronomy, Columbia University, 550 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027 (United States); Belczynski, Krzysztof [Astronomical Observatory, University of Warsaw, Al. Ujazdowskie 4, 00-478 Warsaw (Poland); Dhital, Saurav [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University, 6301 Stevenson Center, Nashville, TN 37235 (United States); Kleinman, S. J. [Gemini Observatory, Northern Operations Center, Hilo, HI 96720 (United States); West, Andrew A. [Department of Astronomy, Boston University, 725 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA 02215 (United States)

    2012-10-01

    Wide binaries made up of two white dwarfs (WDs) receive far less attention than their tight counterparts. However, our tests using the binary population synthesis code StarTrack indicate that, for any set of reasonable initial conditions, there exists a significant observable population of double white dwarfs (WDWDs) with orbital separations of 10{sup 2}-10{sup 5} AU. We adapt the technique of Dhital et al. to search for candidate common proper-motion WD companions separated by <10' around the >12,000 spectroscopically confirmed hydrogen-atmosphere WDs recently identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Using two techniques to separate random alignments from high-confidence pairs, we find nine new high-probability wide WDWDs and confirm three previously identified candidate wide WDWDs. This brings the number of known wide WDWDs to 45; our new pairs are a significant addition to the sample, especially at small proper motions (<200 mas yr{sup -1}) and large angular separations (>10''). Spectroscopic follow-up and an extension of this method to a larger, photometrically selected set of SDSS WDs may eventually produce a large enough dataset for WDWDs to realize their full potential as testbeds for theories of stellar evolution.

  12. Genus Topology of Structure in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Model Testing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gott, J. Richard, III; Hambrick, D. Clay; Vogeley, Michael S.; Kim, Juhan; Park, Changbom; Choi, Yun-Young; Cen, Renyue; Ostriker, Jeremiah P.; Nagamine, Kentaro

    2008-03-01

    We measure the three-dimensional topology of large-scale structure in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). This allows the genus statistic to be measured with unprecedented statistical accuracy. The sample size is now sufficiently large to allow the topology to be an important tool for testing galaxy formation models. For comparison, we make mock SDSS samples using several state-of-the-art N-body simulations: the Millennium run of Springel et al. (10 billion particles), the Kim & Park CDM models (1.1 billion particles), and the Cen & Ostriker hydrodynamic code models (8.6 billion cell hydro mesh). Each of these simulations uses a different method for modeling galaxy formation. The SDSS data show a genus curve that is broadly characteristic of that produced by Gaussian random-phase initial conditions. Thus, the data strongly support the standard model of inflation where Gaussian random-phase initial conditions are produced by random quantum fluctuations in the early universe. But on top of this general shape there are measurable differences produced by nonlinear gravitational effects and biasing connected with galaxy formation. The N-body simulations have been tuned to reproduce the power spectrum and multiplicity function but not topology, so topology is an acid test for these models. The data show a "meatball" shift (only partly due to the Sloan Great Wall of galaxies) that differs at the 2.5 σ level from the results of the Millenium run and the Kim & Park dark halo models, even including the effects of cosmic variance.

  13. A Nearby Old Halo White Dwarf Candidate from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    2008-07-01

    Mi- cron All Sky Survey ( 2MASS ; Skrutskie et al. 2006) within 2′′ of the expected position of J1102+4113 at that epoch. To measure the flux in this...feature, we retrieved the 2MASS Atlas images covering this object, measured 3′′ radius aperture magnitudes 78 H A L L E T A L . V ol.136 Table 1...POSS2 50094.9138 . . . . . . . . . 18.41 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2MASS 50912.8346

  14. THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY REVERBERATION MAPPING PROJECT: RAPID C iv BROAD ABSORPTION LINE VARIABILITY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Grier, C. J.; Brandt, W. N.; Trump, J. R.; Schneider, D. P.; Hall, P. B.; Shen, Yue; Vivek, M.; Dawson, K. S.; Ak, N. Filiz; Chen, Yuguang; Denney, K. D.; Kochanek, C. S.; Peterson, B. M.; Green, Paul J.; Jiang, Linhua; McGreer, Ian D.; Pâris, I.; Tao, Charling; Wood-Vasey, W. M.; Bizyaev, Dmitry

    2015-01-01

    We report the discovery of rapid variations of a high-velocity C iv broad absorption line trough in the quasar SDSS J141007.74+541203.3. This object was intensively observed in 2014 as a part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project, during which 32 epochs of spectroscopy were obtained with the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey spectrograph. We observe significant (>4σ) variability in the equivalent width (EW) of the broad (∼4000 km s −1 wide) C iv trough on rest-frame timescales as short as 1.20 days (∼29 hr), the shortest broad absorption line variability timescale yet reported. The EW varied by ∼10% on these short timescales, and by about a factor of two over the duration of the campaign. We evaluate several potential causes of the variability, concluding that the most likely cause is a rapid response to changes in the incident ionizing continuum. If the outflow is at a radius where the recombination rate is higher than the ionization rate, the timescale of variability places a lower limit on the density of the absorbing gas of n e ≳ 3.9 × 10 5 cm −3 . The broad absorption line variability characteristics of this quasar are consistent with those observed in previous studies of quasars, indicating that such short-term variability may in fact be common and thus can be used to learn about outflow characteristics and contributions to quasar/host-galaxy feedback scenarios

  15. SPECTROSCOPIC ORBITAL PERIODS FOR 29 CATACLYSMIC VARIABLES FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Thorstensen, John R.; Taylor, Cynthia J.; Peters, Christopher S.; Skinner, Julie N. [Department of Physics and Astronomy 6127 Wilder Laboratory, Dartmouth College Hanover, NH 03755-3528 (United States); Southworth, John [Astrophysics Group Keele University Staffordshire ST5 5BG (United Kingdom); Gänsicke, Boris T. [Department of Physics University of Warwick Coventry CV4 7AL (United Kingdom)

    2015-04-15

    We report follow-up spectroscopy of 29 cataclysmic variables from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), 22 of which were discovered by SDSS and seven of which are previously known systems that were recovered in SDSS. The periods for 16 of these objects were included in the tabulation by Gänsicke et al. While most of the systems have periods less than 2 hr, only one has a period in the 80–86 minutes “spike” found by Gänsicke et al., and 11 have periods longer than 3 hr, indicating that the present sample is skewed toward longer-period, higher-luminosity objects. Seven of the objects have spectra resembling dwarf novae, but have apparently never been observed in outburst, suggesting that many cataclysmics with relatively low variability amplitude remain to be discovered. Some of the objects are notable. SDSS J07568+0858 and SDSS J08129+1911 were previously known to have deep eclipses; in addition to spectroscopy, we use archival data from the Catalina Real Time Transient Survey to refine their periods. We give a parallax-based distance of 195 (+54, −39) pc for LV Cnc (SDSS J09197+0857), which at P{sub orb} = 81 m has the shortest orbital period in our sample. SDSS J08091+3814 shows both the spectroscopic phase offset and phase-dependent absorption found in SW Sextantis stars. The average spectra of SDSS J08055+0720 and SDSS J16191+1351 show contributions from K-type secondaries, and SDSS J080440+0239 shows a contribution from an early M star. We use these to constrain the distances. SDSS J09459+2922 has characteristics typical of a magnetic system. SDSS11324+6249 may be a novalike variable, and if so, its orbital period (99 minutes) is unusually short for that subclass.

  16. A SEARCH FOR DISK-GALAXY LENSES IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Feron, Chloe; Hjorth, Jens; Samsing, Johan; McKean, John P.

    2009-01-01

    We present the first automated spectroscopic search for disk-galaxy lenses, using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) database. We follow up eight gravitational lens candidates, selected among a sample of ∼40,000 candidate massive disk galaxies, using a combination of ground-based imaging and long-slit spectroscopy. We confirm two gravitational lens systems: one probable disk galaxy and one probable S0 galaxy. The remaining systems are four promising disk-galaxy lens candidates, as well as two probable gravitational lenses whose lens galaxy might be an S0 galaxy. The redshifts of the lenses are z lens ∼ 0.1. The redshift range of the background sources is z source ∼ 0.3-0.7. The systems presented here are (confirmed or candidate) galaxy-galaxy lensing systems, that is, systems where the multiple images are faint and extended, allowing an accurate determination of the lens galaxy mass and light distributions without contamination from the background galaxy. Moreover, the low redshift of the (confirmed or candidates) lens galaxies is favorable for measuring rotation points to complement the lensing study. We estimate the rest-frame total mass-to-light ratio within the Einstein radius for the two confirmed lenses: we find M tot /L I = 5.4 ± 1.5 within 3.9 ± 0.9 kpc for SDSS J081230.30+543650.9 and M tot /L I = 1.5 ± 0.9 within 1.4 ± 0.8 kpc for SDSS J145543.55+530441.2 (all in solar units). Hubble Space Telescope or adaptive optics imaging is needed to further study the systems.

  17. A RADIO SEARCH FOR PULSAR COMPANIONS TO SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY LOW-MASS WHITE DWARFS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Agueeros, Marcel A.; Camilo, Fernando; Silvestri, Nicole M.; Anderson, Scott F.; Kleinman, S. J.; Liebert, James W.

    2009-01-01

    We have conducted a search for pulsar companions to 15 low-mass white dwarfs (LMWDs; M sun ) at 820 MHz with the NRAO Green Bank Telescope (GBT). These LMWDs were spectroscopically identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and do not show the photometric excess or spectroscopic signature associated with a companion in their discovery data. However, LMWDs are believed to evolve in binary systems and to have either a more massive white dwarf (WD) or a neutron star (NS) as a companion. Indeed, evolutionary models of low-mass X-ray binaries, the precursors of millisecond pulsars (MSPs), produce significant numbers of LMWDs, suggesting that the SDSS LMWDs may have NS companions. No convincing pulsar signal is detected in our data. This is consistent with the findings of van Leeuwen et al., who conducted a GBT search for radio pulsations at 340 MHz from unseen companions to eight SDSS WDs (five are still considered LMWDs; the three others are now classified as 'ordinary' WDs). We discuss the constraints our nondetections place on the probability P MSP that the companion to a given LMWD is a radio pulsar in the context of the luminosity and acceleration limits of our search; we find that P MSP +4 -2 %.

  18. THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY REVERBERATION MAPPING PROJECT: RAPID C iv BROAD ABSORPTION LINE VARIABILITY

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Grier, C. J.; Brandt, W. N.; Trump, J. R.; Schneider, D. P. [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Laboratory, University Park, PA 16802 (United States); Hall, P. B. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 (Canada); Shen, Yue [Carnegie Observatories, 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, CA 91101 (United States); Vivek, M.; Dawson, K. S. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States); Ak, N. Filiz [Faculty of Sciences, Department of Astronomy and Space Sciences, Erciyes University, 38039 Kayseri (Turkey); Chen, Yuguang [Department of Astronomy, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China); Denney, K. D.; Kochanek, C. S.; Peterson, B. M. [Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States); Green, Paul J. [Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Jiang, Linhua [Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China); McGreer, Ian D. [Steward Observatory, The University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721-0065 (United States); Pâris, I. [INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Via G. B. Tiepolo 11, I-34131 Trieste (Italy); Tao, Charling [Centre de Physique des Particules de Marseille, Aix-Marseille Universite, CNRS /IN2P3, 163, avenue de Luminy, Case 902, F-13288 Marseille Cedex 09 (France); Wood-Vasey, W. M. [PITT PACC, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, 3941 O’Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 (United States); Bizyaev, Dmitry, E-mail: grier@psu.edu [Apache Point Observatory and New Mexico State University, P.O. Box 59, Sunspot, NM, 88349-0059 (United States); and others

    2015-06-10

    We report the discovery of rapid variations of a high-velocity C iv broad absorption line trough in the quasar SDSS J141007.74+541203.3. This object was intensively observed in 2014 as a part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project, during which 32 epochs of spectroscopy were obtained with the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey spectrograph. We observe significant (>4σ) variability in the equivalent width (EW) of the broad (∼4000 km s{sup −1} wide) C iv trough on rest-frame timescales as short as 1.20 days (∼29 hr), the shortest broad absorption line variability timescale yet reported. The EW varied by ∼10% on these short timescales, and by about a factor of two over the duration of the campaign. We evaluate several potential causes of the variability, concluding that the most likely cause is a rapid response to changes in the incident ionizing continuum. If the outflow is at a radius where the recombination rate is higher than the ionization rate, the timescale of variability places a lower limit on the density of the absorbing gas of n{sub e} ≳ 3.9 × 10{sup 5} cm{sup −3}. The broad absorption line variability characteristics of this quasar are consistent with those observed in previous studies of quasars, indicating that such short-term variability may in fact be common and thus can be used to learn about outflow characteristics and contributions to quasar/host-galaxy feedback scenarios.

  19. A SYSTEMATIC SEARCH FOR MASSIVE BLACK HOLE BINARIES IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY SPECTROSCOPIC SAMPLE

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tsalmantza, P.; Decarli, R.; Hogg, David W.; Dotti, M.

    2011-01-01

    We present the results of a systematic search for massive black hole binaries in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) spectroscopic database. We focus on bound binaries, under the assumption that one of the black holes is active. In this framework, the broad lines associated with the accreting black hole are expected to show systematic velocity shifts with respect to the narrow lines, which trace the rest frame of the galaxy. For a sample of 54,586 quasars and 3929 galaxies at redshifts 0.1 < z < 1.5, we brute-force model each spectrum as a mixture of two quasars at two different redshifts. The spectral model is a data-driven dimensionality reduction of the SDSS quasar spectra based on a matrix factorization. We identified 32 objects with peculiar spectra. Nine of them can be interpreted as black hole binaries. This doubles the number of known black hole binary candidates. We also report on the discovery of a new class of extreme double-peaked emitters with exceptionally broad and faint Balmer lines. For all the interesting sources, we present detailed analysis of the spectra and discuss possible interpretations.

  20. SkyMapper Southern Survey: First Data Release (DR1)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wolf, Christian; Onken, Christopher A.; Luvaul, Lance C.; Schmidt, Brian P.; Bessell, Michael S.; Chang, Seo-Won; Da Costa, Gary S.; Mackey, Dougal; Martin-Jones, Tony; Murphy, Simon J.; Preston, Tim; Scalzo, Richard A.; Shao, Li; Smillie, Jon; Tisserand, Patrick; White, Marc C.; Yuan, Fang

    2018-02-01

    We present the first data release of the SkyMapper Southern Survey, a hemispheric survey carried out with the SkyMapper Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia. Here, we present the survey strategy, data processing, catalogue construction, and database schema. The first data release dataset includes over 66 000 images from the Shallow Survey component, covering an area of 17 200 deg2 in all six SkyMapper passbands uvgriz, while the full area covered by any passband exceeds 20 000 deg2. The catalogues contain over 285 million unique astrophysical objects, complete to roughly 18 mag in all bands. We compare our griz point-source photometry with Pan-STARRS1 first data release and note an RMS scatter of 2%. The internal reproducibility of SkyMapper photometry is on the order of 1%. Astrometric precision is better than 0.2 arcsec based on comparison with Gaia first data release. We describe the end-user database, through which data are presented to the world community, and provide some illustrative science queries.

  1. GTC/OSIRIS SPECTROSCOPIC IDENTIFICATION OF A FAINT L SUBDWARF IN THE UKIRT INFRARED DEEP SKY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lodieu, N.; Osorio, M. R. Zapatero; MartIn, E. L.; Solano, E.; Aberasturi, M.

    2010-01-01

    We present the discovery of an L subdwarf in 234 deg 2 common to the UK InfraRed Telescope (UKIRT) Infrared Deep Sky Survey Large Area Survey Data Release 2 and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 3. This is the fifth L subdwarf announced to date, the first one identified in the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey, and the faintest known. The blue optical and near-infrared colors of ULAS J135058.86+081506.8 and its overall spectra energy distribution are similar to the known mid-L subdwarfs. Low-resolution optical (700-1000 nm) spectroscopy with the Optical System for Imaging and low Resolution Integrated Spectroscopy spectrograph on the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio de Canarias reveals that ULAS J135058.86+081506.8 exhibits a strong K I pressure-broadened line at 770 nm and a red slope longward of 800 nm, features characteristics of L-type dwarfs. From direct comparison with the four known L subdwarfs, we estimate its spectral type to be sdL4-sdL6 and derive a distance in the interval 94-170 pc. We provide a rough estimate of the space density for mid-L subdwarfs of 1.5 x 10 -4 pc -3 .

  2. Gaia, an all-sky survey for standard photometry

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carrasco, J. M.; Weiler, M.; Jordi, C.; Fabricius, C.

    2017-03-01

    Gaia ESA's space mission (launched in 2013) includes two low resolution spectroscopic instruments (one in the blue, BP, and another in the red, RP, wavelength domains) to classify and derive the astrophysical parameters of the observed sources. As it is well known, Gaia is a full-sky unbiased survey down to about 20th magnitude. The scanning law yields a rather uniform coverage of the sky over the full extent (a minimum of 5 years) of the mission. Gaia data reduction is a global one over the full mission. Both sky coverage and data reduction strategy ensure an unprecedented all-sky homogeneous spectrophotometric survey. Certainly, that survey is of interest for current and future on-ground and space projects, like LSST, PLATO, EUCLID and J-PAS/J-PLUS among others. These projects will benefit from the large amount (more than one billion) and wide variety of objects observed by Gaia with good quality spectrophotometry. Synthetic photometry derived from Gaia spectrophotometry for any passband can be used to expand the set of standard sources for these new instruments to come. In the current Gaia data release scenario, BP/RP spectrophotometric data will be available in the third release (in 2018, TBC). Current preliminary results allow us to estimate the precision of synthetic photometry derived from the Gaia data. This already allows the preparation of the on-going and future surveys and space missions. We discuss here the exploitation of the Gaia spectrophotometry as standard reference due to its full-sky coverage and its expected photometric uncertainties derived from the low resolution Gaia spectra.

  3. Estimation of spectral distribution of sky radiance using a commercial digital camera.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saito, Masanori; Iwabuchi, Hironobu; Murata, Isao

    2016-01-10

    Methods for estimating spectral distribution of sky radiance from images captured by a digital camera and for accurately estimating spectral responses of the camera are proposed. Spectral distribution of sky radiance is represented as a polynomial of the wavelength, with coefficients obtained from digital RGB counts by linear transformation. The spectral distribution of radiance as measured is consistent with that obtained by spectrometer and radiative transfer simulation for wavelengths of 430-680 nm, with standard deviation below 1%. Preliminary applications suggest this method is useful for detecting clouds and studying the relation between irradiance at the ground and cloud distribution.

  4. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Lens Search. IV. Statistical Lens Sample from the Fifth Data Release

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Inada, Naohisa; /Wako, RIKEN /Tokyo U., ICEPP; Oguri, Masamune; /Natl. Astron. Observ. of Japan /Stanford U., Phys. Dept.; Shin, Min-Su; /Michigan U. /Princeton U. Observ.; Kayo, Issha; /Tokyo U., ICRR; Strauss, Michael A.; /Princeton U. Observ.; Hennawi, Joseph F.; /UC, Berkeley /Heidelberg, Max Planck Inst. Astron.; Morokuma, Tomoki; /Natl. Astron. Observ. of Japan; Becker, Robert H.; /LLNL, Livermore /UC, Davis; White, Richard L.; /Baltimore, Space Telescope Sci.; Kochanek, Christopher S.; /Ohio State U.; Gregg, Michael D.; /LLNL, Livermore /UC, Davis /Exeter U.

    2010-05-01

    We present the second report of our systematic search for strongly lensed quasars from the data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). From extensive follow-up observations of 136 candidate objects, we find 36 lenses in the full sample of 77,429 spectroscopically confirmed quasars in the SDSS Data Release 5. We then define a complete sample of 19 lenses, including 11 from our previous search in the SDSS Data Release 3, from the sample of 36,287 quasars with i < 19.1 in the redshift range 0.6 < z < 2.2, where we require the lenses to have image separations of 1 < {theta} < 20 and i-band magnitude differences between the two images smaller than 1.25 mag. Among the 19 lensed quasars, 3 have quadruple-image configurations, while the remaining 16 show double images. This lens sample constrains the cosmological constant to be {Omega}{sub {Lambda}} = 0.84{sub -0.08}{sup +0.06}(stat.){sub -0.07}{sup + 0.09}(syst.) assuming a flat universe, which is in good agreement with other cosmological observations. We also report the discoveries of 7 binary quasars with separations ranging from 1.1 to 16.6, which are identified in the course of our lens survey. This study concludes the construction of our statistical lens sample in the full SDSS-I data set.

  5. SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY OBSERVATIONS OF KUIPER BELT OBJECTS: COLORS AND VARIABILITY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ofek, Eran O.

    2012-01-01

    Colors of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) are used to study the evolutionary processes of bodies in the outskirts of the solar system and to test theories regarding their origin. Here I describe a search for serendipitous Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) observations of known TNOs and Centaurs. I present a catalog of SDSS photometry, colors, and astrometry of 388 measurements of 42 outer solar system objects. I find weak evidence, at the ≈ 2σ level (per trial), for a correlation between the g – r color and inclination of scattered disk objects and hot classical Kuiper Belt objects. I find a correlation between the g – r color and the angular momentum in the z direction of all the objects in this sample. These findings should be verified using larger samples of TNOs. Light curves as a function of phase angle are constructed for 13 objects. The steepness of the slopes of these light curves suggests that the coherent backscatter mechanism plays a major role in the reflectivity of outer solar system small objects at small phase angles. I find weak evidence for an anticorrelation, significant at the 2σ confidence level (per trial), between the g-band phase-angle slope parameter and the semimajor axis, as well as the aphelion distance, of these objects (i.e., they show a more prominent 'opposition effect' at smaller distances from the Sun). However, this plausible correlation should be verified using a larger sample. I discuss the origin of this possible correlation and argue that if this correlation is real it probably indicates that 'Sedna'-like objects have a different origin than other classes of TNOs. Finally, I identify several objects with large variability amplitudes.

  6. PERIODIC VARIABILITY OF LOW-MASS STARS IN SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY STRIPE 82

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Becker, A. C.; Hawley, S. L.; Ivezic, Z.; Kowalski, A. F.; Sesar, B.; Bochanski, J. J.; West, A. A.

    2011-01-01

    We present a catalog of periodic stellar variability in the 'Stripe 82' region of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. After aggregating and re-calibrating catalog-level data from the survey, we ran a period-finding algorithm (Supersmoother) on all point-source light curves. We used color selection to identify systems that are likely to contain low-mass stars, in particular M dwarfs and white dwarfs. In total, we found 207 candidates, the vast majority of which appear to be in eclipsing binary systems. The catalog described in this paper includes 42 candidate M dwarf/white dwarf pairs, four white dwarf pairs, 59 systems whose colors indicate they are composed of two M dwarfs and whose light-curve shapes suggest they are in detached eclipsing binaries, and 28 M dwarf systems whose light-curve shapes suggest they are in contact binaries. We find no detached systems with periods longer than 3 days, thus the majority of our sources are likely to have experienced orbital spin-up and enhanced magnetic activity. Indeed, 26 of 27 M dwarf systems that we have spectra for show signs of chromospheric magnetic activity, far higher than the 24% seen in field stars of the same spectral type. We also find binaries composed of stars that bracket the expected boundary between partially and fully convective interiors, which will allow the measurement of the stellar mass-radius relationship across this transition. The majority of our contact systems have short orbital periods, with small variance (0.02 days) in the sample near the observed cutoff of 0.22 days. The accumulation of these stars at short orbital period suggests that the process of angular momentum loss, leading to period evolution, becomes less efficient at short periods. These short-period systems are in a novel regime for studying the effects of orbital spin-up and enhanced magnetic activity, which are thought to be the source of discrepancies between mass-radius predictions and measurements of these properties in eclipsing

  7. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Lens Search. VI. Constraints on Dark Energy and the Evolution of Massive Galaxies

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Oguri, Masamune [Univ. of Tokyo (Japan); et al.

    2012-05-01

    We present a statistical analysis of the final lens sample from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Lens Search (SQLS). The number distribution of a complete subsample of 19 lensed quasars selected from 50,836 source quasars is compared with theoretical expectations, with particular attention to the selection function. Assuming that the velocity function of galaxies does not evolve with redshift, the SQLS sample constrains the cosmological constant to \\Omega_\\Lambda=0.79^{+0.06}_{-0.07}(stat.)^{+0.06}_{-0.06}(syst.) for a flat universe. The dark energy equation of state is found to be consistent with w=-1 when the SQLS is combined with constraints from baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements or results from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). We also obtain simultaneous constraints on cosmological parameters and redshift evolution of the galaxy velocity function, finding no evidence for redshift evolution at z<1 in any combinations of constraints. For instance, number density evolution quantified as \

  8. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Stripe 82 Imaging Data: Depth-Optimized Co-adds Over 300 deg$^2$ in Five Filters

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Jiang, Linhua; Fan, Xiaohui; Bian, Fuyan; McGreer, Ian D.; Strauss, Michael A.; Annis, James; Buck, Zoë; Green, Richard; Hodge, Jacqueline A.; Myers, Adam D.; Rafiee, Alireza; Richards, Gordon

    2014-06-25

    We present and release co-added images of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe 82. Stripe 82 covers an area of ~300 deg(2) on the celestial equator, and has been repeatedly scanned 70-90 times in the ugriz bands by the SDSS imaging survey. By making use of all available data in the SDSS archive, our co-added images are optimized for depth. Input single-epoch frames were properly processed and weighted based on seeing, sky transparency, and background noise before co-addition. The resultant products are co-added science images and their associated weight images that record relative weights at individual pixels. The depths of the co-adds, measured as the 5σ detection limits of the aperture (3.''2 diameter) magnitudes for point sources, are roughly 23.9, 25.1, 24.6, 24.1, and 22.8 AB magnitudes in the five bands, respectively. They are 1.9-2.2 mag deeper than the best SDSS single-epoch data. The co-added images have good image quality, with an average point-spread function FWHM of ~1'' in the r, i, and z bands. We also release object catalogs that were made with SExtractor. These co-added products have many potential uses for studies of galaxies, quasars, and Galactic structure. We further present and release near-IR J-band images that cover ~90 deg(2) of Stripe 82. These images were obtained using the NEWFIRM camera on the NOAO 4 m Mayall telescope, and have a depth of about 20.0-20.5 Vega magnitudes (also 5σ detection limits for point sources).

  9. The SPHEREx All-Sky Spectral Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bock, James; SPHEREx Science Team

    2018-01-01

    SPHEREx, a mission in NASA's Medium Explorer (MIDEX) program that was selected for Phase A in August 2017, is an all-sky survey satellite designed to address all three science goals in NASA's astrophysics division, with a single instrument, a wide-field spectral imager. SPHEREx will probe the physics of inflation by measuring non-Gaussianity by studying large-scale structure, surveying a large cosmological volume at low redshifts, complementing high-z surveys optimized to constrain dark energy. The origin of water and biogenic molecules will be investigated in all phases of planetary system formation - from molecular clouds to young stellar systems with protoplanetary disks - by measuring ice absorption spectra. We will chart the origin and history of galaxy formation through a deep survey mapping large-scale spatial power in two deep fields located near the ecliptic poles. Following in the tradition of all-sky missions such as IRAS, COBE and WISE, SPHEREx will be the first all-sky near-infrared spectral survey. SPHEREx will create spectra (0.75 – 4.2 um at R = 41; and 4.2 – 5 um at R = 135) with high sensitivity making background-limited observations using a passively-cooled telescope with a wide field-of-view for large mapping speed. During its two-year mission, SPHEREx will produce four complete all-sky maps that will serve as a rich archive for the astronomy community. With over a billion detected galaxies, hundreds of millions of high-quality stellar and galactic spectra, and over a million ice absorption spectra, the archive will enable diverse scientific investigations including studies of young stellar systems, brown dwarfs, high-redshift quasars, galaxy clusters, the interstellar medium, asteroids and comets. All aspects of the instrument and spacecraft have high heritage. SPHEREx requires no new technologies and carries large technical and resource margins on every aspect of the design. SPHEREx is a partnership between Caltech and JPL, following the

  10. GASS: THE PARKES GALACTIC ALL-SKY SURVEY. I. SURVEY DESCRIPTION, GOALS, AND INITIAL DATA RELEASE

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    McClure-Griffiths, N. M.; Calabretta, M. R.; Ford, H. Alyson; Newton-McGee, K.

    2009-01-01

    The Parkes Galactic All-Sky Survey (GASS) is a survey of Galactic atomic hydrogen (H I) emission in the Southern sky covering declinations δ ≤ 1 0 using the Parkes Radio Telescope. The survey covers 2π steradians with an effective angular resolution of ∼16', at a velocity resolution of 1.0 km s -1 , and with an rms brightness temperature noise of 57 mK. GASS is the most sensitive, highest angular resolution survey of Galactic H I emission ever made in the Southern sky. In this paper, we outline the survey goals, describe the observations and data analysis, and present the first-stage data release. The data product is a single cube at full resolution, not corrected for stray radiation. Spectra from the survey and other data products are publicly available online.

  11. 2MASS - The 2 Micron All Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kleinmann, S. G.

    1992-01-01

    This paper describes a new sky survey to be carried out in three wavebands, J(1.25 m), H(1.65 m), and K(2.2 m). The limiting sensitivity of the survey, 10 sigma detection of point sources with K not greater than 14 mag, coupled with its all-sky coverage, were selected primarily to support studies of the large-scale structure of the Milky Way and the Local Universe. The survey requires construction of a pair of observing facilities, one each for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Operations are scheduled to begin in 1995. The data will begin becoming publicly available soon thereafter.

  12. RELIABLE IDENTIFICATIONS OF ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI FROM THE WISE, 2MASS, AND ROSAT ALL-SKY SURVEYS

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Edelson, R. [Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-2421 (United States); Malkan, M., E-mail: rickedelson@gmail.com [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1547 (United States)

    2012-05-20

    We have developed the ''S{sub IX}'' statistic to identify bright, highly likely active galactic nucleus (AGN) candidates solely on the basis of Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS), and ROSAT all-sky survey (RASS) data. This statistic was optimized with data from the preliminary WISE survey and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and tested with Lick 3 m Kast spectroscopy. We find that sources with S{sub IX} < 0 have a {approx}>95% likelihood of being an AGN (defined in this paper as a Seyfert 1, quasar, or blazar). This statistic was then applied to the full WISE/2MASS/RASS dataset, including the final WISE data release, to yield the ''W2R'' sample of 4316 sources with S{sub IX} < 0. Only 2209 of these sources are currently in the Veron-Cetty and Veron (VCV) catalog of spectroscopically confirmed AGNs, indicating that the W2R sample contains nearly 2000 new, relatively bright (J {approx}< 16) AGNs. We utilize the W2R sample to quantify biases and incompleteness in the VCV catalog. We find that it is highly complete for bright (J < 14), northern AGNs, but the completeness drops below 50% for fainter, southern samples and for sources near the Galactic plane. This approach also led to the spectroscopic identification of 10 new AGNs in the Kepler field, more than doubling the number of AGNs being monitored by Kepler. The W2R sample contains better than 1 bright AGN every 10 deg{sup 2}, permitting construction of AGN samples in any sufficiently large region of sky.

  13. Region of Nova Cygni 1975 on the Palomar Sky Survey

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Beardsley, W.R.; King, M.W.; Russell, J.L.; Stein, J.W.

    1975-01-01

    Careful superposition of a blue Palomar Sky Survey print onto a sectored photograph of Nova Cygni 1975 obtained with the Thaw 30-inch (76-cm) refractor at the Allegheny Observatory decisively confirms the fact that no star brighter than magnitude 21 appears on the Sky Survey print at that position

  14. Dusty WDs in the WISE all sky survey ∩ SDSS

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Barber, Sara D.; Kilic, Mukremin; Gianninas, A. [Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Oklahoma, 440 W. Brooks St., Norman, OK 73019 (United States); Brown, Warren R., E-mail: barber@nhn.ou.edu [Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)

    2014-05-10

    A recent cross-correlation between the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 White Dwarf Catalog with the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) all-sky photometry at 3.4, 4.6, 12, and 22 μm performed by Debes et al. resulted in the discovery of 52 candidate dusty white dwarfs (WDs). However, the 6'' WISE beam allows for the possibility that many of the excesses exhibited by these WDs may be due to contamination from a nearby source. We present MMT+SAO Wide-Field InfraRed Camera J- and H-band imaging observations (0.''5-1.''5 point spread function) of 16 of these candidate dusty WDs and confirm that four have spectral energy distributions (SEDs) consistent with a dusty disk and are not accompanied by a nearby source contaminant. The remaining 12 WDs have contaminated WISE photometry and SEDs inconsistent with a dusty disk when the contaminating sources are not included in the photometry measurements. We find the frequency of disks around single WDs in the WISE ∩ SDSS sample to be 2.6%-4.1%. One of the four new dusty WDs has a mass of 1.04 M {sub ☉} (progenitor mass 5.4 M {sub ☉}) and its discovery offers the first confirmation that massive WDs (and their massive progenitor stars) host planetary systems.

  15. The Ninth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ahn, Christopher P.; Alexandroff, Rachael; Allende Prieto, Carlos; Anderson, Scott F.; Anderton, Timothy; Andrews, Brett H.; Aubourg, Éric; Bailey, Stephen; Balbinot, Eduardo; Barnes, Rory; Bautista, Julian; Beers, Timothy C.; Beifiori, Alessandra; Berlind, Andreas A.; Bhardwaj, Vaishali; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Blake, Cullen H.; Blanton, Michael R.; Blomqvist, Michael; Bochanski, John J.; Bolton, Adam S.; Borde, Arnaud; Bovy, Jo; Brandt, W. N.; Brinkmann, J.; Brown, Peter J.; Brownstein, Joel R.; Bundy, Kevin; Busca, N. G.; Carithers, William; Carnero, Aurelio R.; Carr, Michael A.; Casetti-Dinescu, Dana I.; Chen, Yanmei; Chiappini, Cristina; Comparat, Johan; Connolly, Natalia; Crepp, Justin R.; Cristiani, Stefano; Croft, Rupert A. C.; Cuesta, Antonio J.; da Costa, Luiz N.; Davenport, James R. A.; Dawson, Kyle S.; de Putter, Roland; De Lee, Nathan; Delubac, Timothée; Dhital, Saurav; Ealet, Anne; Ebelke, Garrett L.; Edmondson, Edward M.; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Escoffier, S.; Esposito, Massimiliano; Evans, Michael L.; Fan, Xiaohui; Femenía Castellá, Bruno; Fernández Alvar, Emma; Ferreira, Leticia D.; Filiz Ak, N.; Finley, Hayley; Fleming, Scott W.; Font-Ribera, Andreu; Frinchaboy, Peter M.; García-Hernández, D. A.; Pérez, A. E. García; Ge, Jian; Génova-Santos, R.; Gillespie, Bruce A.; Girardi, Léo; González Hernández, Jonay I.; Grebel, Eva K.; Gunn, James E.; Guo, Hong; Haggard, Daryl; Hamilton, Jean-Christophe; Harris, David W.; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Hearty, Frederick R.; Ho, Shirley; Hogg, David W.; Holtzman, Jon A.; Honscheid, Klaus; Huehnerhoff, J.; Ivans, Inese I.; Ivezić, Željko; Jacobson, Heather R.; Jiang, Linhua; Johansson, Jonas; Johnson, Jennifer A.; Kauffmann, Guinevere; Kirkby, David; Kirkpatrick, Jessica A.; Klaene, Mark A.; Knapp, Gillian R.; Kneib, Jean-Paul; Le Goff, Jean-Marc; Leauthaud, Alexie; Lee, Khee-Gan; Lee, Young Sun; Long, Daniel C.; Loomis, Craig P.; Lucatello, Sara; Lundgren, Britt; Lupton, Robert H.; Ma, Bo; Ma, Zhibo; MacDonald, Nicholas; Mack, Claude E.; Mahadevan, Suvrath; Maia, Marcio A. G.; Majewski, Steven R.; Makler, Martin; Malanushenko, Elena; Malanushenko, Viktor; Manchado, A.; Mandelbaum, Rachel; Manera, Marc; Maraston, Claudia; Margala, Daniel; Martell, Sarah L.; McBride, Cameron K.; McGreer, Ian D.; McMahon, Richard G.; Ménard, Brice; Meszaros, Sz.; Miralda-Escudé, Jordi; Montero-Dorta, Antonio D.; Montesano, Francesco; Morrison, Heather L.; Muna, Demitri; Munn, Jeffrey A.; Murayama, Hitoshi; Myers, Adam D.; Neto, A. F.; Nguyen, Duy Cuong; Nichol, Robert C.; Nidever, David L.; Noterdaeme, Pasquier; Nuza, Sebastián E.; Ogando, Ricardo L. C.; Olmstead, Matthew D.; Oravetz, Daniel J.; Owen, Russell; Padmanabhan, Nikhil; Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie; Pan, Kaike; Parejko, John K.; Parihar, Prachi; Pâris, Isabelle; Pattarakijwanich, Petchara; Pepper, Joshua; Percival, Will J.; Pérez-Fournon, Ismael; Pérez-Ràfols, Ignasi; Petitjean, Patrick; Pforr, Janine; Pieri, Matthew M.; Pinsonneault, Marc H.; Porto de Mello, G. F.; Prada, Francisco; Price-Whelan, Adrian M.; Raddick, M. Jordan; Rebolo, Rafael; Rich, James; Richards, Gordon T.; Robin, Annie C.; Rocha-Pinto, Helio J.; Rockosi, Constance M.; Roe, Natalie A.; Ross, Ashley J.; Ross, Nicholas P.; Rossi, Graziano; Rubiño-Martin, J. A.; Samushia, Lado; Sanchez Almeida, J.; Sánchez, Ariel G.; Santiago, Basílio; Sayres, Conor; Schlegel, David J.; Schlesinger, Katharine J.; Schmidt, Sarah J.; Schneider, Donald P.; Schultheis, Mathias; Schwope, Axel D.; Scóccola, C. G.; Seljak, Uros; Sheldon, Erin; Shen, Yue; Shu, Yiping; Simmerer, Jennifer; Simmons, Audrey E.; Skibba, Ramin A.; Skrutskie, M. F.; Slosar, A.; Sobreira, Flavia; Sobeck, Jennifer S.; Stassun, Keivan G.; Steele, Oliver; Steinmetz, Matthias; Strauss, Michael A.; Streblyanska, Alina; Suzuki, Nao; Swanson, Molly E. C.; Tal, Tomer; Thakar, Aniruddha R.; Thomas, Daniel; Thompson, Benjamin A.; Tinker, Jeremy L.; Tojeiro, Rita; Tremonti, Christy A.; Vargas Magaña, M.; Verde, Licia; Viel, Matteo; Vikas, Shailendra K.; Vogt, Nicole P.; Wake, David A.; Wang, Ji; Weaver, Benjamin A.; Weinberg, David H.; Weiner, Benjamin J.; West, Andrew A.; White, Martin; Wilson, John C.; Wisniewski, John P.; Wood-Vasey, W. M.; Yanny, Brian; Yèche, Christophe; York, Donald G.; Zamora, O.; Zasowski, Gail; Zehavi, Idit; Zhao, Gong-Bo; Zheng, Zheng; Zhu, Guangtun; Zinn, Joel C.

    2012-11-19

    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) presents the first spectroscopic data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). This ninth data release (DR9) of the SDSS project includes 535,995 new galaxy spectra (median z=0.52), 102,100 new quasar spectra (median z=2.32), and 90,897 new stellar spectra, along with the data presented in previous data releases. These spectra were obtained with the new BOSS spectrograph and were taken between 2009 December and 2011 July. In addition, the stellar parameters pipeline, which determines radial velocities, surface temperatures, surface gravities, and metallicities of stars, has been updated and refined with improvements in temperature estimates for stars with T_eff<5000 K and in metallicity estimates for stars with [Fe/H]>-0.5. DR9 includes new stellar parameters for all stars presented in DR8, including stars from SDSS-I and II, as well as those observed as part of the SDSS-III Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration-2 (SEGUE-2). The astrometry error introduced in the DR8 imaging catalogs has been corrected in the DR9 data products. The next data release for SDSS-III will be in Summer 2013, which will present the first data from the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) along with another year of data from BOSS, followed by the final SDSS-III data release in December 2014.

  16. SPIDERS: selection of spectroscopic targets using AGN candidates detected in all-sky X-ray surveys

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dwelly, T.; Salvato, M.; Merloni, A.; Brusa, M.; Buchner, J.; Anderson, S. F.; Boller, Th.; Brandt, W. N.; Budavári, T.; Clerc, N.; Coffey, D.; Del Moro, A.; Georgakakis, A.; Green, P. J.; Jin, C.; Menzel, M.-L.; Myers, A. D.; Nandra, K.; Nichol, R. C.; Ridl, J.; Schwope, A. D.; Simm, T.

    2017-07-01

    SPIDERS (SPectroscopic IDentification of eROSITA Sources) is a Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV) survey running in parallel to the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) cosmology project. SPIDERS will obtain optical spectroscopy for large numbers of X-ray-selected active galactic nuclei (AGN) and galaxy cluster members detected in wide-area eROSITA, XMM-Newton and ROSAT surveys. We describe the methods used to choose spectroscopic targets for two sub-programmes of SPIDERS X-ray selected AGN candidates detected in the ROSAT All Sky and the XMM-Newton Slew surveys. We have exploited a Bayesian cross-matching algorithm, guided by priors based on mid-IR colour-magnitude information from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer survey, to select the most probable optical counterpart to each X-ray detection. We empirically demonstrate the high fidelity of our counterpart selection method using a reference sample of bright well-localized X-ray sources collated from XMM-Newton, Chandra and Swift-XRT serendipitous catalogues, and also by examining blank-sky locations. We describe the down-selection steps which resulted in the final set of SPIDERS-AGN targets put forward for spectroscopy within the eBOSS/TDSS/SPIDERS survey, and present catalogues of these targets. We also present catalogues of ˜12 000 ROSAT and ˜1500 XMM-Newton Slew survey sources that have existing optical spectroscopy from SDSS-DR12, including the results of our visual inspections. On completion of the SPIDERS programme, we expect to have collected homogeneous spectroscopic redshift information over a footprint of ˜7500 deg2 for >85 per cent of the ROSAT and XMM-Newton Slew survey sources having optical counterparts in the magnitude range 17 < r < 22.5, producing a large and highly complete sample of bright X-ray-selected AGN suitable for statistical studies of AGN evolution and clustering.

  17. A Full Year's Chandra Exposure on Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasars from the Chandra Multiwavelength Project

    Science.gov (United States)

    Green, Paul J.; Aldcroft, T. L.; Richards, G. T.; Barkhouse, W. A.; Constantin, A.; Haggard, D.; Karovska, M.; Kim, D.-W.; Kim, M.; Vikhlinin, A.; Anderson, S. F.; Mossman, A.; Kashyap, V.; Myers, A. D.; Silverman, J. D.; Wilkes, B. J.; Tananbaum, H.

    2009-01-01

    We study the spectral energy distributions and evolution of a large sample of optically selected quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey that were observed in 323 Chandra images analyzed by the Chandra Multiwavelength Project. Our highest-confidence matched sample includes 1135 X-ray detected quasars in the redshift range 0.2 3, substantially expanding the known sample. We find no evidence for evolution out to z ~ 5 for either the X-ray photon index Γ or for the ratio of optical/UV to X-ray flux αox. About 10% of detected QSOs show best-fit intrinsic absorbing columns greater than 1022 cm-2, but the fraction might reach ~1/3 if most nondetections are absorbed. We confirm a significant correlation between αox and optical luminosity, but it flattens or disappears for fainter (MB gsim -23) active galactic nucleus (AGN) alone. We report significant hardening of Γ both toward higher X-ray luminosity, and for relatively X-ray loud quasars. These trends may represent a relative increase in nonthermal X-ray emission, and our findings thereby strengthen analogies between Galactic black hole binaries and AGN. For uniformly selected subsamples of narrow-line Seyfert 1s and narrow absorption line QSOs, we find no evidence for unusual distributions of either αox or Γ.

  18. THE X-RAY PROPERTIES OF THE OPTICALLY BRIGHTEST MINI-BAL QUASARS FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wu Jianfeng; Brandt, W. N.; Comins, M. L.; Garmire, Gordon P.; Schneider, Donald P.; Gibson, Robert R.; Shemmer, Ohad

    2010-01-01

    We have compiled a sample of 14 of the optically brightest radio-quiet quasars (m i ≤ 17.5 and z ≥ 1.9) in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 5 quasar catalog that have C IV mini-broad absorption lines (mini-BALs) present in their spectra. X-ray data for 12 of the objects were obtained via a Chandra snapshot survey using ACIS-S, while data for the other two quasars were obtained from archival XMM-Newton observations. Joint X-ray spectral analysis shows that the mini-BAL quasars have a similar average power-law photon index (Γ ∼ 1.9) and level of intrinsic absorption (N H ∼ 21 cm -2 ) as non-BMB (neither BAL nor mini-BAL) quasars. Mini-BAL quasars are more similar to non-BMB quasars than to BAL quasars in their distribution of relative X-ray brightness (assessed with Δα ox ). Relative colors indicate mild dust reddening in the optical spectra of mini-BAL quasars. Significant correlations between Δα ox and UV absorption properties are confirmed for a sample of 56 sources combining mini-BAL and BAL quasars with high signal-to-noise ratio rest-frame UV spectra, which generally supports models in which X-ray absorption is important in enabling driving of the UV absorption-line wind. We also propose alternative parameterizations of the UV absorption properties of mini-BAL and BAL quasars, which may better describe the broad absorption troughs in some respects.

  19. TESTING STELLAR POPULATION SYNTHESIS MODELS WITH SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY COLORS OF M31's GLOBULAR CLUSTERS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Peacock, Mark B.; Zepf, Stephen E.; Maccarone, Thomas J.; Kundu, Arunav

    2011-01-01

    Accurate stellar population synthesis models are vital in understanding the properties and formation histories of galaxies. In order to calibrate and test the reliability of these models, they are often compared with observations of star clusters. However, relatively little work has compared these models in the ugriz filters, despite the recent widespread use of this filter set. In this paper, we compare the integrated colors of globular clusters in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) with those predicted from commonly used simple stellar population (SSP) models. The colors are based on SDSS observations of M31's clusters and provide the largest population of star clusters with accurate photometry available from the survey. As such, it is a unique sample with which to compare SSP models with SDSS observations. From this work, we identify a significant offset between the SSP models and the clusters' g - r colors, with the models predicting colors which are too red by g - r ∼ 0.1. This finding is consistent with previous observations of luminous red galaxies in the SDSS, which show a similar discrepancy. The identification of this offset in globular clusters suggests that it is very unlikely to be due to a minority population of young stars. The recently updated SSP model of Maraston and Stroembaeck better represents the observed g - r colors. This model is based on the empirical MILES stellar library, rather than theoretical libraries, suggesting an explanation for the g - r discrepancy.

  20. The dependence of galaxy clustering on tidal environment in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paranjape, Aseem; Hahn, Oliver; Sheth, Ravi K.

    2018-06-01

    The influence of the Cosmic Web on galaxy formation and evolution is of great observational and theoretical interest. We investigate whether the Cosmic Web leaves an imprint in the spatial clustering of galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), using the group catalogue of Yang et al. and tidal field estimates at ˜2 h-1 Mpc scales from the mass-tides-velocity data set of Wang et al. We use the tidal anisotropy α (Paranjape et al.) to characterize the tidal environment of groups, and measure the redshift-space 2-point correlation function (2pcf) of group positions and the luminosity- and colour-dependent clustering of group galaxies using samples segregated by α. We find that all the 2pcf measurements depend strongly on α, with factors of ˜20 between the large-scale 2pcf of objects in the most and least isotropic environments. To test whether these strong trends imply `beyond halo mass' effects for galaxy evolution, we compare our results with corresponding 2pcf measurements in mock catalogues constructed using a halo occupation distribution that uses only halo mass as an input. We find that this prescription qualitatively reproduces all observed trends, and also quantitatively matches many of the observed results. Although there are some statistically significant differences between our `halo mass only' mocks and the data - in the most and least isotropic environments - which deserve further investigation, our results suggest that if the tidal environment induces additional effects on galaxy properties other than those inherited from their host haloes, then these must be weak.

  1. Mining the SDSS SkyServer SQL queries log

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hirota, Vitor M.; Santos, Rafael; Raddick, Jordan; Thakar, Ani

    2016-05-01

    SkyServer, the Internet portal for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) astronomic catalog, provides a set of tools that allows data access for astronomers and scientific education. One of SkyServer data access interfaces allows users to enter ad-hoc SQL statements to query the catalog. SkyServer also presents some template queries that can be used as basis for more complex queries. This interface has logged over 330 million queries submitted since 2001. It is expected that analysis of this data can be used to investigate usage patterns, identify potential new classes of queries, find similar queries, etc. and to shed some light on how users interact with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data and how scientists have adopted the new paradigm of e-Science, which could in turn lead to enhancements on the user interfaces and experience in general. In this paper we review some approaches to SQL query mining, apply the traditional techniques used in the literature and present lessons learned, namely, that the general text mining approach for feature extraction and clustering does not seem to be adequate for this type of data, and, most importantly, we find that this type of analysis can result in very different queries being clustered together.

  2. VizieR Online Data Catalog: Northern Sky Variability Survey (Wozniak+, 2004)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wozniak, P. R.; Vestrand, W. T.; Akerlof, C. W.; Balsano, R.; Bloch, J.; Casperson, D.; Fletcher, S.; Gisler, G.; Kehoe, R.; Kinemuchi, K.; Lee, B. C.; Marshall, S.; McGowan, K. E.; McKay, T. A.; Rykoff, E. S.; Smith, D. A.; Szymanski, J.; Wren, J.

    2004-11-01

    The Northern Sky Variability Survey (NSVS) is a temporal record of the sky over the optical magnitude range from 8 to 15.5. It was conducted in the course of the first-generation Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment (ROTSE-I) using a robotic system of four comounted unfiltered telephoto lenses equipped with CCD cameras. The survey was conducted from Los Alamos, New Mexico, and primarily covers the entire northern sky. Some data in southern fields between declinations 0{deg} and -38{deg} are also available, although with fewer epochs and noticeably lesser quality. The NSVS contains light curves for approximately 14 million objects. With a 1-yr baseline and typically 100-500 measurements per object, the NSVS is the most extensive record of stellar variability across the bright sky available today. In a median field, bright unsaturated stars attain a point-to-point photometric scatter of ~0.02mag and position errors within 2. At Galactic latitudes |b|public access from the Sky Database for Objects in Time-Domain (SkyDOT) at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Copies of the full survey photometry may also be requested on tape. (7 data files).

  3. A plausible (overlooked) super-luminous supernova in the Sloan digital sky survey stripe 82 data

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kostrzewa-Rutkowska, Zuzanna; Kozłowski, Szymon; Wyrzykowski, Łukasz; Djorgovski, S. George; Mahabal, Ashish A.; Glikman, Eilat; Koposov, Sergey

    2013-01-01

    We present the discovery of a plausible super-luminous supernova (SLSN), found in the archival data of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe 82, called PSN 000123+000504. The supernova (SN) peaked at m g < 19.4 mag in the second half of 2005 September, but was missed by the real-time SN hunt. The observed part of the light curve (17 epochs) showed that the rise to the maximum took over 30 days, while the decline time lasted at least 70 days (observed frame), closely resembling other SLSNe of SN 2007bi type. The spectrum of the host galaxy reveals a redshift of z = 0.281 and the distance modulus of μ = 40.77 mag. Combining this information with the SDSS photometry, we found the host galaxy to be an LMC-like irregular dwarf galaxy with an absolute magnitude of M B = –18.2 ± 0.2 mag and an oxygen abundance of 12+log [O/H]=8.3±0.2; hence, the SN peaked at M g < –21.3 mag. Our SLSN follows the relation for the most energetic/super-luminous SNe exploding in low-metallicity environments, but we found no clear evidence for SLSNe to explode in low-luminosity (dwarf) galaxies only. The available information on the PSN 000123+000504 light curve suggests the magnetar-powered model as a likely scenario of this event. This SLSN is a new addition to a quickly growing family of super-luminous SNe.

  4. SYSTEMATIC SEARCH FOR EXTREMELY METAL-POOR GALAXIES IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Morales-Luis, A. B.; Sanchez Almeida, J.; Aguerri, J. A. L.; Munoz-Tunon, C., E-mail: abml@iac.es, E-mail: jos@iac.es, E-mail: cmt@iac.es, E-mail: jalfonso@iac.es [Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, E-38205 La Laguna, Tenerife (Spain)

    2011-12-10

    We carry out a systematic search for extremely metal-poor (XMP) galaxies in the spectroscopic sample of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data release 7 (DR7). The XMP candidates are found by classifying all the galaxies according to the form of their spectra in a region 80 A wide around H{alpha}. Due to the data size, the method requires an automatic classification algorithm. We use k-means. Our systematic search renders 32 galaxies having negligible [N II] lines, as expected in XMP galaxy spectra. Twenty-one of them have been previously identified as XMP galaxies in the literature-the remaining 11 are new. This was established after a thorough bibliographic search that yielded only some 130 galaxies known to have an oxygen metallicity 10 times smaller than the Sun (explicitly, with 12 + log (O/H) {<=} 7.65). XMP galaxies are rare; they represent 0.01% of the galaxies with emission lines in SDSS/DR7. Although the final metallicity estimate of all candidates remains pending, strong-line empirical calibrations indicate a metallicity about one-tenth solar, with the oxygen metallicity of the 21 known targets being 12 + log (O/H) {approx_equal} 7.61 {+-} 0.19. Since the SDSS catalog is limited in apparent magnitude, we have been able to estimate the volume number density of XMP galaxies in the local universe, which turns out to be (1.32 {+-} 0.23) Multiplication-Sign 10{sup -4} Mpc{sup -3}. The XMP galaxies constitute 0.1% of the galaxies in the local volume, or {approx}0.2% considering only emission-line galaxies. All but four of our candidates are blue compact dwarf galaxies, and 24 of them have either cometary shape or are formed by chained knots.

  5. A hot white dwarf luminosity function from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krzesinski, J.; Kleinman, S. J.; Nitta, A.; Hügelmeyer, S.; Dreizler, S.; Liebert, J.; Harris, H.

    2009-12-01

    Aims. We present a hot white dwarf (WD) luminosity function (LF) using data taken from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 4. We present and discuss a combined LF, along with separate DA and non-DA as LFs. We explore the completeness of our LFs and interpret a sudden drop in the non-DA LF near 2 M_bol as a transition of the non-DA WD atmosphere into the DA one during WD evolution. Our LF extends roughly between -0.5 T_eff > ˜25 000 K. Our LF should now be useful for estimates of recent star formation and for studies of neutrino and other potential particle emission losses in hot WDs. Methods: To create a sample whose completeness can be characterized fully, we used stars whose spectra were obtained via the SDSS's “hot standard” target selection criteria. The hot standard stars were purposefully targeted to a high level of completeness by the SDSS for calibration purposes. We are fortunate that many of them are hot white dwarfs stars. We further limited the sample to stars with fitted temperatures exceeding 23 500 K and log{g} > 7.0. We determined stellar distances for our sample based on their absolute SDSS g filter magnitudes, derived from WD stellar atmosphere model fits to the SDSS stellar spectra. Results: We compared our LF with those of other researchers where overlap occurs; however, our LFs are unique in their extension to the most luminous/hottest WDs. The cool end of our LF connects with the hot end of previously determined SDSS WD LFs and agreement here is quite good. It is also good with previous non-SDSS WD LFs. We note distinct differences between the DA and non-DA LFs and discuss the reliability of the DA LF at its hot end. We have extended the range of luminosities covered in the most recent WD LFs. The SDSS sample is understood quite well and its exploration should contribute to a number of new insights into early white dwarf evolution.

  6. M DWARFS IN SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY STRIPE 82: PHOTOMETRIC LIGHT CURVES AND FLARE RATE ANALYSIS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kowalski, Adam F.; Hawley, Suzanne L.; Hilton, Eric J.; Becker, Andrew C.; Sesar, Branimir; West, Andrew A.; Bochanski, John J.

    2009-01-01

    We present a flare rate analysis of 50,130 M dwarf light curves in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Stripe 82. We identified 271 flares using a customized variability index to search ∼2.5 million photometric observations for flux increases in the u and g bands. Every image of a flaring observation was examined by eye and with a point-spread function-matching and image subtraction tool to guard against false positives. Flaring is found to be strongly correlated with the appearance of Hα in emission in the quiet spectrum. Of the 99 flare stars that have spectra, we classify eight as relatively inactive. The flaring fraction is found to increase strongly in stars with redder colors during quiescence, which can be attributed to the increasing flare visibility and increasing active fraction for redder stars. The flaring fraction is strongly correlated with |Z| distance such that most stars that flare are within 300 pc of the Galactic plane. We derive flare u-band luminosities and find that the most luminous flares occur on the earlier-type m dwarfs. Our best estimate of the lower limit on the flaring rate (averaged over Stripe 82) for flares with Δu ≥ 0.7 mag on stars with u -1 deg -2 but can vary significantly with the line of sight.

  7. THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY DATA RELEASE 7 SPECTROSCOPIC M DWARF CATALOG. II. STATISTICAL PARALLAX ANALYSIS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bochanski, John J.; Hawley, Suzanne L.; West, Andrew A.

    2011-01-01

    We present a statistical parallax analysis of low-mass dwarfs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We calculate absolute r-band magnitudes (M r ) as a function of color and spectral type and investigate changes in M r with location in the Milky Way. We find that magnetically active M dwarfs are intrinsically brighter in M r than their inactive counterparts at the same color or spectral type. Metallicity, as traced by the proxy ζ, also affects M r , with metal-poor stars having fainter absolute magnitudes than higher metallicity M dwarfs at the same color or spectral type. Additionally, we measure the velocity ellipsoid and solar reflex motion for each subsample of M dwarfs. We find good agreement between our measured solar peculiar motion and previous results for similar populations, as well as some evidence for differing motions of early and late M-type populations in U and W velocities that cannot be attributed to asymmetric drift. The reflex solar motion and the velocity dispersions both show that younger populations, as traced by magnetic activity and location near the Galactic plane, have experienced less dynamical heating. We introduce a new parameter, the independent position altitude (IPA), to investigate populations as a function of vertical height from the Galactic plane. M dwarfs at all types exhibit an increase in velocity dispersion when analyzed in comparable IPA subgroups.

  8. Discovery of two gravitationally lensed quasars with image separations of 3 arcseconds from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Oguri, Masamune; Inada, Naohisa; Hennawi, Joseph F.; Richards, Gordon T.; Johnston, David E.; Frieman, Joshua A.; Pindor, Bartosz; Strauss, Michael A.; Brunner, Robert; Becker, Robert H.; Castander, Francisco J.; Gregg, Michael D.; Hall, Patrick B.; Rix, Hans-Walter; Schneider, Donald P.; Bahcall, Neta A.; Brinkmann, Jonathan; York, Donald G.

    2004-11-01

    We report the discovery of two doubly-imaged quasars, SDSS J100128.61+502756.9 and SDSS J120629.65+433217.6, at redshifts of 1.838 and 1.789 and with image separations of 2.86'' and 2.90'', respectively. The objects were selected as lens candidates from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Based on the identical nature of the spectra of the two quasars in each pair and the identification of the lens galaxies, we conclude that the objects are gravitational lenses. The lenses are complicated; in both systems there are several galaxies in the fields very close to the quasars, in addition to the lens galaxies themselves. The lens modeling implies that these nearby galaxies contribute significantly to the lens potentials. On larger scales, we have detected an enhancement in the galaxy density near SDSS J100128.61+502756.9. The number of lenses with image separation of {approx} 3'' in the SDSS already exceeds the prediction of simple theoretical models based on the standard Lambda-dominated cosmology and observed velocity function of galaxies.

  9. THE PHYSICAL ORIGINS OF THE MORPHOLOGY-DENSITY RELATION: EVIDENCE FOR GAS STRIPPING FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Van der Wel, Arjen; Bell, Eric F.; Skibba, Ramin A.; Rix, Hans-Walter; Holden, Bradford P.

    2010-01-01

    We provide a physical interpretation and explanation of the morphology-density relation for galaxies, drawing on stellar masses, star formation rates, axis ratios, and group halo masses from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We first re-cast the classical morphology-density relation in more quantitative terms, using low star formation rate (quiescence) as a proxy for early-type morphology and dark matter halo mass from a group catalog as a proxy for environmental density: for galaxies of a given stellar mass the quiescent fraction is found to increase with increasing dark matter halo mass. Our novel result is that-at a given stellar mass-quiescent galaxies are significantly flatter in dense environments, implying a higher fraction of disk galaxies. Supposing that the denser environments differ simply by a higher incidence of quiescent disk galaxies that are structurally similar to star-forming disk galaxies of similar mass, explains simultaneously and quantitatively these quiescence-environment and shape-environment relations. Our findings add considerable weight to the slow removal of gas as the main physical driver of the morphology-density relation, at the expense of other explanations.

  10. The Discovery of a High-Redshift Quasar without Emission Lines from Sloan Digital Sky Survey Commissioning Data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fan; Strauss; Gunn; Lupton; Carilli; Rupen; Schmidt; Moustakas; Davis; Annis; Bahcall; Brinkmann; Brunner; Csabai; Doi; Fukugita; Heckman; Hennessy; Hindsley; Ivezic; Knapp; Lamb; Munn; Pauls; Pier; Rockosi; Schneider; Szalay; Tucker; York

    1999-12-01

    We report observations of a luminous unresolved object at redshift z=4.62, with a featureless optical spectrum redward of the Lyalpha forest region, discovered from Sloan Digital Sky Survey commissioning data. The redshift is determined by the onset of the Lyalpha forest at lambda approximately 6800 Å and a Lyman limit system at lambda=5120 Å. A strong Lyalpha absorption system with weak metal absorption lines at z=4.58 is also identified in the spectrum. The object has a continuum absolute magnitude of -26.6 at 1450 Å in the rest frame (h0=0.5, q0=0.5) and therefore cannot be an ordinary galaxy. It shows no radio emission (the 3 sigma upper limit of its flux at 6 cm is 60 µJy), indicating a radio-to-optical flux ratio at least as small as that of the radio-weakest BL Lacertae objects known. It is also not linearly polarized to a 3 sigma upper limit of 4% in the observed I band. Therefore, it is either the most distant BL Lac object known to date, with very weak radio emission, or a new type of unbeamed quasar, whose broad emission line region is very weak or absent.

  11. White Dwarfs in the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey Data Release 9

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tremblay, P.-E.; Leggett, S. K.; Lodieu, N.; Freytag, B.; Bergeron, P.; Kalirai, J. S.; Ludwig, H.-G.

    2014-06-01

    We have identified 8 to 10 new cool white dwarfs from the Large Area Survey (LAS) Data Release 9 of the United Kingdom InfraRed Telescope (UKIRT) Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS). The data set was paired with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to obtain proper motions and a broad ugrizYJHK wavelength coverage. Optical spectroscopic observations were secured at Gemini Observatory and confirm the degenerate status for eight of our targets. The final sample includes two additional white dwarf candidates with no spectroscopic observations. We rely on improved one-dimensional model atmospheres and new multi-dimensional simulations with CO5BOLD to review the stellar parameters of the published LAS white dwarf sample along with our additional discoveries. Most of the new objects possess very cool atmospheres with effective temperatures below 5000 K, including two pure-hydrogen remnants with a cooling age between 8.5 and 9.0 Gyr, and tangential velocities in the range 40 km s-1 3.0 and 5.0 Gyr. These white dwarfs could be disk remnants with a very high velocity or former halo G stars. We also compare the LAS sample with earlier studies of very cool degenerates and observe a similar deficit of helium-dominated atmospheres in the range 5000 < T eff (K) < 6000. We review the possible explanations for the spectral evolution from helium-dominated toward hydrogen-rich atmospheres at low temperatures.

  12. It’s about time: How do sky surveys manage uncertainty about scientific needs many years into the future

    Science.gov (United States)

    Darch, Peter T.; Sands, Ashley E.

    2016-06-01

    Sky surveys, such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), generate data on an unprecedented scale. While many scientific projects span a few years from conception to completion, sky surveys are typically on the scale of decades. This paper focuses on critical challenges arising from long timescales, and how sky surveys address these challenges.We present findings from a study of LSST, comprising interviews (n=58) and observation. Conceived in the 1990s, the LSST Corporation was formed in 2003, and construction began in 2014. LSST will commence data collection operations in 2022 for ten years.One challenge arising from this long timescale is uncertainty about future needs of the astronomers who will use these data many years hence. Sources of uncertainty include scientific questions to be posed, astronomical phenomena to be studied, and tools and practices these astronomers will have at their disposal. These uncertainties are magnified by the rapid technological and scientific developments anticipated between now and the start of LSST operations.LSST is implementing a range of strategies to address these challenges. Some strategies involve delaying resolution of uncertainty, placing this resolution in the hands of future data users. Other strategies aim to reduce uncertainty by shaping astronomers’ data analysis practices so that these practices will integrate well with LSST once operations begin.One approach that exemplifies both types of strategy is the decision to make LSST data management software open source, even now as it is being developed. This policy will enable future data users to adapt this software to evolving needs. In addition, LSST intends for astronomers to start using this software well in advance of 2022, thereby embedding LSST software and data analysis approaches in the practices of astronomers.These findings strengthen arguments for making the software supporting sky surveys available as open

  13. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Composite Lags at z ≤ 1

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Jennifer; Shen, Yue; Horne, Keith; Brandt, W. N.; Greene, Jenny E.; Grier, C. J.; Ho, Luis C.; Kochanek, Chris; Schneider, Donald P.; Trump, Jonathan R.; Dawson, Kyle S.; Pan, Kaike; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Oravetz, Daniel; Simmons, Audrey; Malanushenko, Elena

    2017-09-01

    We present composite broad-line region (BLR) reverberation mapping lag measurements for Hα, Hβ, He II λ4686, and Mg II for a sample of 144, z ≲ 1 quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project. Using only the 32-epoch spectroscopic light curves in the first six-month season of SDSS-RM observations, we compile correlation function measurements for individual objects and then coadd them to allow the measurement of the average lags for our sample at mean redshifts of 0.4 (for Hα) and ˜0.65 (for the other lines). At similar quasar luminosities and redshifts, the sample-averaged lag decreases in the order of Mg II, Hα, Hβ, and He II. This decrease in lags is accompanied by an increase in the mean line width of the four lines, and is roughly consistent with the virialized motion for BLR gas in photoionization equilibrium. These are among the first RM measurements of stratified BLR structure at z > 0.3. Dividing our sample by luminosity, Hα shows clear evidence of increasing lags with luminosity, consistent with the expectation from the measured BLR size-luminosity relation based on Hβ. The other three lines do not show a clear luminosity trend in their average lags due to the limited dynamic range of luminosity probed and the poor average correlation signals in the divided samples, a situation that will be improved with the incorporation of additional photometric and spectroscopic data from SDSS-RM. We discuss the utility and caveats of composite lag measurements for large statistical quasar samples with reverberation mapping data.

  14. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Composite Lags at z ≤ 1

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Li, Jennifer; Shen, Yue [Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801 (United States); Horne, Keith [SUPA Physics/Astronomy, Univ. of St. Andrews, St. Andrews KY16 9SS (United Kingdom); Brandt, W. N.; Grier, C. J.; Schneider, Donald P. [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802 (United States); Greene, Jenny E. [Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States); Ho, Luis C. [Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China); Kochanek, Chris [Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States); Trump, Jonathan R. [Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, 2152 Hillside Road, Unit 3046, Storrs, CT 06269 (United States); Dawson, Kyle S. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States); Pan, Kaike; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Oravetz, Daniel; Simmons, Audrey; Malanushenko, Elena [Apache Point Observatory and New Mexico State University, P.O. Box 59, Sunspot, NM, 88349-0059 (United States)

    2017-09-01

    We present composite broad-line region (BLR) reverberation mapping lag measurements for H α , H β , He ii λ 4686, and Mg ii for a sample of 144, z ≲ 1 quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project. Using only the 32-epoch spectroscopic light curves in the first six-month season of SDSS-RM observations, we compile correlation function measurements for individual objects and then coadd them to allow the measurement of the average lags for our sample at mean redshifts of 0.4 (for H α ) and ∼0.65 (for the other lines). At similar quasar luminosities and redshifts, the sample-averaged lag decreases in the order of Mg ii, H α , H β , and He ii. This decrease in lags is accompanied by an increase in the mean line width of the four lines, and is roughly consistent with the virialized motion for BLR gas in photoionization equilibrium. These are among the first RM measurements of stratified BLR structure at z > 0.3. Dividing our sample by luminosity, H α shows clear evidence of increasing lags with luminosity, consistent with the expectation from the measured BLR size–luminosity relation based on H β . The other three lines do not show a clear luminosity trend in their average lags due to the limited dynamic range of luminosity probed and the poor average correlation signals in the divided samples, a situation that will be improved with the incorporation of additional photometric and spectroscopic data from SDSS-RM. We discuss the utility and caveats of composite lag measurements for large statistical quasar samples with reverberation mapping data.

  15. Investigations of Short-Timescale Outflow Variability in Quasars of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hemler, Zachary; Grier, Catherine; Brandt, William; Hall, Patrick; Schneider, Donald; Shen, Yue; Fernandez-Trincado, Jose; SDSS-RM Collaboration

    2018-01-01

    Quasar outflows are hypothesized to regulate the growth of a quasar's host galaxy and the supermassive black hole (SMBH) itself. Thus, understanding the physics of these outflows is imperative to understanding galactic evolution. The physical properties of these outflows, such as density, radial distance from the SMBH, and kinetic energy can be investigated by measuring both the strength and shape variability of broad absorption lines (BALs) in quasar spectra. However, the accuracy of physical properties calculated using BAL variability methods is limited by the time resolution of the observations. Recent spectral data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping program (SDSS-RM) provides a novel opportunity to investigate the short-term BAL variability of many quasars at many epochs. The SDSS-RM program took many epochs of spectra for a large sample of quasars over a period of several years, many of which exhibit BALs. The median rest-frame time resolution of these observations is roughly 2 days, in contrast to previous large-sample studies, which typically have time spacing on the order of hundred of days. We are using the SDSS-RM dataset to conduct a BAL variability study that will further constrain outflow properties and provide significant insights into the variability mechanisms of quasar outflows. We are searching for variability in BALs on timescales of less than 2 days among our sample of 22 quasars and determining whether this behavior is common among quasars. We are also investigating the general short-term (less than 10 days) variability characteristics of the entire sample. We will present preliminary results from this study and the possible implications to our understanding of quasar outflows.

  16. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Composite Lags at z ≤ 1

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Li, Jennifer; Shen, Yue; Horne, Keith; Brandt, W. N.; Grier, C. J.; Schneider, Donald P.; Greene, Jenny E.; Ho, Luis C.; Kochanek, Chris; Trump, Jonathan R.; Dawson, Kyle S.; Pan, Kaike; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Oravetz, Daniel; Simmons, Audrey; Malanushenko, Elena

    2017-01-01

    We present composite broad-line region (BLR) reverberation mapping lag measurements for H α , H β , He ii λ 4686, and Mg ii for a sample of 144, z ≲ 1 quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project. Using only the 32-epoch spectroscopic light curves in the first six-month season of SDSS-RM observations, we compile correlation function measurements for individual objects and then coadd them to allow the measurement of the average lags for our sample at mean redshifts of 0.4 (for H α ) and ∼0.65 (for the other lines). At similar quasar luminosities and redshifts, the sample-averaged lag decreases in the order of Mg ii, H α , H β , and He ii. This decrease in lags is accompanied by an increase in the mean line width of the four lines, and is roughly consistent with the virialized motion for BLR gas in photoionization equilibrium. These are among the first RM measurements of stratified BLR structure at z > 0.3. Dividing our sample by luminosity, H α shows clear evidence of increasing lags with luminosity, consistent with the expectation from the measured BLR size–luminosity relation based on H β . The other three lines do not show a clear luminosity trend in their average lags due to the limited dynamic range of luminosity probed and the poor average correlation signals in the divided samples, a situation that will be improved with the incorporation of additional photometric and spectroscopic data from SDSS-RM. We discuss the utility and caveats of composite lag measurements for large statistical quasar samples with reverberation mapping data.

  17. Surveying the skies how astronomers map the universe

    CERN Document Server

    Wynn-Williams, Gareth

    2016-01-01

    Since the time of Galileo, astronomy has been driven by technological innovation. With each major advance has come the opportunity and enthusiasm to survey the sky in a way that was not possible before. It is these surveys of discovery that are the subject of this book. In the first few chapters the author discusses what astronomers learned from visible-light surveys, first with the naked eye, then using telescopes in the seventeenth century, and photography in the nineteenth century. He then moves to the second half of the twentieth century when the skies started to be swept by radio, infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray and gamma ray telescopes, many of which had to be flown in satellites above the Earth’s atmosphere. These surveys led to the discovery of pulsars, quasars, molecular clouds, protostars, bursters, and black holes. He then returns to Earth to describe several currently active large-scale projects that methodically collect images, photometry and spectra that are then stored in vast publicly-accessibl...

  18. The SDSS-IV in 2015: Report of the Committee on the Participation of Women in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Diamond-Stanic, Aleksandar M.; Lucatello, Sara; Aragon-Salamanca, Alfonso; Cherinka, Brian; Cunha, Katia M. L.; Gillespie, Bruce Andrew; Hagen, Alex; Jones, Amy; Kinemuchi, Karen; Lundgren, Britt; Myers, Adam D.; Roman, Alexandre; Zasowski, Gail; SDSS-IV Collaboration

    2016-01-01

    Given that many astronomers now participate in large international scientific collaborations, it is important to examine whether these structures foster a healthy scientific climate that is inclusive and diverse. The Committee on the Participation of Women in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (CPWS) was formed to evaluate the climate and demographics within the SDSS collaboration and to make recommendations for how best to establish the scientific and technical leadership team for SDSS-IV. Building on the work described in Lundgren et al. (2015), the CPWS conducted a demographic survey in Spring 2015 that included questions about career and leadership status, racial / ethnic identity, gender identity, identification with the LGBT community, disability, partnership status, and level of parental education. For example, 71% of survey respondents identify as male and 81% do not identify as a racial or ethnic minority at their current institution. This reflects the under-representation of women and men from minority groups (e.g., people of color in the United States) and women from majority groups (e.g., white women in the United States) in the field of astronomy. We have focused our analysis on the representation of scientists from these groups among the SDSS-IV leadership and the full collaboration. Our goal is to use these quantitative data to track the demographics of SDSS-IV membership and leadership over time as we work to assess and improve the climate of SDSS-IV.

  19. DIGITAL ACCESS TO A SKY CENTURY AT HARVARD: INITIAL PHOTOMETRY AND ASTROMETRY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Laycock, S.; Tang, S.; Grindlay, J.; Los, E.; Simcoe, R.; Mink, D.

    2010-01-01

    Digital Access to a Sky Century at Harvard (DASCH) is a project to digitize the collection of ∼500,000 glass photographic plates held at Harvard College Observatory. The collection spans the time period from 1880 to 1985, during which time every point on the sky was been observed from 500 to 1000 times. In this paper, we describe the DASCH commissioning run, during which we developed the data-reduction pipeline, characterized the plates and fine-tuned the digitizer's performance and operation. This initial run consisted of 500 plates taken from a variety of different plate series, all containing the open cluster Praeseppe (M44). We report that accurate photometry at the 0.1 mag level is possible on the majority of plates, and demonstrate century-long light curves of various types of variable stars in and around M44. DASCH will generate a public online archive of the entire plate collection, including images, source catalogs, and light curves for nearly all astronomical objects brighter than about 17th magnitude.

  20. Digital Access to a Sky Century at Harvard: Initial Photometry and Astrometry

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laycock, S.; Tang, S.; Grindlay, J.; Los, E.; Simcoe, R.; Mink, D.

    2010-10-01

    Digital Access to a Sky Century at Harvard (DASCH) is a project to digitize the collection of ~500,000 glass photographic plates held at Harvard College Observatory. The collection spans the time period from 1880 to 1985, during which time every point on the sky was been observed from 500 to 1000 times. In this paper, we describe the DASCH commissioning run, during which we developed the data-reduction pipeline, characterized the plates and fine-tuned the digitizer's performance and operation. This initial run consisted of 500 plates taken from a variety of different plate series, all containing the open cluster Praeseppe (M44). We report that accurate photometry at the 0.1 mag level is possible on the majority of plates, and demonstrate century-long light curves of various types of variable stars in and around M44. DASCH will generate a public online archive of the entire plate collection, including images, source catalogs, and light curves for nearly all astronomical objects brighter than about 17th magnitude.

  1. Sloan Digital Sky Survey III photometric quasar clustering: probing the initial conditions of the Universe

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ho, Shirley; Agarwal, Nishant; Lyons, Richard; Disbrow, Ashley; O' Connell, Ross [McWilliams Center for Cosmology, Department of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (United States); Myers, Adam D. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071 (United States); Seo, Hee-Jong; Schlegel, David; Ross, Nicholas P. [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Rd, Berkeley, CA 94702 (United States); Ross, Ashley [Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, Dennis Sciama Building, Portsmouth, PO1 3FX (United Kingdom); Hirata, Christopher; Huff, Eric; Weinberg, David [Department of Astronomy, Ohio State University, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States); Padmanabhan, Nikhil [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520 (United States); Slosar, Anže [Brookhaven National Laboratory, Bldg. 510, Upton NY 11375 (United States); Strauss, Michael; Bahcall, Neta [Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States); Schneider, Donald P. [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States); Brinkmann, J. [Apache Point Observatory, P.O. Box 59, Sunspot, NM 88349-0059 (United States); Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie, E-mail: shirleyh@andrew.cmu.edu [CEA, Centre de Saclay, Irfu/SPP, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette (France); and others

    2015-05-01

    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has surveyed 14,555 square degrees of the sky, and delivered over a trillion pixels of imaging data. We present the large-scale clustering of 1.6 million quasars between z=0.5 and z=2.5 that have been classified from this imaging, representing the highest density of quasars ever studied for clustering measurements. This data set spans 0∼ 11,00 square degrees and probes a volume of 80 h{sup −3} Gpc{sup 3}. In principle, such a large volume and medium density of tracers should facilitate high-precision cosmological constraints. We measure the angular clustering of photometrically classified quasars using an optimal quadratic estimator in four redshift slices with an accuracy of ∼ 25% over a bin width of δ{sub l} ∼ 10−15 on scales corresponding to matter-radiation equality and larger (0ℓ ∼ 2−3). Observational systematics can strongly bias clustering measurements on large scales, which can mimic cosmologically relevant signals such as deviations from Gaussianity in the spectrum of primordial perturbations. We account for systematics by employing a new method recently proposed by Agarwal et al. (2014) to the clustering of photometrically classified quasars. We carefully apply our methodology to mitigate known observational systematics and further remove angular bins that are contaminated by unknown systematics. Combining quasar data with the photometric luminous red galaxy (LRG) sample of Ross et al. (2011) and Ho et al. (2012), and marginalizing over all bias and shot noise-like parameters, we obtain a constraint on local primordial non-Gaussianity of f{sub NL} = −113{sup +154}{sub −154} (1σ error). We next assume that the bias of quasar and galaxy distributions can be obtained independently from quasar/galaxy-CMB lensing cross-correlation measurements (such as those in Sherwin et al. (2013)). This can be facilitated by spectroscopic observations of the sources, enabling the redshift distribution to be

  2. HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT: RECORD-BREAKING COMPACT STELLAR SYSTEMS IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sandoval, Michael A.; Vo, Richard P.; Romanowsky, Aaron J.; Strader, Jay; Choi, Jieun; Conroy, Charlie; Jennings, Zachary G.; Villaume, Alexa; Brodie, Jean P.; Foster, Caroline; Norris, Mark A.; Janz, Joachim; Forbes, Duncan A.

    2015-01-01

    Motivated by the recent, serendipitous discovery of the densest known galaxy, M60-UCD1, we present two initial findings from a follow-up search, using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Subaru/Suprime-Cam, and Hubble Space Telescope imaging, and SOuthern Astrophysical Research (SOAR)/Goodman spectroscopy. The first object discovered, M59-UCD3, has a similar size to M60-UCD1 (half-light radius of r h ∼ 20 pc) but is 40% more luminous (M V ∼ −14.6), making it the new densest-known galaxy. The second, M85-HCC1, has a size like a typical globular cluster (GC; r h ∼ 1.8 pc) but is much more luminous (M V ∼ −12.5). This hypercompact cluster is by far the densest confirmed free-floating stellar system, and is equivalent to the densest known nuclear star clusters. From spectroscopy, we find that both objects are relatively young (∼9 and ∼3 Gyr, respectively), with metal-abundances that resemble those of galaxy centers. Their host galaxies show clear signs of large-scale disturbances, and we conclude that these dense objects are the remnant nuclei of recently accreted galaxies. M59-UCD3 is an ideal target for follow-up with high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy to search for an overweight central supermassive black hole as was discovered in M60-UCD1. These findings also emphasize the potential value of ultra-compact dwarfs and massive GCs as tracers of the assembly histories of galaxies

  3. HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT: RECORD-BREAKING COMPACT STELLAR SYSTEMS IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Sandoval, Michael A.; Vo, Richard P.; Romanowsky, Aaron J. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, San José State University, One Washington Square, San Jose, CA 95192 (United States); Strader, Jay [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824 (United States); Choi, Jieun; Conroy, Charlie [Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Jennings, Zachary G.; Villaume, Alexa [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States); Brodie, Jean P. [University of California Observatories, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States); Foster, Caroline [Australian Astronomical Observatory, P.O. Box 915, North Ryde, NSW 1670 (Australia); Norris, Mark A. [Max Planck Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117, Heidelberg (Germany); Janz, Joachim; Forbes, Duncan A. [Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University, Hawthorn, VIC 3122 (Australia)

    2015-07-20

    Motivated by the recent, serendipitous discovery of the densest known galaxy, M60-UCD1, we present two initial findings from a follow-up search, using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Subaru/Suprime-Cam, and Hubble Space Telescope imaging, and SOuthern Astrophysical Research (SOAR)/Goodman spectroscopy. The first object discovered, M59-UCD3, has a similar size to M60-UCD1 (half-light radius of r{sub h} ∼ 20 pc) but is 40% more luminous (M{sub V} ∼ −14.6), making it the new densest-known galaxy. The second, M85-HCC1, has a size like a typical globular cluster (GC; r{sub h} ∼ 1.8 pc) but is much more luminous (M{sub V} ∼ −12.5). This hypercompact cluster is by far the densest confirmed free-floating stellar system, and is equivalent to the densest known nuclear star clusters. From spectroscopy, we find that both objects are relatively young (∼9 and ∼3 Gyr, respectively), with metal-abundances that resemble those of galaxy centers. Their host galaxies show clear signs of large-scale disturbances, and we conclude that these dense objects are the remnant nuclei of recently accreted galaxies. M59-UCD3 is an ideal target for follow-up with high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy to search for an overweight central supermassive black hole as was discovered in M60-UCD1. These findings also emphasize the potential value of ultra-compact dwarfs and massive GCs as tracers of the assembly histories of galaxies.

  4. A 6-cm deep sky survey

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fomalont, E.B.; Kellermann, K.I.; Wall, J.V.

    1983-01-01

    In order to extend radio source counts to lower flux density, the authors have used the VLA to survey a small region of sky at 4.885 GHz (6 cm) to a limiting flux density of 50 μJy. Details of this deep survey are given in the paper by kellermann et al. (these proceedings). In addition, they have observed 10 other nearby fields to a limiting flux density of 350 μJy in order to provide better statistics on sources of intermediate flux density. (Auth.)

  5. MonetDB/SQL Meets SkyServer: the Challenges of a Scientific Database.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    M.G. Ivanova (Milena); N.J. Nes (Niels); R.A. Goncalves (Romulo); M.L. Kersten (Martin)

    2007-01-01

    textabstractThis paper presents our experiences in porting the Sloan Digital Sky Survey(SDSS)/ SkyServer to the state-of-the-art open source database system MonetDB/SQL. SDSS acts as a well-documented benchmark for scientific database management. We have achieved a fully functional prototype for the

  6. White dwarfs in the UKIRT infrared deep sky survey data release

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tremblay, P.-E.; Kalirai, J. S.; Leggett, S. K.; Lodieu, N.; Freytag, B.; Bergeron, P.; Ludwig, H.-G.

    2014-01-01

    We have identified 8 to 10 new cool white dwarfs from the Large Area Survey (LAS) Data Release 9 of the United Kingdom InfraRed Telescope (UKIRT) Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS). The data set was paired with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to obtain proper motions and a broad ugrizYJHK wavelength coverage. Optical spectroscopic observations were secured at Gemini Observatory and confirm the degenerate status for eight of our targets. The final sample includes two additional white dwarf candidates with no spectroscopic observations. We rely on improved one-dimensional model atmospheres and new multi-dimensional simulations with CO5BOLD to review the stellar parameters of the published LAS white dwarf sample along with our additional discoveries. Most of the new objects possess very cool atmospheres with effective temperatures below 5000 K, including two pure-hydrogen remnants with a cooling age between 8.5 and 9.0 Gyr, and tangential velocities in the range 40 km s –1 ≤v tan ≤ 60 km s –1 . They are likely thick disk 10-11 Gyr old objects. In addition, we find a resolved double degenerate system with v tan ∼ 155 km s –1 and a cooling age between 3.0 and 5.0 Gyr. These white dwarfs could be disk remnants with a very high velocity or former halo G stars. We also compare the LAS sample with earlier studies of very cool degenerates and observe a similar deficit of helium-dominated atmospheres in the range 5000 < T eff (K) < 6000. We review the possible explanations for the spectral evolution from helium-dominated toward hydrogen-rich atmospheres at low temperatures.

  7. Results from a Pilot REU Program: Exploring the Cosmos Using Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chanover, Nancy J.; Holley-Bockelmann, Kelly; Holtzman, Jon A.

    2017-01-01

    In the Summer of 2016 we conducted a 10-week pilot Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program aimed at increasing the participation of underrepresented minority undergraduate students in research using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). This program utilized a distributed REU model, whereby students worked with SDSS scientists on exciting research projects while serving as members of a geographically distributed research community. The format of this REU is similar to that of the SDSS collaboration itself, and since this collaboration structure has become a model for the next generation of large scale astronomical surveys, the students participating in the SDSS REU received early exposure and familiarity with this approach to collaborative scientific research. The SDSS REU also provided the participants with a low-risk opportunity to audition for graduate schools and to explore opportunities afforded by a career as a research scientist. The six student participants were placed at SDSS REU host sites at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Portsmouth. Their research projects covered a broad range of topics related to stars, galaxies, and quasars, all making use of SDSS data. At the start of the summer the REU students participated in a week-long Boot Camp at NMSU, which served as a program orientation, an introduction to skills relevant to their research projects, and an opportunity for team-building and cohort-forming. To foster a sense of community among our distributed students throughout the summer, we conducted a weekly online meeting for all students in the program via virtual meeting tools. These virtual group meetings served two purposes: as a weekly check-in to find out how their projects were progressing, and to conduct professional development seminars on topics of interest and relevance to the REU participants. We discuss the outcomes of this

  8. AUTOMATED UNSUPERVISED CLASSIFICATION OF THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY STELLAR SPECTRA USING k-MEANS CLUSTERING

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Sanchez Almeida, J.; Allende Prieto, C., E-mail: jos@iac.es, E-mail: callende@iac.es [Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, E-38205 La Laguna, Tenerife (Spain)

    2013-01-20

    Large spectroscopic surveys require automated methods of analysis. This paper explores the use of k-means clustering as a tool for automated unsupervised classification of massive stellar spectral catalogs. The classification criteria are defined by the data and the algorithm, with no prior physical framework. We work with a representative set of stellar spectra associated with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) SEGUE and SEGUE-2 programs, which consists of 173,390 spectra from 3800 to 9200 A sampled on 3849 wavelengths. We classify the original spectra as well as the spectra with the continuum removed. The second set only contains spectral lines, and it is less dependent on uncertainties of the flux calibration. The classification of the spectra with continuum renders 16 major classes. Roughly speaking, stars are split according to their colors, with enough finesse to distinguish dwarfs from giants of the same effective temperature, but with difficulties to separate stars with different metallicities. There are classes corresponding to particular MK types, intrinsically blue stars, dust-reddened, stellar systems, and also classes collecting faulty spectra. Overall, there is no one-to-one correspondence between the classes we derive and the MK types. The classification of spectra without continuum renders 13 classes, the color separation is not so sharp, but it distinguishes stars of the same effective temperature and different metallicities. Some classes thus obtained present a fairly small range of physical parameters (200 K in effective temperature, 0.25 dex in surface gravity, and 0.35 dex in metallicity), so that the classification can be used to estimate the main physical parameters of some stars at a minimum computational cost. We also analyze the outliers of the classification. Most of them turn out to be failures of the reduction pipeline, but there are also high redshift QSOs, multiple stellar systems, dust-reddened stars, galaxies, and, finally, odd

  9. Optical spectroscopic observations of blazars and γ-ray blazar candidates in the sloan digital sky survey data release nine

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Massaro, F.; Masetti, N.; D' Abrusco, R.; Paggi, A.; Funk, S.

    2014-09-09

    We present an analysis of the optical spectra available in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data release nine (SDSS DR9) for the blazars listed in the ROMA-BZCAT and for the γ-ray blazar candidates selected according to their IR colors. First, we adopt a statistical approach based on Monte Carlo simulations to find the optical counterparts of the blazars listed in the ROMA-BZCAT catalog. Then, we crossmatched the SDSS spectroscopic catalog with our selected samples of blazars and γ-ray blazar candidates, searching for those with optical spectra available to classify our blazar-like sources and, whenever possible, to confirm their redshifts. Our main objectives are to determine the classification of uncertain blazars listed in the ROMA-BZCAT and to discover new gamma-ray blazars. For the ROMA-BZCAT sources, we investigated a sample of 84 blazars, confirming the classification for 20 of them and obtaining 18 new redshift estimates. For the γ-ray blazars, indicated as potential counterparts of unassociated Fermi sources or with uncertain nature, we established the blazar-like nature of 8 out of the 27 sources analyzed and confirmed 14 classifications.

  10. The all-sky 408 MHz survey

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Haslam, C.G.T.; Salter, C.J.; Stoffel, H.

    1981-01-01

    A brief outline of the results of this survey is presented. The 408 MHz All-sky Survey has been made from four radio continuum surveys observed between 1965 and 1978, using the Jodrell Bank MKI telescope (Haslam et al., 1970), the Effelsberg 100 metre telescope (Haslam et al., 1974) and the Parkes 64 metre telescope (Haslam et al., 1975). A detailed description of the survey data reduction and calibration methods, with preliminary astronomical results will soon be published (Haslam et al., 1980a) and a second paper will give an atlas of maps at the full survey resolution of 51' arc between half power points (Haslam et al., 1980b). A map, smoothed to a gaussian beam with resolution between half power poitns of 3 0 , is presented. (Auth.)

  11. Counts-in-Cylinders in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey with Comparisons to N-Body

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Berrier, Heather D.; Barton, Elizabeth J.; /UC, Irvine; Berrier, Joel C.; /Arkansas U.; Bullock, James S.; /UC, Irvine; Zentner, Andrew R.; /Pittsburgh U.; Wechsler, Risa H. /KIPAC, Menlo Park /SLAC

    2010-12-16

    Environmental statistics provide a necessary means of comparing the properties of galaxies in different environments and a vital test of models of galaxy formation within the prevailing, hierarchical cosmological model. We explore counts-in-cylinders, a common statistic defined as the number of companions of a particular galaxy found within a given projected radius and redshift interval. Galaxy distributions with the same two-point correlation functions do not necessarily have the same companion count distributions. We use this statistic to examine the environments of galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Data Release 4. We also make preliminary comparisons to four models for the spatial distributions of galaxies, based on N-body simulations, and data from SDSS DR4 to study the utility of the counts-in-cylinders statistic. There is a very large scatter between the number of companions a galaxy has and the mass of its parent dark matter halo and the halo occupation, limiting the utility of this statistic for certain kinds of environmental studies. We also show that prevalent, empirical models of galaxy clustering that match observed two- and three-point clustering statistics well fail to reproduce some aspects of the observed distribution of counts-in-cylinders on 1, 3 and 6-h{sup -1}Mpc scales. All models that we explore underpredict the fraction of galaxies with few or no companions in 3 and 6-h{sup -1} Mpc cylinders. Roughly 7% of galaxies in the real universe are significantly more isolated within a 6 h{sup -1} Mpc cylinder than the galaxies in any of the models we use. Simple, phenomenological models that map galaxies to dark matter halos fail to reproduce high-order clustering statistics in low-density environments.

  12. ATLAS: A High-cadence All-sky Survey System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tonry, J. L.; Denneau, L.; Heinze, A. N.; Stalder, B.; Smith, K. W.; Smartt, S. J.; Stubbs, C. W.; Weiland, H. J.; Rest, A.

    2018-06-01

    Technology has advanced to the point that it is possible to image the entire sky every night and process the data in real time. The sky is hardly static: many interesting phenomena occur, including variable stationary objects such as stars or QSOs, transient stationary objects such as supernovae or M dwarf flares, and moving objects such as asteroids and the stars themselves. Funded by NASA, we have designed and built a sky survey system for the purpose of finding dangerous near-Earth asteroids (NEAs). This system, the “Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System” (ATLAS), has been optimized to produce the best survey capability per unit cost, and therefore is an efficient and competitive system for finding potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) but also for tracking variables and finding transients. While carrying out its NASA mission, ATLAS now discovers more bright (m day cadence. ATLAS discovered the afterglow of a gamma-ray burst independent of the high energy trigger and has released a variable star catalog of 5 × 106 sources. This is the first of a series of articles describing ATLAS, devoted to the design and performance of the ATLAS system. Subsequent articles will describe in more detail the software, the survey strategy, ATLAS-derived NEA population statistics, transient detections, and the first data release of variable stars and transient light curves.

  13. The SPHEREx All-Sky Spectroscopic Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Unwin, Stephen C.; SPHEREx Science Team, SPHEREx Project Team

    2016-06-01

    SPHEREx is a mission to conduct an optical-near-IR survey of the entire sky with a spectrum at every pixel location. It was selected by NASA for a Phase A study in its Small Explorer Program; if selected, development would begin in 2016, and the observatory would start a 2-year prime mission in 2020. An all-sky spectroscopic survey can be used to tackle a wide range of science questions. The SPHEREx science team is focusing on three: (1) Probing the physics of inflation through measuring non-Gaussianity from the study of large-scale structure; (2) Studying the origin of water and biogenic molecules in a wide range of physical and chemical environments via ice absorption spectra; (3) Charting the history of star formation in the universe through intensity mapping of the large-scale spatial power. The instrument is a small wide-field telescope operating in the range of 0.75 - 4.8 µm at a spectral resolution of 41.5 in the optical and 150 at the long-wavelength end. It observes in a sun-sync low-earth orbit, covering the sky like WISE and COBE. SPHEREx is a simple instrument that requires no new technology. The Phase A design has substantial technical and resource margins and can be built with low risk. It is a partnership between Caltech and JPL, with Ball Aerospace and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute as major partners. This research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

  14. THE INTRINSIC EDDINGTON RATIO DISTRIBUTION OF ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI IN STAR-FORMING GALAXIES FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Jones, Mackenzie L.; Hickox, Ryan C.; Black, Christine S.; Hainline, Kevin N.; DiPompeo, Michael A. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755 (United States); Goulding, Andy D. [Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States)

    2016-07-20

    An important question in extragalactic astronomy concerns the distribution of black hole accretion rates of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Based on observations at X-ray wavelengths, the observed Eddington ratio distribution appears as a power law, while optical studies have often yielded a lognormal distribution. There is increasing evidence that these observed discrepancies may be due to contamination by star formation and other selection effects. Using a sample of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7, we test whether or not an intrinsic Eddington ratio distribution that takes the form of a Schechter function is consistent with previous work suggesting that young galaxies in optical surveys have an observed lognormal Eddington ratio distribution. We simulate the optical emission line properties of a population of galaxies and AGNs using a broad, instantaneous luminosity distribution described by a Schechter function near the Eddington limit. This simulated AGN population is then compared to observed galaxies via their positions on an emission line excitation diagram and Eddington ratio distributions. We present an improved method for extracting the AGN distribution using BPT diagnostics that allows us to probe over one order of magnitude lower in Eddington ratio, counteracting the effects of dilution by star formation. We conclude that for optically selected AGNs in young galaxies, the intrinsic Eddington ratio distribution is consistent with a possibly universal, broad power law with an exponential cutoff, as this distribution is observed in old, optically selected galaxies and X-rays.

  15. The VLA Sky Survey (VLASS): Overview and First Results

    Science.gov (United States)

    Myers, Steven T.; VLASS Survey Team, Survey Science Group (SSG)

    2018-01-01

    The VLA Sky Survey (VLASS) is a 5520 hour spectropolarimetric synoptic survey covering the 33885 square degrees of the sky above Declination -40 degrees from 2-4 GHz at 2.5" angular resolution using the upgraded Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). Over the survey duration of 7 years, each area of the sky will be covered in 3 epochs spaced 32 months apart, to a projected depth of 0.12mJy/beam rms noise per epoch and 0.07mJy/beam for 3 epochs combined. The VLASS employs on-the-fly mosaicking (OTFM) to rapidly scan the sky with a net speed of approximately 20 sq. degrees per hour. The high-level science goals for the survey include the identification and precise location of radio transients, the measurement of magnetic fields in our galaxy and beyond, and the study of radio emission from galaxies and active galactic nuclei throughout the Universe. The ability of the VLASS to see through dust allows us to unveil phenomena such as hidden cosmic explosions, emission from deep within our galaxy, and supermassive black holes buried within host galaxies.The VLASS was proposed in 2014 by our community-led Survey Science Group (SSG). VLASS Pilot observations were taken in mid-2016, and the first epoch covering half the area (VLASS1.1) commenced in September 2017. The raw data from the VLASS are available in the NRAO archive immediately with no proprietary period. The Basic Data Products (BDP) that will be produced by the survey team are public and will additionally include: calibrated visibility data, quick-look continuum images (with a goal of posting to the archive within 1 week of observation), single-epoch and cumulative combined-epoch images, spectral image cubes, and basic object catalogs. Single-epoch and cumulative images are in intensity and linear polarization (Stokes IQU). In addition to the BDP provided by NRAO and served through the NRAO archive, there are plans for Enhanced Data Products and Services to be provided by the community in partnership with the

  16. Eclipsing damped Lyα systems in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 12★

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fathivavsari, H.; Petitjean, P.; Jamialahmadi, N.; Khosroshahi, H. G.; Rahmani, H.; Finley, H.; Noterdaeme, P.; Pâris, I.; Srianand, R.

    2018-04-01

    We present the results of our automatic search for proximate damped Lyα absorption (PDLA) systems in the quasar spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 12. We constrain our search to those PDLAs lying within 1500 km s-1 from the quasar to make sure that the broad DLA absorption trough masks most of the strong Lyα emission from the broad line region (BLR) of the quasar. When the Lyα emission from the BLR is blocked by these so-called eclipsing DLAs, narrow Lyα emission from the host galaxy could be revealed as a narrow emission line (NEL) in the DLA trough. We define a statistical sample of 399 eclipsing DLAs with log N(H I) ≥ 21.10. We divide our statistical sample into three subsamples based on the strength of the NEL detected in the DLA trough. By studying the stacked spectra of these subsamples, we found that absorption from high ionization species are stronger in DLAs with stronger NEL in their absorption core. Moreover, absorption from the excited states of species like Si II are also stronger in DLAs with stronger NEL. We also found no correlation between the luminosity of the Lyα NEL and the quasar luminosity. These observations are consistent with a scenario in which the DLAs with stronger NEL are denser and physically closer to the quasar. We propose that these eclipsing DLAs could be the product of the interaction between infalling and outflowing gas. High resolution spectroscopic observation would be needed to shed some light on the nature of these eclipsing DLAs.

  17. We’re Working On It: Transferring the Sloan Digital Sky Survey from Laboratory to Library

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ashley E. Sands

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available This article reports on the transfer of a massive scientific dataset from a national laboratory to a university library, and from one kind of workforce to another. We use the transfer of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS archive to examine the emergence of a new workforce for scientific research data management. Many individuals with diverse educational backgrounds and domain experience are involved in SDSS data management: domain scientists, computer scientists, software and systems engineers, programmers, and librarians. These types of positions have been described using terms such as research technologist, data scientist, e-science professional, data curator, and more. The findings reported here are based on semi-structured interviews, ethnographic participant observation, and archival studies from 2011-2013. The library staff conducting the data storage and archiving of the SDSS archive faced two performance problems. The preservation specialist and the system administrator worked together closely to discover and implement solutions to the slow data transfer and verification processes. The team overcame these slow-downs by problem solving, working in a team, and writing code. The library team lacked the astronomy domain knowledge necessary to meet some of their preservation and curation goals. The case study reveals the variety of expertise, experience, and individuals essential to the SDSS data management process. A variety of backgrounds and educational histories emerge in the data managers studied. Teamwork is necessary to bring disparate expertise together, especially between those with technical and domain education. The findings have implications for data management education, policy and relevant stakeholders. This article is part of continuing research on Knowledge Infrastructures.

  18. A high performance cost-effective digital complex correlator for an X-band polarimetry survey.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bergano, Miguel; Rocha, Armando; Cupido, Luís; Barbosa, Domingos; Villela, Thyrso; Boas, José Vilas; Rocha, Graça; Smoot, George F

    2016-01-01

    The detailed knowledge of the Milky Way radio emission is important to characterize galactic foregrounds masking extragalactic and cosmological signals. The update of the global sky models describing radio emissions over a very large spectral band requires high sensitivity experiments capable of observing large sky areas with long integration times. Here, we present the design of a new 10 GHz (X-band) polarimeter digital back-end to map the polarization components of the galactic synchrotron radiation field of the Northern Hemisphere sky. The design follows the digital processing trends in radio astronomy and implements a large bandwidth (1 GHz) digital complex cross-correlator to extract the Stokes parameters of the incoming synchrotron radiation field. The hardware constraints cover the implemented VLSI hardware description language code and the preliminary results. The implementation is based on the simultaneous digitized acquisition of the Cartesian components of the two linear receiver polarization channels. The design strategy involves a double data rate acquisition of the ADC interleaved parallel bus, and field programmable gate array device programming at the register transfer mode. The digital core of the back-end is capable of processing 32 Gbps and is built around an Altera field programmable gate array clocked at 250 MHz, 1 GSps analog to digital converters and a clock generator. The control of the field programmable gate array internal signal delays and a convenient use of its phase locked loops provide the timing requirements to achieve the target bandwidths and sensitivity. This solution is convenient for radio astronomy experiments requiring large bandwidth, high functionality, high volume availability and low cost. Of particular interest, this correlator was developed for the Galactic Emission Mapping project and is suitable for large sky area polarization continuum surveys. The solutions may also be adapted to be used at signal processing

  19. The Next Generation Sky Survey and the Quest for Cooler Brown Dwarfs

    OpenAIRE

    Kirkpatrick, J. Davy

    2002-01-01

    The Next Generation Sky Survey (NGSS) is a proposed NASA MIDEX mission to map the entire sky in four infrared bandpasses - 3.5, 4.7, 12, and 23 um. The seven-month mission will use a 50-cm telescope and four-channel imager to survey the sky from a circular orbit above the Earth. Expected sensitivities will be half a million times that of COBE/DIRBE at 3.5 and 4.7 um and a thousand times that of IRAS at 12 and 23 um. NGSS will be particularly sensitive to brown dwarfs cooler than those present...

  20. Exploring Milkyway Halo Substructures with Large-Area Sky Surveys

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Li, Ting [Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States)

    2016-01-01

    Over the last two decades, our understanding of the Milky Way has been improved thanks to large data sets arising from large-area digital sky surveys. The stellar halo is now known to be inhabited by a variety of spatial and kinematic stellar substructures, including stellar streams and stellar clouds, all of which are predicted by hierarchical Lambda Cold Dark Matter models of galaxy formation. In this dissertation, we first present the analysis of spectroscopic observations of individual stars from the two candidate structures discovered using an M-giant catalog from the Two Micron All-Sky Survey. The follow-up observations show that one of the candidates is a genuine structure which might be associated with the Galactic Anticenter Stellar Structure, while the other one is a false detection due to the systematic photometric errors in the survey or dust extinction in low Galactic latitudes. We then presented the discovery of an excess of main sequence turn-off stars in the direction of the constellations of Eridanus and Phoenix from the first-year data of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) – a five-year, 5,000 deg2 optical imaging survey in the Southern Hemisphere. The Eridanus-Phoenix (EriPhe) overdensity is centered around l ~ 285° and b ~ -60° and the Poisson significance of the detection is at least 9σ. The EriPhe overdensity has a cloud-like morphology and the extent is at least ~ 4 kpc by ~ 3 kpc in projection, with a heliocentric distance of about d ~ 16 kpc. The EriPhe overdensity is morphologically similar to the previously-discovered Virgo overdensity and Hercules-Aquila cloud. These three overdensities lie along a polar plane separated by ~ 120° and may share a common origin. In addition to the scientific discoveries, we also present the work to improve the photometric calibration in DES using auxiliary calibration systems, since the photometric errors can cause false detection in first the halo substructure. We present a detailed description of the two

  1. The 13th Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the SDSS-IV Survey Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Albareti, Franco D.; Allende Prieto, Carlos; Almeida, Andres; Anders, Friedrich; Anderson, Scott; Andrews, Brett H.; Aragón-Salamanca, Alfonso; Argudo-Fernández, Maria; Armengaud, Eric; Aubourg, Eric; Avila-Reese, Vladimir; Badenes, Carles; Bailey, Stephen; Barbuy, Beatriz; Barger, Kat; Barrera-Ballesteros, Jorge; Bartosz, Curtis; Basu, Sarbani; Bates, Dominic; Battaglia, Giuseppina; Baumgarten, Falk; Baur, Julien; Bautista, Julian; Beers, Timothy C.; Belfiore, Francesco; Bershady, Matthew; Bertran de Lis, Sara; Bird, Jonathan C.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Blanc, Guillermo A.; Blanton, Michael; Blomqvist, Michael; Bolton, Adam S.; Borissova, J.; Bovy, Jo; Nielsen Brandt, William; Brinkmann, Jonathan; Brownstein, Joel R.; Bundy, Kevin; Burtin, Etienne; Busca, Nicolás G.; Orlando Camacho Chavez, Hugo; Cano Díaz, M.; Cappellari, Michele; Carrera, Ricardo; Chen, Yanping; Cherinka, Brian; Cheung, Edmond; Chiappini, Cristina; Chojnowski, Drew; Chuang, Chia-Hsun; Chung, Haeun; Cirolini, Rafael Fernando; Clerc, Nicolas; Cohen, Roger E.; Comerford, Julia M.; Comparat, Johan; Correa do Nascimento, Janaina; Cousinou, Marie-Claude; Covey, Kevin; Crane, Jeffrey D.; Croft, Rupert; Cunha, Katia; Darling, Jeremy; Davidson, James W., Jr.; Dawson, Kyle; Da Costa, Luiz; Da Silva Ilha, Gabriele; Deconto Machado, Alice; Delubac, Timothée; De Lee, Nathan; De la Macorra, Axel; De la Torre, Sylvain; Diamond-Stanic, Aleksandar M.; Donor, John; Downes, Juan Jose; Drory, Niv; Du, Cheng; Du Mas des Bourboux, Hélion; Dwelly, Tom; Ebelke, Garrett; Eigenbrot, Arthur; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Elsworth, Yvonne P.; Emsellem, Eric; Eracleous, Michael; Escoffier, Stephanie; Evans, Michael L.; Falcón-Barroso, Jesús; Fan, Xiaohui; Favole, Ginevra; Fernandez-Alvar, Emma; Fernandez-Trincado, J. G.; Feuillet, Diane; Fleming, Scott W.; Font-Ribera, Andreu; Freischlad, Gordon; Frinchaboy, Peter; Fu, Hai; Gao, Yang; Garcia, Rafael A.; Garcia-Dias, R.; Garcia-Hernández, D. A.; Garcia Pérez, Ana E.; Gaulme, Patrick; Ge, Junqiang; Geisler, Douglas; Gillespie, Bruce; Gil Marin, Hector; Girardi, Léo; Goddard, Daniel; Gomez Maqueo Chew, Yilen; Gonzalez-Perez, Violeta; Grabowski, Kathleen; Green, Paul; Grier, Catherine J.; Grier, Thomas; Guo, Hong; Guy, Julien; Hagen, Alex; Hall, Matt; Harding, Paul; Harley, R. E.; Hasselquist, Sten; Hawley, Suzanne; Hayes, Christian R.; Hearty, Fred; Hekker, Saskia; Hernandez Toledo, Hector; Ho, Shirley; Hogg, David W.; Holley-Bockelmann, Kelly; Holtzman, Jon A.; Holzer, Parker H.; Hu, Jian; Huber, Daniel; Hutchinson, Timothy Alan; Hwang, Ho Seong; Ibarra-Medel, Héctor J.; Ivans, Inese I.; Ivory, KeShawn; Jaehnig, Kurt; Jensen, Trey W.; Johnson, Jennifer A.; Jones, Amy; Jullo, Eric; Kallinger, T.; Kinemuchi, Karen; Kirkby, David; Klaene, Mark; Kneib, Jean-Paul; Kollmeier, Juna A.; Lacerna, Ivan; Lane, Richard R.; Lang, Dustin; Laurent, Pierre; Law, David R.; Leauthaud, Alexie; Le Goff, Jean-Marc; Li, Chen; Li, Cheng; Li, Niu; Li, Ran; Liang, Fu-Heng; Liang, Yu; Lima, Marcos; Lin, Lihwai; Lin, Lin; Lin, Yen-Ting; Liu, Chao; Long, Dan; Lucatello, Sara; MacDonald, Nicholas; MacLeod, Chelsea L.; Mackereth, J. Ted; Mahadevan, Suvrath; Geimba Maia, Marcio Antonio; Maiolino, Roberto; Majewski, Steven R.; Malanushenko, Olena; Malanushenko, Viktor; Dullius Mallmann, Nícolas; Manchado, Arturo; Maraston, Claudia; Marques-Chaves, Rui; Martinez Valpuesta, Inma; Masters, Karen L.; Mathur, Savita; McGreer, Ian D.; Merloni, Andrea; Merrifield, Michael R.; Meszáros, Szabolcs; Meza, Andres; Miglio, Andrea; Minchev, Ivan; Molaverdikhani, Karan; Montero-Dorta, Antonio D.; Mosser, Benoit; Muna, Demitri; Myers, Adam; Nair, Preethi; Nandra, Kirpal; Ness, Melissa; Newman, Jeffrey A.; Nichol, Robert C.; Nidever, David L.; Nitschelm, Christian; O’Connell, Julia; Oravetz, Audrey; Oravetz, Daniel J.; Pace, Zachary; Padilla, Nelson; Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie; Pan, Kaike; Parejko, John; Paris, Isabelle; Park, Changbom; Peacock, John A.; Peirani, Sebastien; Pellejero-Ibanez, Marcos; Penny, Samantha; Percival, Will J.; Percival, Jeffrey W.; Perez-Fournon, Ismael; Petitjean, Patrick; Pieri, Matthew; Pinsonneault, Marc H.; Pisani, Alice; Prada, Francisco; Prakash, Abhishek; Price-Jones, Natalie; Raddick, M. Jordan; Rahman, Mubdi; Raichoor, Anand; Barboza Rembold, Sandro; Reyna, A. M.; Rich, James; Richstein, Hannah; Ridl, Jethro; Riffel, Rogemar A.; Riffel, Rogério; Rix, Hans-Walter; Robin, Annie C.; Rockosi, Constance M.; Rodríguez-Torres, Sergio; Rodrigues, Thaíse S.; Roe, Natalie; Lopes, A. Roman; Román-Zúñiga, Carlos; Ross, Ashley J.; Rossi, Graziano; Ruan, John; Ruggeri, Rossana; Runnoe, Jessie C.; Salazar-Albornoz, Salvador; Salvato, Mara; Sanchez, Sebastian F.; Sanchez, Ariel G.; Sanchez-Gallego, José R.; Santiago, Basílio Xavier; Schiavon, Ricardo; Schimoia, Jaderson S.; Schlafly, Eddie; Schlegel, David J.; Schneider, Donald P.; Schönrich, Ralph; Schultheis, Mathias; Schwope, Axel; Seo, Hee-Jong; Serenelli, Aldo; Sesar, Branimir; Shao, Zhengyi; Shetrone, Matthew; Shull, Michael; Silva Aguirre, Victor; Skrutskie, M. F.; Slosar, Anže; Smith, Michael; Smith, Verne V.; Sobeck, Jennifer; Somers, Garrett; Souto, Diogo; Stark, David V.; Stassun, Keivan G.; Steinmetz, Matthias; Stello, Dennis; Storchi Bergmann, Thaisa; Strauss, Michael A.; Streblyanska, Alina; Stringfellow, Guy S.; Suarez, Genaro; Sun, Jing; Taghizadeh-Popp, Manuchehr; Tang, Baitian; Tao, Charling; Tayar, Jamie; Tembe, Mita; Thomas, Daniel; Tinker, Jeremy; Tojeiro, Rita; Tremonti, Christy; Troup, Nicholas; Trump, Jonathan R.; Unda-Sanzana, Eduardo; Valenzuela, O.; Van den Bosch, Remco; Vargas-Magaña, Mariana; Vazquez, Jose Alberto; Villanova, Sandro; Vivek, M.; Vogt, Nicole; Wake, David; Walterbos, Rene; Wang, Yuting; Wang, Enci; Weaver, Benjamin Alan; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Weinberg, David H.; Westfall, Kyle B.; Whelan, David G.; Wilcots, Eric; Wild, Vivienne; Williams, Rob A.; Wilson, John; Wood-Vasey, W. M.; Wylezalek, Dominika; Xiao, Ting; Yan, Renbin; Yang, Meng; Ybarra, Jason E.; Yeche, Christophe; Yuan, Fang-Ting; Zakamska, Nadia; Zamora, Olga; Zasowski, Gail; Zhang, Kai; Zhao, Cheng; Zhao, Gong-Bo; Zheng, Zheng; Zheng, Zheng; Zhou, Zhi-Min; Zhu, Guangtun; Zinn, Joel C.; Zou, Hu

    2017-12-01

    The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) began observations in 2014 July. It pursues three core programs: the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2), Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA), and the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS). As well as its core program, eBOSS contains two major subprograms: the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS) and the SPectroscopic IDentification of ERosita Sources (SPIDERS). This paper describes the first data release from SDSS-IV, Data Release 13 (DR13). DR13 makes publicly available the first 1390 spatially resolved integral field unit observations of nearby galaxies from MaNGA. It includes new observations from eBOSS, completing the Sloan Extended QUasar, Emission-line galaxy, Luminous red galaxy Survey (SEQUELS), which also targeted variability-selected objects and X-ray-selected objects. DR13 includes new reductions of the SDSS-III BOSS data, improving the spectrophotometric calibration and redshift classification, and new reductions of the SDSS-III APOGEE-1 data, improving stellar parameters for dwarf stars and cooler stars. DR13 provides more robust and precise photometric calibrations. Value-added target catalogs relevant for eBOSS, TDSS, and SPIDERS and an updated red-clump catalog for APOGEE are also available. This paper describes the location and format of the data and provides references to important technical papers. The SDSS web site, http://www.sdss.org, provides links to the data, tutorials, examples of data access, and extensive documentation of the reduction and analysis procedures. DR13 is the first of a scheduled set that will contain new data and analyses from the planned ∼6 yr operations of SDSS-IV.

  2. LUMINOSITY FUNCTIONS OF TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE AND THEIR HOST GALAXIES FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yasuda, Naoki; Fukugita, Masataka

    2010-01-01

    The sample of 137 low-redshift type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) with 0.05 ≤ z ≤ 0.3 obtained from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)-II supernova survey for the southern equatorial stripe of 300 deg 2 is used to derive the luminosity functions (LFs) of SNe Ia and of their host galaxies in the g, r, i passbands. We show that the LF of SNe Ia host galaxies matches well with that of galaxies in the general field, suggesting that the occurrence of SNe Ia does not favor a particular type of galaxy but is predominantly proportional to the luminosity of galaxies. The evidence is weak that the SNe rate varies with the color of host galaxies. The only evidence that points to possible correlation between the SN rate and star formation activity is that the SN rate in late-type galaxies is higher than that in early-type galaxies by 31% ± 35%. In our low-redshift sample, the component of type Ia SN rate that is proportional to star formation activity is not evident in the integrated SN rate, while our observation is compatible with the current two-component models. The sample contains eight SNe Ia whose host galaxies were not identified, but it is shown that their occurrence is consistent with them occurring in low-luminous galaxies beyond the survey. The LF of SNe Ia is approximately Gaussian with the full width at half-maximum being a factor of σ = 0.24 mag or 1.67 in luminosity. The Gaussian distribution becomes tighter if the ratio of extinction to reddening, R V , is lower than the characteristic value for the Milky Way and if luminosity is corrected for the light-curve shape. The average color excess is ∼0.07 mag, which is significantly smaller than reddening expected for field galaxies. This color excess does not vary with the distance of the SNe from the center of the host galaxy to 15 kpc. This suggests that the major part of the color excess appears to be either intrinsic or reddening that arises in the immediate environment of SNe, rather than interstellar

  3. GREEN PEA GALAXIES AND COHORTS: LUMINOUS COMPACT EMISSION-LINE GALAXIES IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Izotov, Yuri I.; Guseva, Natalia G.; Thuan, Trinh X.

    2011-01-01

    We present a large sample of 803 star-forming luminous compact galaxies (LCGs) in the redshift range z = 0.02-0.63, selected from Data Release 7 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The global properties of these galaxies are similar to those of the so-called green pea star-forming galaxies in the redshift range z = 0.112-0.360 and selected from the SDSS on the basis of their green color and compact structure. In contrast to green pea galaxies, our LCGs are selected on the basis of both their spectroscopic and photometric properties, resulting in a ∼10 times larger sample, with galaxies spanning a redshift range ∼>2 times larger. We find that the oxygen abundances and the heavy element abundance ratios in LCGs do not differ from those of nearby low-metallicity blue compact dwarf galaxies. The median stellar mass of LCGs is ∼10 9 M sun . However, for galaxies with high EW(Hβ), ≥ 100 A, it is only ∼7 x 10 8 M sun . The star formation rate in LCGs varies in the large range of 0.7-60 M sun yr -1 , with a median value of ∼4 M sun yr -1 , a factor of ∼3 lower than in high-redshift star-forming galaxies at z ∼> 3. The specific star formation rates in LCGs are extremely high and vary in the range ∼10 -9 -10 -7 yr -1 , comparable to those derived in high-redshift galaxies.

  4. THE 70 MONTH SWIFT-BAT ALL-SKY HARD X-RAY SURVEY

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Baumgartner, W. H.; Tueller, J.; Markwardt, C. B.; Skinner, G. K.; Barthelmy, S.; Gehrels, N. [NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Astrophysics Science Division, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States); Mushotzky, R. F. [Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 (United States); Evans, P. A., E-mail: whbaumga@alum.mit.edu [X-Ray and Observational Astronomy Group/Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH (United Kingdom)

    2013-08-15

    We present the catalog of sources detected in 70 months of observations with the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) hard X-ray detector on the Swift gamma-ray burst observatory. The Swift-BAT 70 month survey has detected 1171 hard X-ray sources (more than twice as many sources as the previous 22 month survey) in the 14-195 keV band down to a significance level of 4.8{sigma}, associated with 1210 counterparts. The 70 month Swift-BAT survey is the most sensitive and uniform hard X-ray all-sky survey and reaches a flux level of 1.03 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup -11} erg s{sup -1} cm{sup -2} over 50% of the sky and 1.34 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup -11} erg s{sup -1} cm{sup -2} over 90% of the sky. The majority of new sources in the 70 month survey continue to be active galactic nuclei, with over 700 in the catalog. As part of this new edition of the Swift-BAT catalog, we also make available eight-channel spectra and monthly sampled light curves for each object detected in the survey in the online journal and at the Swift-BAT 70 month Web site.

  5. THE 70 MONTH SWIFT-BAT ALL-SKY HARD X-RAY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Baumgartner, W. H.; Tueller, J.; Markwardt, C. B.; Skinner, G. K.; Barthelmy, S.; Gehrels, N.; Mushotzky, R. F.; Evans, P. A.

    2013-01-01

    We present the catalog of sources detected in 70 months of observations with the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) hard X-ray detector on the Swift gamma-ray burst observatory. The Swift-BAT 70 month survey has detected 1171 hard X-ray sources (more than twice as many sources as the previous 22 month survey) in the 14-195 keV band down to a significance level of 4.8σ, associated with 1210 counterparts. The 70 month Swift-BAT survey is the most sensitive and uniform hard X-ray all-sky survey and reaches a flux level of 1.03 × 10 –11 erg s –1 cm –2 over 50% of the sky and 1.34 × 10 –11 erg s –1 cm –2 over 90% of the sky. The majority of new sources in the 70 month survey continue to be active galactic nuclei, with over 700 in the catalog. As part of this new edition of the Swift-BAT catalog, we also make available eight-channel spectra and monthly sampled light curves for each object detected in the survey in the online journal and at the Swift-BAT 70 month Web site

  6. Atmospheric extinction coefficients and night sky brightness at the Xuyi Observation Station

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhang Hui-Hua; Liu Xiao-Wei; Zhang Hua-Wei; Xiang Mao-Sheng; Yuan Hai-Bo; Zhao Hai-Bin; Yao Jin-Sheng

    2013-01-01

    We present measurements of the optical broadband atmospheric extinction coefficients and the night sky brightness at the Xuyi Observation Station of Purple Mountain Observatory. The measurements are based on CCD imaging data taken in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey's g, r and i bands with the Xuyi 1.04/1.20 m Schmidt Telescope for the Xuyi Schmidt Telescope Photometric Survey of the Galactic Anti-center (XSTPS-GAC), the photometric part of the Digital Sky Survey of the Galactic Anti-center (DSS-GAC). The data were collected during more than 140 winter nights from 2009 to 2011. We find that the atmospheric extinction coefficients for the g, r and i bands are 0.69, 0.55 and 0.38 mag/airmass, respectively, based on observations taken on several photometric nights. The night sky brightness determined from images with good quality has median values of 21.7, 20.8 and 20.0 mag arcsec −2 and reaches 22.1, 21.2 and 20.4 mag arcsec −2 under the best observing conditions for the g, r and i bands, respectively. The relatively large extinction coefficients compared with other good astronomical observing sites are mainly due to the relatively low elevation (i.e. 180 m) and high humidity at the station.

  7. AN IMPROVED SPECTROSCOPIC ANALYSIS OF DA WHITE DWARFS FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY DATA RELEASE 4

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tremblay, P.-E.; Bergeron, P.; Gianninas, A.

    2011-01-01

    We present an improved spectroscopic and photometric analysis of hydrogen-line DA white dwarfs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4 (SDSS DR4) based on model atmospheres that include improved Stark broadening profiles with non-ideal gas effects. We also perform a careful visual inspection of all spectroscopic fits with high signal-to-noise ratios (S/Ns > 12) and present improved atmospheric parameters (T eff and log g) for each white dwarf. Through a comparison of spectroscopic and photometric temperatures, we report the discovery of 35 DA+DB/DC double degenerate candidates and two helium-rich DA stars. We also determine that a cutoff at S/N = 15 optimizes the size and quality of the sample for computing the mean mass of DA white dwarfs, for which we report a value of 0.613 M sun . We compare our results to previous analyses of the SDSS DR4 and find a good agreement if we account for the shift produced by the improved Stark profiles. Finally, the properties of DA white dwarfs in the SDSS are weighed against those of the Villanova White Dwarf Catalog sample of Gianninas et al. We find systematically lower masses (by about 3% on average), a difference that we trace back to the data reduction procedure of the SDSS. We conclude that a better understanding of these differences will be important to determine the absolute temperature scale and mean mass of DA white dwarfs.

  8. Recent Advances and Achievements at The Catalina Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leonard, Gregory J.; Christensen, Eric J.; Fuls, Carson; Gibbs, Alex; Grauer, Al; Johnson, Jess A.; Kowalski, Richard; Larson, Stephen M.; Matheny, Rose; Seaman, Rob; Shelly, Frank

    2017-10-01

    The Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) is a NASA-funded project fully dedicated to discover and track near-Earth objects (NEOs). Since its founding nearly 20 years ago CSS remains at the forefront of NEO surveys, and recent improvements in both instrumentation and software have increased both survey productivity and data quality. In 2016 new large-format (10K x 10K) cameras were installed on both CSS survey telescopes, the 1.5-m reflector and the 0.7-m Schmidt, increasing the field of view, and hence nightly sky coverage by 4x and 2.4x respectively. The new cameras, coupled with improvements in the reduction and detection pipelines, and revised sky-coverage strategies have yielded a dramatic upward trend of NEO discovery rates. CSS has also developed a custom adaptive queue manager for scheduling NEO follow-up astrometry using a remotely operated and recently renovated 1-m Cassegrain reflector telescope, improvements that have increased the production of follow-up astrometry for newly discovered NEOs and arc extensions for previously discovered objects by CSS and other surveys. Additionally, reprocessing of archival CSS data (which includes some 46 million individual astrometric measurements) through the new reduction and detection pipeline will allow for improved orbit determinations and increased arc extensions for hundreds of thousands of asteroids. Reprocessed data will soon feed into a new public archive of CSS images and catalog data products made available through NASA’s Planetary Data System (PDS). For the future, CSS is working towards improved NEO follow-up capabilities through a combination of access to larger telescopes, instrument upgrades and follow-up scheduling tools.

  9. COUNTS-IN-CYLINDERS IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY WITH COMPARISONS TO N-BODY SIMULATIONS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Berrier, Heather D.; Barton, Elizabeth J.; Bullock, James S.; Berrier, Joel C.; Zentner, Andrew R.; Wechsler, Risa H.

    2011-01-01

    Environmental statistics provide a necessary means of comparing the properties of galaxies in different environments, and a vital test of models of galaxy formation within the prevailing hierarchical cosmological model. We explore counts-in-cylinders, a common statistic defined as the number of companions of a particular galaxy found within a given projected radius and redshift interval. Galaxy distributions with the same two-point correlation functions do not necessarily have the same companion count distributions. We use this statistic to examine the environments of galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4 (SDSS DR4). We also make preliminary comparisons to four models for the spatial distributions of galaxies, based on N-body simulations and data from SDSS DR4, to study the utility of the counts-in-cylinders statistic. There is a very large scatter between the number of companions a galaxy has and the mass of its parent dark matter halo and the halo occupation, limiting the utility of this statistic for certain kinds of environmental studies. We also show that prevalent empirical models of galaxy clustering, that match observed two- and three-point clustering statistics well, fail to reproduce some aspects of the observed distribution of counts-in-cylinders on 1, 3, and 6 h -1 Mpc scales. All models that we explore underpredict the fraction of galaxies with few or no companions in 3 and 6 h -1 Mpc cylinders. Roughly 7% of galaxies in the real universe are significantly more isolated within a 6 h -1 Mpc cylinder than the galaxies in any of the models we use. Simple phenomenological models that map galaxies to dark matter halos fail to reproduce high-order clustering statistics in low-density environments.

  10. A PUBLIC CATALOG OF STELLAR MASSES, STAR FORMATION AND METALLICITY HISTORIES, AND DUST CONTENT FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY USING VESPA

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tojeiro, Rita; Wilkins, Stephen; Heavens, Alan F.; Panter, Ben; Jimenez, Raul

    2009-01-01

    We applied the VESPA algorithm to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey final data release of the Main Galaxies and Luminous Red Galaxies samples. The result is a catalog of stellar masses, detailed star formation and metallicity histories and dust content of nearly 800,000 galaxies. We make the catalog public via a T-SQL database, which is described in detail in this paper. We present the results using a range of stellar population and dust models, and will continue to update the catalog as new and improved models are made public. We also present a brief exploration of the catalog, and show that the quantities derived are robust: luminous red galaxies can be described by one to three populations, whereas a main galaxy sample galaxy needs on average two to five; red galaxies are older and less dusty; the dust values we recover are well correlated with measured Balmer decrements and star formation rates are also in agreement with previous measurements. We find that whereas some derived quantities are robust to the choice of modelling, many are still not.

  11. Characterizing Sky Spectra Using SDSS BOSS Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Florez, Lina Maria; Strauss, Michael A.

    2018-01-01

    In the optical/near-infrared spectra gathered by a ground-based telescope observing very faint sources, the strengths of the emission lines due to the Earth’s atmosphere can be many times larger than the fluxes of the sources we are interested in. Thus the limiting factor in faint-object spectroscopy is the degree to which systematics in the sky subtraction can be minimized. Longwards of 6000 Angstroms, the night-sky spectrum is dominated by multiple vibrational/rotational transitions of the OH radical from our upper atmosphere. While the wavelengths of these lines are the same in each sky spectrum, their relative strengths vary considerably as a function of time and position on the sky. The better we can model their strengths, the better we can hope to subtract them off. We expect that the strength of lines from common upper energy levels will be correlated with one another. We used flux-calibrated sky spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (SDSS BOSS) to explore these correlations. Our aim is to use these correlations for creating improved sky subtraction algorithms for the Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) on the 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope. When PFS starts gathering data in 2019, it will be the most powerful multi-object spectrograph in the world. Since PFS will be gathering data on sources as faint as 24th magnitude and fainter, it's of upmost importance to be able to accurately measure and subtract sky spectra from the data that we receive.

  12. OBSERVATIONAL UPPER BOUND ON THE COSMIC ABUNDANCES OF NEGATIVE-MASS COMPACT OBJECTS AND ELLIS WORMHOLES FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY QUASAR LENS SEARCH

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Takahashi, Ryuichi; Asada, Hideki [Faculty of Science and Technology, Hirosaki University, Hirosaki 036-8561 (Japan)

    2013-05-01

    The latest result in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Lens Search (SQLS) has set the first cosmological constraints on negative-mass compact objects and Ellis wormholes. There are no multiple images lensed by the above two exotic objects for {approx}50, 000 distant quasars in the SQLS data. Therefore, an upper bound is put on the cosmic abundances of these lenses. The number density of negative-mass compact objects is n < 10{sup -8}(10{sup -4}) h {sup 3} Mpc{sup -3} at the mass scale |M| > 10{sup 15}(10{sup 12}) M{sub Sun }, which corresponds to the cosmological density parameter |{Omega}| < 10{sup -4} at the galaxy and cluster mass range |M| = 10{sup 12-15} M{sub Sun }. The number density of the Ellis wormhole is n < 10{sup -4} h {sup 3} Mpc{sup -3} for a range of the throat radius a = 10-10{sup 4} pc, which is much smaller than the Einstein ring radius.

  13. What does it mean to manage sky survey data? A model to facilitate stakeholder conversations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sands, Ashley E.; Darch, Peter T.

    2016-06-01

    Astronomy sky surveys, while of great scientific value independently, can be deployed even more effectively when multiple sources of data are combined. Integrating discrete datasets is a non-trivial exercise despite investments in standard data formats and tools. Creating and maintaining data and associated infrastructures requires investments in technology and expertise. Combining data from multiple sources necessitates a common understanding of data, structures, and goals amongst relevant stakeholders.We present a model of Astronomy Stakeholder Perspectives on Data. The model is based on 80 semi-structured interviews with astronomers, computational astronomers, computer scientists, and others involved in the building or use of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). Interviewees were selected to ensure a range of roles, institutional affiliations, career stages, and level of astronomy education. Interviewee explanations of data were analyzed to understand how perspectives on astronomy data varied by stakeholder.Interviewees described sky survey data either intrinsically or extrinsically. “Intrinsic” descriptions of data refer to data as an object in and of itself. Respondents with intrinsic perspectives view data management in one of three ways: (1) “Medium” - securing the zeros and ones from bit rot; (2) “Scale” - assuring that changes in state are documented; or (3) “Content” - ensuring the scientific validity of the images, spectra, and catalogs.“Extrinsic” definitions, in contrast, define data in relation to other forms of information. Respondents with extrinsic perspectives view data management in one of three ways: (1) “Source” - supporting the integrity of the instruments and documentation; (2) “Relationship” - retaining relationships between data and their analytical byproducts; or (3) “Use” - ensuring that data remain scientifically usable.This model shows how data management can

  14. CLUSTERING OF SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY III PHOTOMETRIC LUMINOUS GALAXIES: THE MEASUREMENT, SYSTEMATICS, AND COSMOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ho, Shirley; White, Martin; Schlegel, David J.; Seljak, Uros; Reid, Beth; Cuesta, Antonio; Padmanabhan, Nikhil; Seo, Hee-Jong; De Putter, Roland; Ross, Ashley J.; Percival, Will J.; Saito, Shun; Schlafly, Eddie; Hernández-Monteagudo, Carlos; Sánchez, Ariel G.; Blanton, Michael; Skibba, Ramin; Schneider, Don; Mena, Olga; Viel, Matteo

    2012-01-01

    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) surveyed 14,555 deg 2 , and delivered over a trillion pixels of imaging data. We present a study of galaxy clustering using 900,000 luminous galaxies with photometric redshifts, spanning between z = 0.45 and z = 0.65, constructed from the SDSS using methods described in Ross et al. This data set spans 11,000 deg 2 and probes a volume of 3 h –3 Gpc 3 , making it the largest volume ever used for galaxy clustering measurements. We describe in detail the construction of the survey window function and various systematics affecting our measurement. With such a large volume, high-precision cosmological constraints can be obtained given careful control and understanding of the observational systematics. We present a novel treatment of the observational systematics and its applications to the clustering signals from the data set. In this paper, we measure the angular clustering using an optimal quadratic estimator at four redshift slices with an accuracy of ∼15%, with a bin size of δ l = 10 on scales of the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs; at l ∼ 40-400). We also apply corrections to the power spectra due to systematics and derive cosmological constraints using the full shape of the power spectra. For a flat ΛCDM model, when combined with cosmic microwave background Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe 7 (WMAP7) and H 0 constraints from using 600 Cepheids observed by Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3; HST), we find Ω Λ = 0.73 ± 0.019 and H 0 to be 70.5 ± 1.6 s –1 Mpc –1 km. For an open ΛCDM model, when combined with WMAP7 + HST, we find Ω K = 0.0035 ± 0.0054, improved over WMAP7+HST alone by 40%. For a wCDM model, when combined with WMAP7+HST+SN, we find w = –1.071 ± 0.078, and H 0 to be 71.3 ± 1.7 s –1 Mpc –1 km, which is competitive with the latest large-scale structure constraints from large spectroscopic surveys such as the SDSS Data Release 7 (DR7) and WiggleZ. We also find that systematic-corrected power

  15. The Einstein All-Sky IPC slew survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elvis, Martin; Plummer, David; Fabbiano, G.

    1989-01-01

    The construction of the Einstein All-Sky Imaging Proportional Counter (IPC) slew survey is considered. It contains approximately 1000 sources between 10(exp -12) and 10(exp -10) erg/sq cm/s with a concentration toward the ecliptic poles and away from the galactic plane. Several sizable samples of bright soft X-ray selected objects for follow-up ROSAT and ASTRO-D observations and statistical study are presented. The survey source list is expected to be available by late 1989. Both paper and remote access online data base versions are to be available. An identification program is considered.

  16. Dark Skies as a Universal Resource: Citizen Scientists Measuring Sky Brightness

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walker, C. E.; Isbell, D.; Pompea, S. M.

    2007-12-01

    The international star-hunting event known as GLOBE at Night returned March 8-21, 2007 in two flavors: the classic GLOBE at Night activity incorporating unaided-eye observations which debuted last year, and a new effort to obtain precise measurements of urban dark skies using digital sky-brightness meters. Both flavors of the program were designed to aid in heightening the awareness about the impact of artificial lighting on local environments, and the ongoing loss of a dark night sky as a natural resource for much of the world's population. To make possible the digital GLOBE at Night program, NSF funded 135 low-cost, digital sky-quality meter (manufactured by Unihedron). With these, citizen-scientists took direct measurements of the integrated sky brightness across a wide swath of night sky. Along with related materials developed by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), the meters were distributed to citizen-scientists in 21 U.S. states plus Washington DC, and in 5 other countries, including Chile, where NOAO has a major observatory. The citizen- scientists were selected from teachers, their students, astronomers at mountain-top observatories, International Dark-Sky Association members and staff from 19 small science centers. Most sites had a coordinator, who instructed local educators in the proper use of the meters and develop a plan to share them as widely as possible during the 2-week window. The local teams pooled their data for regional analysis and in some cases shared the results with their schools and local policymakers. Building upon the worldwide participation sparked by the first GLOBE at Night campaign in March 2006, the observations this year approached 8500 (from 60 countries), 85% higher than the number from last year. The success of GLOBE at Night 2007 is a major step toward the International Year of Astronomy in 2009, when one goal is to make the digital data collection into a worldwide activity. In this presentation, we will outline

  17. Photometric Variability in the Faint Sky Variability Survey

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Morales-Rueda, L.; Groot, P.J.; Augusteijn, T.; Nelemans, G.A.; Vreeswijk, P.M.; Besselaar, E.J.M. van den

    2005-01-01

    The Faint Sky Variability Survey (FSVS) is aimed at finding photometric and/or astrometric variable objects between 16th and 24th mag on time-scales between tens of minutes and years with photometric precisions ranging from 3 millimag to 0.2 mag. An area of ~23 deg2, located at mid and

  18. THE 22 MONTH SWIFT-BAT ALL-SKY HARD X-RAY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tueller, J.; Baumgartner, W. H.; Markwardt, C. B.; Skinner, G. K.; Mushotzky, R. F.; Barthelmy, S.; Cummings, J.; Gehrels, N.; Holland, S.; Ajello, M.; Beardmore, A.; Evans, P.; Godet, O.; Brandt, W. N.; Burrows, D.; Grupe, D.; Chincarini, G.; Campana, S.; Cusumano, G.; Fenimore, E.

    2010-01-01

    We present the catalog of sources detected in the first 22 months of data from the hard X-ray survey (14-195 keV) conducted with the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) coded mask imager on the Swift satellite. The catalog contains 461 sources detected above the 4.8σ level with BAT. High angular resolution X-ray data for every source from Swift-XRT or archival data have allowed associations to be made with known counterparts in other wavelength bands for over 97% of the detections, including the discovery of ∼30 galaxies previously unknown as active galactic nuclei and several new Galactic sources. A total of 266 of the sources are associated with Seyfert galaxies (median redshift z ∼ 0.03) or blazars, with the majority of the remaining sources associated with X-ray binaries in our Galaxy. This ongoing survey is the first uniform all-sky hard X-ray survey since HEAO-1 in 1977. Since the publication of the nine-month BAT survey we have increased the number of energy channels from four to eight and have substantially increased the number of sources with accurate average spectra. The BAT 22 month catalog is the product of the most sensitive all-sky survey in the hard X-ray band, with a detection sensitivity (4.8σ) of 2.2 x 10 -11 erg cm -2 s -1 (1 mCrab) over most of the sky in the 14-195 keV band.

  19. The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fibre Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) Quasar Survey: Quasar Properties from Data Release Two and Three

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dong, X. Y.; Wu, Xue-Bing; Ai, Y. L.; Yang, J. Y.; Yang, Q.; Wang, F.; Zhang, Y. X.; Luo, A. L.; Xu, H.; Yuan, H. L.; Zhang, J. N.; Wang, M. X.; Wang, L. L.; Li, Y. B.; Zuo, F.; Hou, W.; Guo, Y. X.; Kong, X.; Chen, X. Y.; Wu, Y.; Yang, H. F.; Yang, M.

    2018-05-01

    This is the second installment for the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fibre Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) Quasar Survey, which includes quasars observed from 2013 September to 2015 June. There are 9024 confirmed quasars in DR2 and 10911 in DR3. After cross-match with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) quasar catalogs and NED, 12126 quasars are discovered independently. Among them, 2225 quasars were released by SDSS DR12 QSO catalog in 2014 after we finalized the survey candidates. 1801 sources were identified by SDSS DR14 as QSOs. The remaining 8100 quasars are considered as newly founded, and among them, 6887 quasars can be given reliable emission line measurements and the estimated black hole masses. Quasars found in LAMOST are mostly located at low-to-moderate redshifts, with a mean value of 1.5. The highest redshift observed in DR2 and DR3 is 5. We applied emission line measurements to Hα, Hβ, Mg II, and C IV. We deduced the monochromatic continuum luminosities using photometry data, and estimated the virial black hole masses for the newly discovered quasars. Results are compiled into a quasar catalog, which will be available online.

  20. A prototype for the PASS Permanent All Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deeg, H. J.; Alonso, R.; Belmonte, J. A.; Horne, K.; Alsubai, K.; Collier Cameron, A.; Doyle, L. R.

    2004-10-01

    A prototype system for the Permanent All Sky Survey (PASS) project is presented. PASS is a continuous photometric survey of the entire celestial sphere with a high temporal resolution. Its major objectives are the detection of all giant-planet transits (with periods up to some weeks) across stars up to mag 10.5, and to deliver continuously photometry that is useful for the study of any variable stars. The prototype is based on CCD cameras with short focal length optics on a fixed mount. A small dome to house it at Teide Observatory, Tenerife, is currently being constructed. A placement at the antarctic Dome C is also being considered. The prototype will be used for a feasibility study of PASS, to define the best observing strategies, and to perform a detailed characterization of the capabilities and scope of the survey. Afterwards, a first partial sky surveying will be started with it. That first survey may be able to detect transiting planets during its first few hundred hours of operation. It will also deliver a data set around which software modules dealing with the various scientific objectives of PASS will be developed. The PASS project is still in its early phase and teams interested in specific scientific objectives, in providing technical expertise, or in participating with own observations are invited to collaborate.

  1. THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY REVERBERATION MAPPING PROJECT: BIASES IN z  > 1.46 REDSHIFTS DUE TO QUASAR DIVERSITY

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Denney, K. D.; Peterson, B. M. [Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States); Horne, Keith [SUPA Physics and Astronomy, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews KY16 9SS (United Kingdom); Brandt, W. N.; Grier, C. J.; Trump, J. R. [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 525 Davey Lab, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States); Ho, Luis C. [Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China); Ge, J., E-mail: denney@astronomy.ohio-state.edu [Astronomy Department University of Florida 211 Bryant Space Science Center P.O. Box 112055 Gainesville, FL 32611-2055 (United States)

    2016-12-10

    We use the coadded spectra of 32 epochs of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Reverberation Mapping Project observations of 482 quasars with z  > 1.46 to highlight systematic biases in the SDSS- and Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS)-pipeline redshifts due to the natural diversity of quasar properties. We investigate the characteristics of this bias by comparing the BOSS-pipeline redshifts to an estimate from the centroid of He ii λ 1640. He ii has a low equivalent width but is often well-defined in high-S/N spectra, does not suffer from self-absorption, and has a narrow component which, when present (the case for about half of our sources), produces a redshift estimate that, on average, is consistent with that determined from [O ii] to within the He ii and [O ii] centroid measurement uncertainties. The large redshift differences of ∼1000 km s{sup −1}, on average, between the BOSS-pipeline and He ii-centroid redshifts, suggest there are significant biases in a portion of BOSS quasar redshift measurements. Adopting the He ii-based redshifts shows that C iv does not exhibit a ubiquitous blueshift for all quasars, given the precision probed by our measurements. Instead, we find a distribution of C iv-centroid blueshifts across our sample, with a dynamic range that (i) is wider than that previously reported for this line, and (ii) spans C iv centroids from those consistent with the systemic redshift to those with significant blueshifts of thousands of kilometers per second. These results have significant implications for measurement and use of high-redshift quasar properties and redshifts, and studies based thereon.

  2. THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY REVERBERATION MAPPING PROJECT: BIASES IN z  > 1.46 REDSHIFTS DUE TO QUASAR DIVERSITY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Denney, K. D.; Peterson, B. M.; Horne, Keith; Brandt, W. N.; Grier, C. J.; Trump, J. R.; Ho, Luis C.; Ge, J.

    2016-01-01

    We use the coadded spectra of 32 epochs of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Reverberation Mapping Project observations of 482 quasars with z  > 1.46 to highlight systematic biases in the SDSS- and Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS)-pipeline redshifts due to the natural diversity of quasar properties. We investigate the characteristics of this bias by comparing the BOSS-pipeline redshifts to an estimate from the centroid of He ii λ 1640. He ii has a low equivalent width but is often well-defined in high-S/N spectra, does not suffer from self-absorption, and has a narrow component which, when present (the case for about half of our sources), produces a redshift estimate that, on average, is consistent with that determined from [O ii] to within the He ii and [O ii] centroid measurement uncertainties. The large redshift differences of ∼1000 km s −1 , on average, between the BOSS-pipeline and He ii-centroid redshifts, suggest there are significant biases in a portion of BOSS quasar redshift measurements. Adopting the He ii-based redshifts shows that C iv does not exhibit a ubiquitous blueshift for all quasars, given the precision probed by our measurements. Instead, we find a distribution of C iv-centroid blueshifts across our sample, with a dynamic range that (i) is wider than that previously reported for this line, and (ii) spans C iv centroids from those consistent with the systemic redshift to those with significant blueshifts of thousands of kilometers per second. These results have significant implications for measurement and use of high-redshift quasar properties and redshifts, and studies based thereon.

  3. LOFAR and APERTIF Surveys of the Radio Sky: Probing Shocks ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    LOFAR and APERTIF Surveys of the Radio Sky: Probing Shocks and Magnetic .... technology. This replaces the traditional and expensive mechanical dishes by a com- ... approach has been adopted (for details, see Röttgering et al. 2010).

  4. CLUSTERING OF SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY III PHOTOMETRIC LUMINOUS GALAXIES: THE MEASUREMENT, SYSTEMATICS, AND COSMOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ho, Shirley; White, Martin; Schlegel, David J.; Seljak, Uros; Reid, Beth [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Rd, MS 50R-5045, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States); Cuesta, Antonio; Padmanabhan, Nikhil [Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511 (United States); Seo, Hee-Jong [Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics, LBL and Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States); De Putter, Roland [ICC, University of Barcelona (IEEC-UB), Marti i Franques 1, E-08028 Barcelona (Spain); Ross, Ashley J.; Percival, Will J. [Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, Dennis Sciama Building, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 3FX (United Kingdom); Saito, Shun [Department of Astronomy, University of California Berkeley, CA (United States); Schlafly, Eddie [Department of Astronomy, Harvard University, 60 Garden St. MS 20, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Hernandez-Monteagudo, Carlos [Centro de Estudios de Fisica del Cosmos de Aragon (CEFCA), Plaza de San Juan 1, planta 2, E-44001 Teruel (Spain); Sanchez, Ariel G. [Max-Planck-Institut fuer Extraterrestrische Physik, Giessenbachstrasse 1, D-85748 Garching (Germany); Blanton, Michael [Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, Department of Physics, New York University, 4 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003 (United States); Skibba, Ramin [Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, 933 N. Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721 (United States); Schneider, Don [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States); Mena, Olga [Instituto de Fisica Corpuscular, Universidad de Valencia-CSIC (Spain); Viel, Matteo, E-mail: cwho@lbl.gov [INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Via G. B. Tiepolo 11, I-34131 Trieste (Italy); and others

    2012-12-10

    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) surveyed 14,555 deg{sup 2}, and delivered over a trillion pixels of imaging data. We present a study of galaxy clustering using 900,000 luminous galaxies with photometric redshifts, spanning between z = 0.45 and z = 0.65, constructed from the SDSS using methods described in Ross et al. This data set spans 11,000 deg{sup 2} and probes a volume of 3 h {sup -3} Gpc{sup 3}, making it the largest volume ever used for galaxy clustering measurements. We describe in detail the construction of the survey window function and various systematics affecting our measurement. With such a large volume, high-precision cosmological constraints can be obtained given careful control and understanding of the observational systematics. We present a novel treatment of the observational systematics and its applications to the clustering signals from the data set. In this paper, we measure the angular clustering using an optimal quadratic estimator at four redshift slices with an accuracy of {approx}15%, with a bin size of {delta}{sub l} = 10 on scales of the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs; at l {approx} 40-400). We also apply corrections to the power spectra due to systematics and derive cosmological constraints using the full shape of the power spectra. For a flat {Lambda}CDM model, when combined with cosmic microwave background Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe 7 (WMAP7) and H{sub 0} constraints from using 600 Cepheids observed by Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3; HST), we find {Omega}{sub {Lambda}} = 0.73 {+-} 0.019 and H{sub 0} to be 70.5 {+-} 1.6 s{sup -1} Mpc{sup -1} km. For an open {Lambda}CDM model, when combined with WMAP7 + HST, we find {Omega}{sub K} = 0.0035 {+-} 0.0054, improved over WMAP7+HST alone by 40%. For a wCDM model, when combined with WMAP7+HST+SN, we find w = -1.071 {+-} 0.078, and H{sub 0} to be 71.3 {+-} 1.7 s{sup -1} Mpc{sup -1} km, which is competitive with the latest large-scale structure constraints from large spectroscopic

  5. THE ALLEN TELESCOPE ARRAY Pi GHz SKY SURVEY. I. SURVEY DESCRIPTION AND STATIC CATALOG RESULTS FOR THE BOOeTES FIELD

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bower, Geoffrey C.; Croft, Steve; Keating, Garrett; Whysong, David; Backer, Don; Bauermeister, Amber; Blitz, Leo; Bock, Douglas; Cheng, Calvin; Dexter, Matt; Engargiola, Greg; Ackermann, Rob; Atkinson, Shannon; Backus, Peter; Bradford, Tucker; Davis, Mike; Dreher, John; Barott, Billy; Cork, Chris; DeBoer, Dave

    2010-01-01

    The Pi GHz Sky Survey (PiGSS) is a key project of the Allen Telescope Array. PiGSS is a 3.1 GHz survey of radio continuum emission in the extragalactic sky with an emphasis on synoptic observations that measure the static and time-variable properties of the sky. During the 2.5 year campaign, PiGSS will twice observe ∼250,000 radio sources in the 10,000 deg 2 region of the sky with b>30 0 to an rms sensitivity of ∼1 mJy. Additionally, sub-regions of the sky will be observed multiple times to characterize variability on timescales of days to years. We present here observations of a 10 deg 2 region in the Booetes constellation overlapping the NOAO Deep Wide Field Survey field. The PiGSS image was constructed from 75 daily observations distributed over a 4 month period and has an rms flux density between 200 and 250 μJy. This represents a deeper image by a factor of 4-8 than we will achieve over the entire 10,000 deg 2 . We provide flux densities, source sizes, and spectral indices for the 425 sources detected in the image. We identify ∼100 new flat-spectrum radio sources; we project that when completed PiGSS will identify 10 4 flat-spectrum sources. We identify one source that is a possible transient radio source. This survey provides new limits on faint radio transients and variables with characteristic durations of months.

  6. Component masses of young, wide, non-magnetic white dwarf binaries in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baxter, R. B.; Dobbie, P. D.; Parker, Q. A.; Casewell, S. L.; Lodieu, N.; Burleigh, M. R.; Lawrie, K. A.; Külebi, B.; Koester, D.; Holland, B. R.

    2014-06-01

    We present a spectroscopic component analysis of 18 candidate young, wide, non-magnetic, double-degenerate binaries identified from a search of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 (DR7). All but two pairings are likely to be physical systems. We show SDSS J084952.47+471247.7 + SDSS J084952.87+471249.4 to be a wide DA + DB binary, only the second identified to date. Combining our measurements for the components of 16 new binaries with results for three similar, previously known systems within the DR7, we have constructed a mass distribution for the largest sample to date (38) of white dwarfs in young, wide, non-magnetic, double-degenerate pairings. This is broadly similar in form to that of the isolated field population with a substantial peak around M ˜ 0.6 M⊙. We identify an excess of ultramassive white dwarfs and attribute this to the primordial separation distribution of their progenitor systems peaking at relatively larger values and the greater expansion of their binary orbits during the final stages of stellar evolution. We exploit this mass distribution to probe the origins of unusual types of degenerates, confirming a mild preference for the progenitor systems of high-field-magnetic white dwarfs, at least within these binaries, to be associated with early-type stars. Additionally, we consider the 19 systems in the context of the stellar initial mass-final mass relation. None appear to be strongly discordant with current understanding of this relationship.

  7. The 105-Month Swift-BAT All-sky Hard X-Ray Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oh, Kyuseok; Koss, Michael; Markwardt, Craig B.; Schawinski, Kevin; Baumgartner, Wayne H.; Barthelmy, Scott D.; Cenko, S. Bradley; Gehrels, Neil; Mushotzky, Richard; Petulante, Abigail; Ricci, Claudio; Lien, Amy; Trakhtenbrot, Benny

    2018-03-01

    We present a catalog of hard X-ray sources detected in the first 105 months of observations with the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) coded-mask imager on board the Swift observatory. The 105-month Swift-BAT survey is a uniform hard X-ray all-sky survey with a sensitivity of 8.40× {10}-12 {erg} {{{s}}}-1 {cm}}-2 over 90% of the sky and 7.24× {10}-12 {erg} {{{s}}}-1 {cm}}-2 over 50% of the sky in the 14–195 keV band. The Swift-BAT 105-month catalog provides 1632 (422 new detections) hard X-ray sources in the 14–195 keV band above the 4.8σ significance level. Adding to the previously known hard X-ray sources, 34% (144/422) of the new detections are identified as Seyfert active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in nearby galaxies (zBAT catalog, we release eight-channel spectra and monthly sampled light curves for each object in the online journal and at the Swift-BAT 105-month website.

  8. The VLA Sky Survey (VLASS): Description and Science Goals

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lacy, Mark; Baum, Stefi Alison; Chandler, Claire J.; Chatterjee, Shami; Murphy, Eric J.; Myers, Steven T.; VLASS Survey Science Group

    2016-01-01

    The VLA Sky Survey (VLASS) will cover 80% of the sky to a target depth of 70muJy in the 2-4GHz S-band of the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array. With a resolution of 2.5 arcseconds, it will deliver the highest angular resolution of any wide area radio survey. Each area of the survey will be observed in three epochs spaced by 32 months in order to investigate the transient radio source population over an unprecedented combination of depth and area, resulting in a uniquely powerful search for hidden explosions in the Universe. The survey will be carried out in full polarization, allowing the characterization of the magneto-ionic medium in AGN and intervening galaxies over a wide range of redshifts, and the study of Faraday rotating foregrounds such as ionized bubbles in the Milky Way. The high angular resolution will allow us to make unambiguous identifications of nearly 10 million radio sources, comprised of both extragalactic objects and more nearby radio sources in the Milky Way, through matching to wide area optical/IR surveys such as SDSS, PanSTARRS, DES, LSST, EUCLID, WFIRST and WISE. Integral to the VLASS plan is an Education and Public Outreach component that will seek to inform and educate both the scientific community and the general public about radio astronomy through the use of social media, citizen science and educational activities. We will discuss opportunities for community involvement in VLASS, including the development of Enhanced Data Products and Services that will greatly increase the scientific utility of the survey.

  9. The one square meter hard X-ray (15-200 KeV) sky survey

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ubertini, P.; Bazzano, A.; La Padula, C.D.; Polcaro, V.F.

    1981-01-01

    A long term program was started at I.A.S. since 1979 to perform a survey of the hard X-ray sky using multiwire high pressure Xenon filled Spectroscopic Proportional Counters (SPC). The first payload consisting of two very large area SPC (2,700 cm 2 each) was flown during summer 1980 from the Milo Base (Sicily, Italy). The instrument duplicated to reach 10,800 cm 2 geometric area is expected to fly from northern (1981), southern (1982) and equatorial (1983) bases to perform a deep sky survey

  10. Automated Meteor Detection by All-Sky Digital Camera Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Suk, Tomáš; Šimberová, Stanislava

    2017-12-01

    We have developed a set of methods to detect meteor light traces captured by all-sky CCD cameras. Operating at small automatic observatories (stations), these cameras create a network spread over a large territory. Image data coming from these stations are merged in one central node. Since a vast amount of data is collected by the stations in a single night, robotic storage and analysis are essential to processing. The proposed methodology is adapted to data from a network of automatic stations equipped with digital fish-eye cameras and includes data capturing, preparation, pre-processing, analysis, and finally recognition of objects in time sequences. In our experiments we utilized real observed data from two stations.

  11. A SEARCH FOR OXYGEN IN THE LOW-DENSITY Lyα FOREST USING THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pieri, Matthew M.; Frank, Stephan; Mathur, Smita; Weinberg, David H.; York, Donald G.; Oppenheimer, Benjamin D.

    2010-01-01

    We use 2167 Sloan Digital Sky Survey quasar spectra to search for low-density oxygen in the intergalactic medium (IGM). Oxygen absorption is detected on a pixel-by-pixel basis by its correlation with Lyα forest absorption. We have developed a novel locally calibrated pixel (LCP) search method that uses adjacent regions of the spectrum to calibrate interlopers and spectral artifacts, which would otherwise limit the measurement of O VI absorption. Despite the challenges presented by searching for weak O VI within the Lyα forest in spectra of moderate resolution and signal-to-noise, we find a highly significant detection of absorption by oxygen at 2.7 2 = 80 for nine data points). We interpret our results using synthetic spectra generated from a log-normal density field assuming a mixed quasar-galaxy photoionizing background and that it dominates the ionization fraction of detected O VI. The LCP search data can be fit by a constant metallicity model with [O/H] = -2.15 +0.07 -0.09 but also by models in which low-density regions are unenriched and higher density regions have a higher metallicity. The density-dependent enrichment model by Aguirre et al. is also an acceptable fit. All our successful models have similar mass-weighted oxygen abundance, corresponding to [(O/H) MW ] = -2.45 ± 0.06. This result can be used to find the cosmic oxygen density in the Lyα forest, Ω Oxy,IGM = 1.4(±0.2) x 10 -6 ∼ 3 x 10 -4 Ω b . This is the tightest constraint on the mass-weighted mean oxygen abundance and the cosmic oxygen density in the Lyα forest to date and indicates that it contains ∼16% of the total expected metal production by star formation up to z = 3.

  12. Short timescale variability in the faint sky variability survey

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Morales-Rueda, L.; Groot, P.J.; Augusteijn, T.; Nelemans, G.A.; Vreeswijk, P.M.; Besselaar, E.J.M. van den

    2006-01-01

    We present the V-band variability analysis of the Faint Sky Variability Survey (FSVS). The FSVS combines colour and time variability information, from timescales of 24 minutes to tens of days, down to V = 24. We find that �1% of all point sources are variable along the main sequence reaching �3.5%

  13. CHROMOSPHERIC VARIABILITY IN SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY M DWARFS. II. SHORT-TIMESCALE Hα VARIABILITY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kruse, E. A.; Berger, E.; Laskar, T.; Knapp, G. R.; Gunn, J. E.; Loomis, C. P.; Lupton, R. H.; Schlegel, D. J.

    2010-01-01

    We present the first comprehensive study of short-timescale chromospheric Hα variability in M dwarfs using the individual 15 minute spectroscopic exposures for 52, 392 objects from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Our sample contains about 10 3 -10 4 objects per spectral type bin in the range M0-M9, with a typical number of three exposures per object (ranging up to a maximum of 30 exposures). Using this extensive data set, we find that about 16% of the sources exhibit Hα emission in at least one exposure, and of those about 45% exhibit Hα emission in all of the available exposures. As in previous studies of Hα activity (L Hα /L bol ), we find a rapid increase in the fraction of active objects from M0-M6. However, we find a subsequent decline in later spectral types that we attribute to our use of the individual spectra. Similarly, we find saturated activity at a level of L Hα /L bol ∼ 10 -3.6 for spectral types M0-M5 followed by a decline to about 10 -4.3 in the range M7-M9. Within the sample of objects with Hα emission, only 26% are consistent with non-variable emission, independent of spectral type. The Hα variability, quantified in terms of the ratio of maximum to minimum Hα equivalent width (R EW ), exhibits a rapid rise from M0 to M5, followed by a plateau and a possible decline in M9 objects. In particular, variability with R EW ∼> 10 is only observed in objects later than M5, and survival analysis indicates a probability of ∼ EW values for M0-M4 and M5-M9 are drawn from the same distribution. We further find that for an exponential distribution, the R EW values follow N(R EW ) ∝ exp[ - (R EW - 1)/2.3] for M0-M4 and ∝exp[ - (R EW - 1)/2.9] for M5-M9. Finally, comparing objects with persistent and intermittent Hα emission, we find that the latter exhibit greater variability. Based on these results, we conclude that Hα variability in M dwarfs on timescales of 15 minutes to 1 hr increases with later spectral type, and that the variability is

  14. A SOUTHERN SKY AND GALACTIC PLANE SURVEY FOR BRIGHT KUIPER BELT OBJECTS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sheppard, Scott S.; Udalski, Andrzej; Kubiak, Marcin; Pietrzynski, Grzegorz; Poleski, Radoslaw; Soszynski, Igor; Szymanski, Michal K.; Ulaczyk, Krzysztof; Trujillo, Chadwick

    2011-01-01

    About 2500 deg 2 of sky south of declination -25 0 and/or near the Galactic Plane were surveyed for bright outer solar system objects. This survey is one of the first large-scale southern sky and Galactic Plane surveys to detect dwarf planets and other bright Kuiper Belt Objects in the trans-Neptunian region. The survey was able to obtain a limiting R-band magnitude of 21.6. In all, 18 outer solar system objects were detected, including Pluto which was detected near the Galactic center using optimal image subtraction techniques to remove the high stellar density background. Fourteen of the detections were previously unknown trans-Neptunian objects, demonstrating that the southern sky had not been well searched to date for bright outer solar system objects. Assuming moderate albedos, several of the new discoveries from this survey could be in hydrostatic equilibrium and thus could be considered dwarf planets. Combining this survey with previous surveys from the northern hemisphere suggests that the Kuiper Belt is nearly complete to around 21st magnitude in the R band. All the main dynamical classes in the Kuiper Belt are occupied by at least one dwarf-planet-sized object. The 3:2 Neptune resonance, which is the innermost well-populated Neptune resonance, has several large objects while the main outer Neptune resonances such as the 5:3, 7:4, 2:1, and 5:2 do not appear to have any large objects. This indicates that the outer resonances are either significantly depleted in objects relative to the 3:2 resonance or have a significantly different assortment of objects than the 3:2 resonance. For the largest objects (H < 4.5 mag), the scattered disk population appears to have a few times more objects than the main Kuiper Belt (MKB) population, while the Sedna population could be several times more than that of the MKB.

  15. The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the Second Phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abolfathi, Bela; Aguado, D. S.; Aguilar, Gabriela; Allende Prieto, Carlos; Almeida, Andres; Tasnim Ananna, Tonima; Anders, Friedrich; Anderson, Scott F.; Andrews, Brett H.; Anguiano, Borja; Aragón-Salamanca, Alfonso; Argudo-Fernández, Maria; Armengaud, Eric; Ata, Metin; Aubourg, Eric; Avila-Reese, Vladimir; Badenes, Carles; Bailey, Stephen; Balland, Christophe; Barger, Kathleen A.; Barrera-Ballesteros, Jorge; Bartosz, Curtis; Bastien, Fabienne; Bates, Dominic; Baumgarten, Falk; Bautista, Julian; Beaton, Rachael; Beers, Timothy C.; Belfiore, Francesco; Bender, Chad F.; Bernardi, Mariangela; Bershady, Matthew A.; Beutler, Florian; Bird, Jonathan C.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Blanc, Guillermo A.; Blanton, Michael R.; Blomqvist, Michael; Bolton, Adam S.; Boquien, Médéric; Borissova, Jura; Bovy, Jo; Andres Bradna Diaz, Christian; Nielsen Brandt, William; Brinkmann, Jonathan; Brownstein, Joel R.; Bundy, Kevin; Burgasser, Adam J.; Burtin, Etienne; Busca, Nicolás G.; Cañas, Caleb I.; Cano-Díaz, Mariana; Cappellari, Michele; Carrera, Ricardo; Casey, Andrew R.; Cervantes Sodi, Bernardo; Chen, Yanping; Cherinka, Brian; Chiappini, Cristina; Doohyun Choi, Peter; Chojnowski, Drew; Chuang, Chia-Hsun; Chung, Haeun; Clerc, Nicolas; Cohen, Roger E.; Comerford, Julia M.; Comparat, Johan; Correa do Nascimento, Janaina; da Costa, Luiz; Cousinou, Marie-Claude; Covey, Kevin; Crane, Jeffrey D.; Cruz-Gonzalez, Irene; Cunha, Katia; da Silva Ilha, Gabriele; Damke, Guillermo J.; Darling, Jeremy; Davidson, James W., Jr.; Dawson, Kyle; de Icaza Lizaola, Miguel Angel C.; de la Macorra, Axel; de la Torre, Sylvain; De Lee, Nathan; de Sainte Agathe, Victoria; Deconto Machado, Alice; Dell’Agli, Flavia; Delubac, Timothée; Diamond-Stanic, Aleksandar M.; Donor, John; José Downes, Juan; Drory, Niv; du Mas des Bourboux, Hélion; Duckworth, Christopher J.; Dwelly, Tom; Dyer, Jamie; Ebelke, Garrett; Davis Eigenbrot, Arthur; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Elsworth, Yvonne P.; Emsellem, Eric; Eracleous, Michael; Erfanianfar, Ghazaleh; Escoffier, Stephanie; Fan, Xiaohui; Fernández Alvar, Emma; Fernandez-Trincado, J. G.; Cirolini, Rafael Fernando; Feuillet, Diane; Finoguenov, Alexis; Fleming, Scott W.; Font-Ribera, Andreu; Freischlad, Gordon; Frinchaboy, Peter; Fu, Hai; Gómez Maqueo Chew, Yilen; Galbany, Lluís; García Pérez, Ana E.; Garcia-Dias, R.; García-Hernández, D. A.; Garma Oehmichen, Luis Alberto; Gaulme, Patrick; Gelfand, Joseph; Gil-Marín, Héctor; Gillespie, Bruce A.; Goddard, Daniel; González Hernández, Jonay I.; Gonzalez-Perez, Violeta; Grabowski, Kathleen; Green, Paul J.; Grier, Catherine J.; Gueguen, Alain; Guo, Hong; Guy, Julien; Hagen, Alex; Hall, Patrick; Harding, Paul; Hasselquist, Sten; Hawley, Suzanne; Hayes, Christian R.; Hearty, Fred; Hekker, Saskia; Hernandez, Jesus; Hernandez Toledo, Hector; Hogg, David W.; Holley-Bockelmann, Kelly; Holtzman, Jon A.; Hou, Jiamin; Hsieh, Bau-Ching; Hunt, Jason A. S.; Hutchinson, Timothy A.; Hwang, Ho Seong; Jimenez Angel, Camilo Eduardo; Johnson, Jennifer A.; Jones, Amy; Jönsson, Henrik; Jullo, Eric; Sakil Khan, Fahim; Kinemuchi, Karen; Kirkby, David; Kirkpatrick, Charles C., IV; Kitaura, Francisco-Shu; Knapp, Gillian R.; Kneib, Jean-Paul; Kollmeier, Juna A.; Lacerna, Ivan; Lane, Richard R.; Lang, Dustin; Law, David R.; Le Goff, Jean-Marc; Lee, Young-Bae; Li, Hongyu; Li, Cheng; Lian, Jianhui; Liang, Yu; Lima, Marcos; Lin, Lihwai; Long, Dan; Lucatello, Sara; Lundgren, Britt; Mackereth, J. Ted; MacLeod, Chelsea L.; Mahadevan, Suvrath; Geimba Maia, Marcio Antonio; Majewski, Steven; Manchado, Arturo; Maraston, Claudia; Mariappan, Vivek; Marques-Chaves, Rui; Masseron, Thomas; Masters, Karen L.; McDermid, Richard M.; McGreer, Ian D.; Melendez, Matthew; Meneses-Goytia, Sofia; Merloni, Andrea; Merrifield, Michael R.; Meszaros, Szabolcs; Meza, Andres; Minchev, Ivan; Minniti, Dante; Mueller, Eva-Maria; Muller-Sanchez, Francisco; Muna, Demitri; Muñoz, Ricardo R.; Myers, Adam D.; Nair, Preethi; Nandra, Kirpal; Ness, Melissa; Newman, Jeffrey A.; Nichol, Robert C.; Nidever, David L.; Nitschelm, Christian; Noterdaeme, Pasquier; O’Connell, Julia; Oelkers, Ryan James; Oravetz, Audrey; Oravetz, Daniel; Aquino Ortíz, Erik; Osorio, Yeisson; Pace, Zach; Padilla, Nelson; Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie; Alonso Palicio, Pedro; Pan, Hsi-An; Pan, Kaike; Parikh, Taniya; Pâris, Isabelle; Park, Changbom; Peirani, Sebastien; Pellejero-Ibanez, Marcos; Penny, Samantha; Percival, Will J.; Perez-Fournon, Ismael; Petitjean, Patrick; Pieri, Matthew M.; Pinsonneault, Marc; Pisani, Alice; Prada, Francisco; Prakash, Abhishek; Queiroz, Anna Bárbara de Andrade; Raddick, M. Jordan; Raichoor, Anand; Barboza Rembold, Sandro; Richstein, Hannah; Riffel, Rogemar A.; Riffel, Rogério; Rix, Hans-Walter; Robin, Annie C.; Rodríguez Torres, Sergio; Román-Zúñiga, Carlos; Ross, Ashley J.; Rossi, Graziano; Ruan, John; Ruggeri, Rossana; Ruiz, Jose; Salvato, Mara; Sánchez, Ariel G.; Sánchez, Sebastián F.; Sanchez Almeida, Jorge; Sánchez-Gallego, José R.; Santana Rojas, Felipe Antonio; Santiago, Basílio Xavier; Schiavon, Ricardo P.; Schimoia, Jaderson S.; Schlafly, Edward; Schlegel, David; Schneider, Donald P.; Schuster, William J.; Schwope, Axel; Seo, Hee-Jong; Serenelli, Aldo; Shen, Shiyin; Shen, Yue; Shetrone, Matthew; Shull, Michael; Silva Aguirre, Víctor; Simon, Joshua D.; Skrutskie, Mike; Slosar, Anže; Smethurst, Rebecca; Smith, Verne; Sobeck, Jennifer; Somers, Garrett; Souter, Barbara J.; Souto, Diogo; Spindler, Ashley; Stark, David V.; Stassun, Keivan; Steinmetz, Matthias; Stello, Dennis; Storchi-Bergmann, Thaisa; Streblyanska, Alina; Stringfellow, Guy S.; Suárez, Genaro; Sun, Jing; Szigeti, Laszlo; Taghizadeh-Popp, Manuchehr; Talbot, Michael S.; Tang, Baitian; Tao, Charling; Tayar, Jamie; Tembe, Mita; Teske, Johanna; Thakar, Aniruddha R.; Thomas, Daniel; Tissera, Patricia; Tojeiro, Rita; Tremonti, Christy; Troup, Nicholas W.; Urry, Meg; Valenzuela, O.; van den Bosch, Remco; Vargas-González, Jaime; Vargas-Magaña, Mariana; Vazquez, Jose Alberto; Villanova, Sandro; Vogt, Nicole; Wake, David; Wang, Yuting; Weaver, Benjamin Alan; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Weinberg, David H.; Westfall, Kyle B.; Whelan, David G.; Wilcots, Eric; Wild, Vivienne; Williams, Rob A.; Wilson, John; Wood-Vasey, W. M.; Wylezalek, Dominika; Xiao, Ting; Yan, Renbin; Yang, Meng; Ybarra, Jason E.; Yèche, Christophe; Zakamska, Nadia; Zamora, Olga; Zarrouk, Pauline; Zasowski, Gail; Zhang, Kai; Zhao, Cheng; Zhao, Gong-Bo; Zheng, Zheng; Zheng, Zheng; Zhou, Zhi-Min; Zhu, Guangtun; Zinn, Joel C.; Zou, Hu

    2018-04-01

    The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since 2014 July. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the 14th from SDSS overall (making this Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes the data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (2014–2016 July) public. Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey; the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data-driven machine-learning algorithm known as “The Cannon” and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from the SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS web site (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020 and will be followed by SDSS-V.

  16. The 105-Month Swift-BAT All-Sky Hard X-Ray Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oh, Kyuseok; Koss, Michael; Markwardt, Craig B.; Schawinski, Kevin; Baumgartner, Wayne H.; Barthelmy, Scott D.; Cenko, S. Bradley; Gehrels, Neil; Mushotzky, Richard; Petulante, Abigail; hide

    2018-01-01

    We present a catalog of hard X-ray sources detected in the first 105 months of observations with the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) coded-mask imager on board the Swift observatory. The 105-month Swift-BAT survey is a uniform hard X-ray all-sky survey with a sensitivity of 8.40 x 10(exp -12) erg s(exp -1) cm(exp -2) over 90% of the sky and 7.24 x 10(exp -12) erg s(exp -1) cm(exp -2) over 50% of the sky in the 14-195 keV band. The Swift-BAT 105-month catalog provides 1632 (422 new detections) hard X-ray sources in the 14-195 keV band above the 4.8 sigma significance level. Adding to the previously known hard X-ray sources, 34% (144/422) of the new detections are identified as Seyfert active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in nearby galaxies (z < 0.2). The majority of the remaining identified sources are X-ray binaries (7%, 31) and blazars/BL Lac objects (10%, 43). As part of this new edition of the Swift-BAT catalog, we release eight-channel spectra and monthly sampled light curves for each object in the online journal and at the Swift-BAT 105-month website.

  17. RE-EXAMINING HIGH ABUNDANCE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY MASS-METALLICITY OUTLIERS: HIGH N/O, EVOLVED WOLF-RAYET GALAXIES?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Berg, Danielle A.; Skillman, Evan D.; Marble, Andrew R.

    2011-01-01

    We present new MMT spectroscopic observations of four dwarf galaxies representative of a larger sample observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and identified by Peeples et al. as low-mass, high oxygen abundance outliers from the mass-metallicity relation. Peeples showed that these four objects (with metallicity estimates of 8.5 ≤ 12 + log(O/H) ≤ 8.8) have oxygen abundance offsets of 0.4-0.6 dex from the M B luminosity-metallicity relation. Our new observations extend the wavelength coverage to include the [O II] λλ3726, 3729 doublet, which adds leverage in oxygen abundance estimates and allows measurements of N/O ratios. All four spectra are low excitation, with relatively high N/O ratios (N/O ∼> 0.10), each of which tend to bias estimates based on strong emission lines toward high oxygen abundances. These spectra all fall in a regime where the 'standard' strong-line methods for metallicity determinations are not well calibrated either empirically or by photoionization modeling. By comparing our spectra directly to photoionization models, we estimate oxygen abundances in the range of 7.9 ≤ 12 + log (O/H) ≤ 8.4, consistent with the scatter of the mass-metallicity relation. We discuss the physical nature of these galaxies that leads to their unusual spectra (and previous classification as outliers), finding their low excitation, elevated N/O, and strong Balmer absorption are consistent with the properties expected from galaxies evolving past the 'Wolf-Rayet galaxy' phase. We compare our results to the 'main' sample of Peeples and conclude that they are outliers primarily due to enrichment of nitrogen relative to oxygen and not due to unusually high oxygen abundances for their masses or luminosities.

  18. Local starburst galaxies and their descendants. Statistics from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bergvall, Nils; Marquart, Thomas; Way, Michael J.; Blomqvist, Anna; Holst, Emma; Ostlin, Goran; Zackrisson, Erik

    2016-01-01

    Despite strong interest in the starburst phenomenon in extragalactic astronomy, the concept remains ill-defined. Here we use a strict definition of starburst to examine the statistical properties of starburst galaxies in the local universe. We also seek to establish links between starburst galaxies, post-starburst (hereafter postburst) galaxies, and active galaxies. Data were selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR7. We applied a novel method of treating dust attenuation and derive star formation rates, ages, and stellar masses assuming a two-component stellar population model. Dynamical masses are calculated from the width of the H-alpha line. These masses agree excellently with the photometric masses. The mass (gas+stars) range is approximately 10( exp 9) - 10(exp 11.5) solar mass. As a selection criterion for starburst galaxies, we use, the birthrate parameter, b = SFR/SFR, requiring that b is greater than 3. For postburst galaxies, we use, the equivalent width of Hdelta in absorption with the criterion EW (sub Hdelta_abs) is greater than 6 A. Results. We find that only 1% of star-forming galaxies are starburst galaxies. They contribute 3-6% to the stellar production and are therefore unimportant for the local star formation activity. The median starburst age is 70 Myr roughly independent of mass, indicating that star formation is mainly regulated by local feedback processes. The b-parameter strongly depends on burst age. Values close to b = 60 are found at ages approximately 10 Myr, while almost no starbursts are found at ages greater than 1 Gyr. The median baryonic burst mass fraction of sub-L galaxies is 5% and decreases slowly towards high masses. The median mass fraction of the recent burst in the postburst sample is 5-10%. A smaller fraction of the postburst galaxies, however, originates in non-bursting galaxies. The age-mass distribution of the postburst progenitors (with mass fractions is greater than 3%) is bimodal with a break at logM(solar mass

  19. Classification of Variable Objects in Massive Sky Monitoring Surveys

    Science.gov (United States)

    Woźniak, Przemek; Wyrzykowski, Łukasz; Belokurov, Vasily

    2012-03-01

    The era of great sky surveys is upon us. Over the past decade we have seen rapid progress toward a continuous photometric record of the optical sky. Numerous sky surveys are discovering and monitoring variable objects by hundreds of thousands. Advances in detector, computing, and networking technology are driving applications of all shapes and sizes ranging from small all sky monitors, through networks of robotic telescopes of modest size, to big glass facilities equipped with giga-pixel CCD mosaics. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope will be the first peta-scale astronomical survey [18]. It will expand the volume of the parameter space available to us by three orders of magnitude and explore the mutable heavens down to an unprecedented level of sensitivity. Proliferation of large, multidimensional astronomical data sets is stimulating the work on new methods and tools to handle the identification and classification challenge [3]. Given exponentially growing data rates, automated classification of variability types is quickly becoming a necessity. Taking humans out of the loop not only eliminates the subjective nature of visual classification, but is also an enabling factor for time-critical applications. Full automation is especially important for studies of explosive phenomena such as γ-ray bursts that require rapid follow-up observations before the event is over. While there is a general consensus that machine learning will provide a viable solution, the available algorithmic toolbox remains underutilized in astronomy by comparison with other fields such as genomics or market research. Part of the problem is the nature of astronomical data sets that tend to be dominated by a variety of irregularities. Not all algorithms can handle gracefully uneven time sampling, missing features, or sparsely populated high-dimensional spaces. More sophisticated algorithms and better tools available in standard software packages are required to facilitate the adoption of

  20. Infrared Sky Imager (IRSI) Instrument Handbook

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Morris, Victor R. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)

    2016-04-01

    The Infrared Sky Imager (IRSI) deployed at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility is a Solmirus Corp. All Sky Infrared Visible Analyzer. The IRSI is an automatic, continuously operating, digital imaging and software system designed to capture hemispheric sky images and provide time series retrievals of fractional sky cover during both the day and night. The instrument provides diurnal, radiometrically calibrated sky imagery in the mid-infrared atmospheric window and imagery in the visible wavelengths for cloud retrievals during daylight hours. The software automatically identifies cloudy and clear regions at user-defined intervals and calculates fractional sky cover, providing a real-time display of sky conditions.

  1. Clustering of High Redshift (z>2.9) Quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Shen, Yue; Strauss, Michael A.; Oguri, Masamune; Hennawi, Joseph F.; Fan, Xiaohui; Richards, Gordon T.; Hall, Patrick B.; Schneider, Donald P.; Szalay, Alexander S.; Thakar, Anirudda R.; Berk, Daniel E.Vanden; Anderson, Scott F.; Bahcall, Neta A.; /KIPAC, Menlo Park

    2006-11-30

    We study the two-point correlation function of a uniformly selected sample of 4,428 optically selected luminous quasars with redshift 2.9 {le} z {le} 5.4 selected over 4041 deg{sup 2} from the Fifth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We fit a power-law to the projected correlation function w{sub p}(r{sub p}) to marginalize over redshift space distortions and redshift errors. For a real-space correlation function of the form {zeta}(r) = (r/r{sub 0}){sup -{gamma}}, the fitted parameters in comoving coordinates are r{sub 0} = 15.2 {+-} 2.7 h{sup -1} Mpc and {gamma} = 2.0 {+-} 0.3, over a scale range 4 {le} r{sub p} {le} 150 h{sup -1} Mpc. Thus high-redshift quasars are appreciably more strongly clustered than their z {approx} 1.5 counterparts, which have a comoving clustering length r{sub 0} {approx} 6.5 h{sup -1} Mpc. Dividing our sample into two redshift bins: 2.9 {le} z {le} 3.5 and z {ge} 3.5, and assuming a power-law index {gamma} = 2.0, we find a correlation length of r{sub 0} = 16.9 {+-} 1.7 h{sup -1} Mpc for the former, and r{sub 0} = 24.3 {+-} 2.4 h{sup -1} Mpc for the latter. Strong clustering at high redshift indicates that quasars are found in very massive, and therefore highly biased, halos. Following Martini & Weinberg, we relate the clustering strength and quasar number density to the quasar lifetimes and duty cycle. Using the Sheth & Tormen halo mass function, the quasar lifetime is estimated to lie in the range 4 {approx} 50 Myr for quasars with 2.9 {le} z {le} 3.5; and 30 {approx} 600 Myr for quasars with z {ge} 3.5. The corresponding duty cycles are 0.004 {approx} 0.05 for the lower redshift bin and 0.03 {approx} 0.6 for the higher redshift bin. The minimum mass of halos in which these quasars reside is 2-3 x 10{sup 12} h{sup -1} M{sub {circle_dot}} for quasars with 2.9 {le} z {le} 3.5 and 4-6 x 10{sup 12} h{sup -1} M{sub {circle_dot}} for quasars with z {ge} 3.5; the effective bias factor b{sub eff} increases with redshift, e.g., b

  2. Second ROSAT all-sky survey (2RXS) source catalogue

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boller, Th.; Freyberg, M. J.; Trümper, J.; Haberl, F.; Voges, W.; Nandra, K.

    2016-04-01

    Aims: We present the second ROSAT all-sky survey source catalogue, hereafter referred to as the 2RXS catalogue. This is the second publicly released ROSAT catalogue of point-like sources obtained from the ROSAT all-sky survey (RASS) observations performed with the position-sensitive proportional counter (PSPC) between June 1990 and August 1991, and is an extended and revised version of the bright and faint source catalogues. Methods: We used the latest version of the RASS processing to produce overlapping X-ray images of 6.4° × 6.4° sky regions. To create a source catalogue, a likelihood-based detection algorithm was applied to these, which accounts for the variable point-spread function (PSF) across the PSPC field of view. Improvements in the background determination compared to 1RXS were also implemented. X-ray control images showing the source and background extraction regions were generated, which were visually inspected. Simulations were performed to assess the spurious source content of the 2RXS catalogue. X-ray spectra and light curves were extracted for the 2RXS sources, with spectral and variability parameters derived from these products. Results: We obtained about 135 000 X-ray detections in the 0.1-2.4 keV energy band down to a likelihood threshold of 6.5, as adopted in the 1RXS faint source catalogue. Our simulations show that the expected spurious content of the catalogue is a strong function of detection likelihood, and the full catalogue is expected to contain about 30% spurious detections. A more conservative likelihood threshold of 9, on the other hand, yields about 71 000 detections with a 5% spurious fraction. We recommend thresholds appropriate to the scientific application. X-ray images and overlaid X-ray contour lines provide an additional user product to evaluate the detections visually, and we performed our own visual inspections to flag uncertain detections. Intra-day variability in the X-ray light curves was quantified based on the

  3. COOL WHITE DWARFS IDENTIFIED IN THE SECOND DATA RELEASE OF THE UKIRT INFRARED DEEP SKY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lodieu, N.; Leggett, S. K.; Nitta, A.; Bergeron, P.

    2009-01-01

    We have paired the second data release of the Large Area Survey of the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey with the fifth data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to identify 10 cool white dwarf candidates, from their photometry and astrometry. Of these 10, one was previously known to be a very cool white dwarf. We have obtained optical spectroscopy for seven of the candidates using the GMOS-N spectrograph on Gemini North, and have confirmed all seven as white dwarfs. Our photometry and astrometry indicate that the remaining two objects are also white dwarfs. The model analysis of the photometry and available spectroscopy shows that the seven confirmed new white dwarfs, and the two new likely white dwarfs, have effective temperatures in the range of T eff = 5400-6600 K. Our analysis of the previously known white dwarf confirms that it is cool, with T eff = 3800 K. The cooling age for this dwarf is 8.7 Gyr, while that for the nine ∼ 6000 K white dwarfs is 1.8-3.6 Gyr. We are unable to determine the masses of the white dwarfs from the existing data, and therefore we cannot constrain the total ages of the white dwarfs. The large cooling age for the coolest white dwarf in the sample, combined with its low estimated tangential velocity, suggests that it is an old member of the thin disk, or a member of the thick disk of the Galaxy, with an age of 10-11 Gyr. The warmer white dwarfs appear to have velocities typical of the thick disk or even halo; these may be very old remnants of low-mass stars, or they may be relatively young thin-disk objects with unusually high space motion.

  4. The Catalina Sky Survey for Near-Earth Objects

    Science.gov (United States)

    Christensen, E.

    The Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) specializes in the detection of the closest transients in our transient universe: near-Earth objects (NEOs). CSS is the leading NEO survey program since 2005, with a discovery rate of 500-600 NEOs per year. This rate is set to substantially increase starting in 2014 with the deployment of wider FOV cameras at both survey telescopes, while a proposed 3-telescope system in Chile would provide a new and significant capability in the Southern Hemisphere beginning as early as 2015. Elements contributing to the success of CSS may be applied to other surveys, and include 1) Real-time processing, identification, and reporting of interesting transients; 2) Human-assisted validation to ensure a clean transient stream that is efficient to the limits of the system (˜ 1σ); 3) an integrated follow-up capability to ensure threshold or high-priority transients are properly confirmed and followed up. Additionally, the open-source nature of the CSS data enables considerable secondary science (i.e. CRTS), and CSS continues to pursue collaborations to maximize the utility of the data.

  5. On the limitations of statistical absorption studies with the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys I-III

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lan, Ting-Wen; Ménard, Brice; Baron, Dalya; Johnson, Sean; Poznanski, Dovi; Prochaska, J. Xavier; O'Meara, John M.

    2018-04-01

    We investigate the limitations of statistical absorption measurements with the SDSS optical spectroscopic surveys. We show that changes in the data reduction strategy throughout different data releases have led to a better accuracy at long wavelengths, in particular for sky line subtraction, but a degradation at short wavelengths with the emergence of systematic spectral features with an amplitude of about one percent. We show that these features originate from inaccuracy in the fitting of modeled F-star spectra used for flux calibration. The best-fit models for those stars are found to systematically over-estimate the strength of metal lines and under-estimate that of Lithium. We also identify the existence of artifacts due to masking and interpolation procedures at the wavelengths of the hydrogen Balmer series leading to the existence of artificial Balmer α absorption in all SDSS optical spectra. All these effects occur in the rest-frame of the standard stars and therefore present Galactic longitude variations due to the rotation of the Galaxy. We demonstrate that the detection of certain weak absorption lines reported in the literature are solely due to calibration effects. Finally, we discuss new strategies to mitigate these issues.

  6. The taxonomic distribution of asteroids from multi-filter all-sky photometric surveys

    Science.gov (United States)

    DeMeo, F. E.; Carry, B.

    2013-09-01

    The distribution of asteroids across the main belt has been studied for decades to understand the current compositional distribution and what that tells us about the formation and evolution of our Solar System. All-sky surveys now provide orders of magnitude more data than targeted surveys. We present a method to bias-correct the asteroid population observed in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) according to size, distance, and albedo. We taxonomically classify this dataset consistent with the Bus and Binzel (Bus, S.J., Binzel, R.P. [2002]. Icarus 158, 146-177) and Bus-DeMeo et al. (DeMeo, F.E., Binzel, R.P., Slivan, S.M., Bus, S.J. [2009]. Icarus 202(July), 160-180) systems and present the resulting taxonomic distribution. The dataset includes asteroids as small as 5 km, a factor of three in diameter smaller than in previous work such as by Mothé-Diniz et al. (Mothé-Diniz, T., Carvano, J.M.Á., Lazzaro, D. [2003]. Icarus 162(March), 10-21). Because of the wide range of sizes in our sample, we present the distribution by number, surface area, volume, and mass whereas previous work was exclusively by number. While the distribution by number is a useful quantity and has been used for decades, these additional quantities provide new insights into the distribution of total material. We find evidence for D-types in the inner main belt where they are unexpected according to dynamical models of implantation of bodies from the outer Solar System into the inner Solar System during planetary migration (Levison, H.F., Bottke, W.F., Gounelle, M., Morbidelli, A., Nesvorný, D., Tsiganis, K. [2009]. Nature 460(July), 364-366). We find no evidence of S-types or other unexpected classes among Trojans and Hildas, albeit a bias favoring such a detection. Finally, we estimate for the first time the total amount of material of each class in the inner Solar System. The main belt’s most massive classes are C, B, P, V and S in decreasing order. Excluding the four most massive

  7. Optimizing Spectroscopic and Photometric Galaxy Surveys: Same-Sky Benefits for Dark Energy and Modified Gravity

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kirk, Donnacha [University Coll. London; Lahav, Ofer [University Coll. London; Bridle, Sarah [Manchester U.; Jouvel, Stephanie [Barcelona, IEEC; Abdalla, Filipe B. [University Coll. London; Frieman, Joshua A. [Chicago U., KICP

    2015-08-21

    The combination of multiple cosmological probes can produce measurements of cosmological parameters much more stringent than those possible with any individual probe. We examine the combination of two highly correlated probes of late-time structure growth: (i) weak gravitational lensing from a survey with photometric redshifts and (ii) galaxy clustering and redshift space distortions from a survey with spectroscopic redshifts. We choose generic survey designs so that our results are applicable to a range of current and future photometric redshift (e.g. KiDS, DES, HSC, Euclid) and spectroscopic redshift (e.g. DESI, 4MOST, Sumire) surveys. Combining the surveys greatly improves their power to measure both dark energy and modified gravity. An independent, non-overlapping combination sees a dark energy figure of merit more than 4 times larger than that produced by either survey alone. The powerful synergies between the surveys are strongest for modified gravity, where their constraints are orthogonal, producing a non-overlapping joint figure of merit nearly 2 orders of magnitude larger than either alone. Our projected angular power spectrum formalism makes it easy to model the cross-correlation observable when the surveys overlap on the sky, producing a joint data vector and full covariance matrix. We calculate a same-sky improvement factor, from the inclusion of these cross-correlations, relative to non-overlapping surveys. We find nearly a factor of 4 for dark energy and more than a factor of 2 for modified gravity. The exact forecast figures of merit and same-sky benefits can be radically affected by a range of forecasts assumption, which we explore methodically in a sensitivity analysis. We show that that our fiducial assumptions produce robust results which give a good average picture of the science return from combining photometric and spectroscopic surveys.

  8. Solar irradiance forecasting at one-minute intervals for different sky conditions using sky camera images

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Alonso-Montesinos, J.; Batlles, F.J.; Portillo, C.

    2015-01-01

    Highlights: • The solar resource has been predicted for three hours at 1-min intervals. • Digital image levels and cloud motion vectors are joint for irradiance forecasting. • The three radiation components have been predicted under different sky conditions. • Diffuse and global radiation has an nRMSE value around 10% in all sky conditions. • Beam irradiance is predicted with an nRMSE value of about 15% in overcast skies. - Abstract: In the search for new techniques to predict atmospheric features that might be useful to solar power plant operators, we have carried out solar irradiance forecasting using emerging sky camera technology. Digital image levels are converted into irradiances and then the maximum cross-correlation method is applied to obtain future predictions. This methodology is a step forward in the study of the solar resource, essential to solar plant operators in adapting a plant’s operating procedures to atmospheric conditions and to improve electricity generation. The results are set out using different statistical parameters, in which beam, diffuse and global irradiances give a constant normalized root-mean-square error value over the time interval for all sky conditions. The average measure is 25.44% for beam irradiance; 11.60% for diffuse irradiance and 11.17% for global irradiance.

  9. VizieR Online Data Catalog: The VLA Low-frequency Sky Survey at 74MHz (Perley+ 2006)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perley, R. A.; Condon, J. J.; Cotton, W. D.; Cohen, A. S.; Lane, W. M.; Kassim, N. E.; Lazio, T. J. W.; Erickson, W. C.

    2006-08-01

    The VLA Low-Frequency Sky Survey (VLSS) is a 74MHz (4m) continuum survey covering the entire sky north of -30{deg} declination. Using the VLA in B- and BnA-configurations, we will map the entire survey region at a resolution of 80" and with an average rms noise of 0.1 Jy/beam. For a detailed description of the survey and its scientific motivations, please see the original proposal to the NRAO skeptical review committee. The VLSS is being made as a service to the astronomical community, and the principal data products are being released to the public as soon as they are produced and verified. Details and access to the images can be found at http://lwa.nrl.navy.mil/VLSS/ (1 data file).

  10. VizieR Online Data Catalog: The VLA Low-frequency Sky Survey at 74MHz (Cohen+ 2007)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cohen, A. S.; Lane, W. M.; Cotton, W. D.; Kassim, N. E.; Lazio, T. J. W.; Perley, R. A.; Condon, J. J.; Erickson, W. C.

    2006-08-01

    The VLA Low-Frequency Sky Survey (VLSS) is a 74MHz (4m) continuum survey covering the entire sky north of -30{deg} declination. Using the VLA in B- and BnA-configurations, we will map the entire survey region at a resolution of 80" and with an average rms noise of 0.1 Jy/beam. For a detailed description of the survey and its scientific motivations, please see the original proposal to the NRAO skeptical review committee. The VLSS is being made as a service to the astronomical community, and the principal data products are being released to the public as soon as they are produced and verified. Details and access to the images can be found at http://lwa.nrl.navy.mil/VLSS/ (1 data file).

  11. SPHEREx: Probing the Physics of Inflation with an All-Sky Spectroscopic Galaxy Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dore, Olivier; SPHEREx Science Team

    2018-01-01

    SPHEREx, a mission in NASA's Medium Explorer (MIDEX) program that was selected for Phase A in August 2017, is an all-sky survey satellite designed to address all three science goals in NASA’s astrophysics division: probe the origin and destiny of our Universe; explore whether planets around other stars could harbor life; and explore the origin and evolution of galaxies. These themes are addressed by a single survey, with a single instrument.In this poster, we describe how SPHEREx can probe the physics of inflationary non-Gaussianity by measuring large-scale structure with galaxy redshifts over a large cosmological volume at low redshifts, complementing high-redshift surveys optimized to constrain dark energy.SPHEREx will be the first all-sky near-infrared spectral survey, creating a legacy archive of spectra. In particular, it will measure the redshifts of over 500 million galaxies of all types, an unprecedented dataset. Using this catalog, SPHEREx will reduce the uncertainty in fNL -- a parameter describing the inflationary initial conditions -- by a factor of more than 10 compared with CMB measurements. At the same time, this catalog will enable strong scientific synergies with Euclid, WFIRST and LSST

  12. Four faint T dwarfs from the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) Southern Stripe

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chiu, Kuenley; Liu, Michael C.; Jiang, Linhua; Allers, Katelyn N.; Stark, Daniel P.; Bunker, Andrew; Fan, Xiaohui; Glazebrook, Karl; Dupuy, Trent J.

    2008-03-01

    We present the optical and near-infrared photometry and spectroscopy of four faint T dwarfs newly discovered from the UKIDSS first data release. The sample, drawn from an imaged area of ~136 deg2 to a depth of Y = 19.9 (5σ, Vega), is located in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Southern Equatorial Stripe, a region of significant future deep imaging potential. We detail the selection and followup of these objects, three of which are spectroscopically confirmed brown dwarfs ranging from type T2.5 to T7.5, and one is photometrically identified as early T. Their magnitudes range from Y = 19.01 to 19.88 with derived distances from 34 to 98 pc, making these among the coldest and faintest brown dwarfs known. The T7.5 dwarf appears to be single based on 0.05-arcsec images from Keck laser guide star adaptive optics. The sample brings the total number of T dwarfs found or confirmed by UKIDSS data in this region to nine, and we discuss the projected numbers of dwarfs in the future survey data. We estimate that ~240 early and late T dwarfs are discoverable in the UKIDSS Large Area Survey (LAS) data, falling significantly short of published model projections and suggesting that initial mass functions and/or birth rates may be at the low end of possible models. Thus, deeper optical data have good potential to exploit the UKIDSS survey depth more fully, but may still find the potential Y dwarf sample to be extremely rare.

  13. Synoptic sky surveys and the diffuse supernova neutrino background: Removing astrophysical uncertainties and revealing invisible supernovae

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lien, Amy; Fields, Brian D.; Beacom, John F.

    2010-01-01

    The cumulative (anti)neutrino production from all core-collapse supernovae within our cosmic horizon gives rise to the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB), which is on the verge of detectability. The observed flux depends on supernova physics, but also on the cosmic history of supernova explosions; currently, the cosmic supernova rate introduces a substantial (±40%) uncertainty, largely through its absolute normalization. However, a new class of wide-field, repeated-scan (synoptic) optical sky surveys is coming online, and will map the sky in the time domain with unprecedented depth, completeness, and dynamic range. We show that these surveys will obtain the cosmic supernova rate by direct counting, in an unbiased way and with high statistics, and thus will allow for precise predictions of the DSNB. Upcoming sky surveys will substantially reduce the uncertainties in the DSNB source history to an anticipated ±5% that is dominated by systematics, so that the observed high-energy flux thus will test supernova neutrino physics. The portion of the universe (z < or approx. 1) accessible to upcoming sky surveys includes the progenitors of a large fraction (≅87%) of the expected 10-26 MeV DSNB event rate. We show that precision determination of the (optically detected) cosmic supernova history will also make the DSNB into a strong probe of an extra flux of neutrinos from optically invisible supernovae, which may be unseen either due to unexpected large dust obscuration in host galaxies, or because some core-collapse events proceed directly to black hole formation and fail to give an optical outburst.

  14. Deep learning approach for classifying, detecting and predicting photometric redshifts of quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey stripe 82

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pasquet-Itam, J.; Pasquet, J.

    2018-04-01

    We have applied a convolutional neural network (CNN) to classify and detect quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Stripe 82 and also to predict the photometric redshifts of quasars. The network takes the variability of objects into account by converting light curves into images. The width of the images, noted w, corresponds to the five magnitudes ugriz and the height of the images, noted h, represents the date of the observation. The CNN provides good results since its precision is 0.988 for a recall of 0.90, compared to a precision of 0.985 for the same recall with a random forest classifier. Moreover 175 new quasar candidates are found with the CNN considering a fixed recall of 0.97. The combination of probabilities given by the CNN and the random forest makes good performance even better with a precision of 0.99 for a recall of 0.90. For the redshift predictions, the CNN presents excellent results which are higher than those obtained with a feature extraction step and different classifiers (a K-nearest-neighbors, a support vector machine, a random forest and a Gaussian process classifier). Indeed, the accuracy of the CNN within |Δz| < 0.1 can reach 78.09%, within |Δz| < 0.2 reaches 86.15%, within |Δz| < 0.3 reaches 91.2% and the value of root mean square (rms) is 0.359. The performance of the KNN decreases for the three |Δz| regions, since within the accuracy of |Δz| < 0.1, |Δz| < 0.2, and |Δz| < 0.3 is 73.72%, 82.46%, and 90.09% respectively, and the value of rms amounts to 0.395. So the CNN successfully reduces the dispersion and the catastrophic redshifts of quasars. This new method is very promising for the future of big databases such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. A table of the candidates is only available at the CDS via anonymous ftp to http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (http://130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/qcat?J/A+A/611/A97

  15. A new all-sky map of Galactic high-velocity clouds from the 21-cm HI4PI survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Westmeier, Tobias

    2018-02-01

    High-velocity clouds (HVCs) are neutral or ionized gas clouds in the vicinity of the Milky Way that are characterized by high radial velocities inconsistent with participation in the regular rotation of the Galactic disc. Previous attempts to create a homogeneous all-sky H I map of HVCs have been hampered by a combination of poor angular resolution, limited surface brightness sensitivity and suboptimal sampling. Here, a new and improved H I map of Galactic HVCs based on the all-sky HI4PI survey is presented. The new map is fully sampled and provides significantly better angular resolution (16.2 versus 36 arcmin) and column density sensitivity (2.3 versus 3.7 × 1018 cm-2 at the native resolution) than the previously available LAB survey. The new HVC map resolves many of the major HVC complexes in the sky into an intricate network of narrow H I filaments and clumps that were not previously resolved by the LAB survey. The resulting sky coverage fraction of high-velocity H I emission above a column density level of 2 × 1018 cm-2 is approximately 15 per cent, which reduces to about 13 per cent when the Magellanic Clouds and other non-HVC emission are removed. The differential sky coverage fraction as a function of column density obeys a truncated power law with an exponent of -0.93 and a turnover point at about 5 × 1019 cm-2. H I column density and velocity maps of the HVC sky are made publicly available as FITS images for scientific use by the community.

  16. The GMRT 150 MHz all-sky radio survey. First alternative data release TGSS ADR1

    Science.gov (United States)

    Intema, H. T.; Jagannathan, P.; Mooley, K. P.; Frail, D. A.

    2017-02-01

    We present the first full release of a survey of the 150 MHz radio sky, observed with the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) between April 2010 and March 2012 as part of the TIFR GMRT Sky Survey (TGSS) project. Aimed at producing a reliable compact source survey, our automated data reduction pipeline efficiently processed more than 2000 h of observations with minimal human interaction. Through application of innovative techniques such as image-based flagging, direction-dependent calibration of ionospheric phase errors, correcting for systematic offsets in antenna pointing, and improving the primary beam model, we created good quality images for over 95 percent of the 5336 pointings. Our data release covers 36 900 deg2 (or 3.6 π steradians) of the sky between -53° and +90° declination (Dec), which is 90 percent of the total sky. The majority of pointing images have a noise level below 5 mJy beam-1 with an approximate resolution of 25''×25'' (or 25''×25''/ cos(Dec-19°) for pointings south of 19° declination). We have produced a catalog of 0.62 Million radio sources derived from an initial, high reliability source extraction at the seven sigma level. For the bulk of the survey, the measured overall astrometric accuracy is better than two arcseconds in right ascension and declination, while the flux density accuracy is estimated at approximately ten percent. Within the scope of the TGSS alternative data release (TGSS ADR) project, the source catalog, as well as 5336 mosaic images (5°×5°) and an image cutout service, are made publicly available at the CDS as a service to the astronomical community. Next to enabling a wide range of different scientific investigations, we anticipate that these survey products will provide a solid reference for various new low-frequency radio aperture array telescopes (LOFAR, LWA, MWA, SKA-low), and can play an important role in characterizing the epoch-of-reionisation (EoR) foreground. The TGSS ADR project aims at

  17. XMM-NEWTON/SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY: STAR FORMATION EFFICIENCY IN GALAXY CLUSTERS AND CONSTRAINTS ON THE MATTER-DENSITY PARAMETER

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lagana, Tatiana F. [Universidade de Sao Paulo, Instituto de Astronomia, Geofisica e Ciencias Atmosfericas, Departamento de Astronomia, Cidade Universitaria, CEP:05508-090, Sao Paulo, SP (Brazil); Zhang Yuying; Reiprich, Thomas H.; Schneider, Peter [Argelander-Institut fuer Astronomie, Universitaet Bonn, 53121 Bonn (Germany)

    2011-12-10

    It is believed that the global baryon content of clusters of galaxies is representative of the matter distribution of the universe, and can, therefore, be used to reliably determine the matter-density parameter {Omega}{sub m}. This assumption is challenged by the growing evidence from optical and X-ray observations that the total baryon mass fraction increases toward rich clusters. In this context, we investigate the dependence of stellar and total baryon mass fractions as a function of mass. To do so, we used a subsample of 19 clusters extracted from the X-ray flux-limited sample HIFLUGCS that have available Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 data. From the optical analysis we derived the stellar masses. Using XMM-Newton we derived the gas masses. Then, adopting a scaling relation we estimate the total masses. Adding the gas and the stellar mass fractions we obtain the total baryonic content that we find to increase with cluster mass, reaching seven-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP7) prediction for clusters with M{sub 500} = 1.6 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup 15} M{sub Sun }. We observe a decrease of the stellar mass fraction (from 4.5% to {approx}1.0%) with increasing total mass where our findings for the stellar mass fraction agree with previous studies. This result suggests a difference in the number of stars formed per unit of halo mass, though with a large scatter for low-mass systems. That is, the efficiency of star formation varies on a cluster scale that lower mass systems are likely to have higher star formation efficiencies. It follows immediately that the dependence of the stellar mass fraction on total mass results in an increase of the mass-to-light ratio from lower to higher mass systems. We also discuss the consequences of these results in the context of determining the cosmic matter-density parameter {Omega}{sub m}.

  18. Galaxy Evolution Insights from Spectral Modeling of Large Data Sets from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hoversten, Erik A. [Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, MD (United States)

    2007-10-01

    This thesis centers on the use of spectral modeling techniques on data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to gain new insights into current questions in galaxy evolution. The SDSS provides a large, uniform, high quality data set which can be exploited in a number of ways. One avenue pursued here is to use the large sample size to measure precisely the mean properties of galaxies of increasingly narrow parameter ranges. The other route taken is to look for rare objects which open up for exploration new areas in galaxy parameter space. The crux of this thesis is revisiting the classical Kennicutt method for inferring the stellar initial mass function (IMF) from the integrated light properties of galaxies. A large data set (~ 105 galaxies) from the SDSS DR4 is combined with more in-depth modeling and quantitative statistical analysis to search for systematic IMF variations as a function of galaxy luminosity. Galaxy Hα equivalent widths are compared to a broadband color index to constrain the IMF. It is found that for the sample as a whole the best fitting IMF power law slope above 0.5 M is Γ = 1.5 ± 0.1 with the error dominated by systematics. Galaxies brighter than around Mr,0.1 = -20 (including galaxies like the Milky Way which has Mr,0.1 ~ -21) are well fit by a universal Γ ~ 1.4 IMF, similar to the classical Salpeter slope, and smooth, exponential star formation histories (SFH). Fainter galaxies prefer steeper IMFs and the quality of the fits reveal that for these galaxies a universal IMF with smooth SFHs is actually a poor assumption. Related projects are also pursued. A targeted photometric search is conducted for strongly lensed Lyman break galaxies (LBG) similar to MS1512-cB58. The evolution of the photometric selection technique is described as are the results of spectroscopic follow-up of the best targets. The serendipitous discovery of two interesting blue compact dwarf galaxies is reported. These

  19. A large sample of Kohonen selected E+A (post-starburst) galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meusinger, H.; Brünecke, J.; Schalldach, P.; in der Au, A.

    2017-01-01

    Context. The galaxy population in the contemporary Universe is characterised by a clear bimodality, blue galaxies with significant ongoing star formation and red galaxies with only a little. The migration between the blue and the red cloud of galaxies is an issue of active research. Post starburst (PSB) galaxies are thought to be observed in the short-lived transition phase. Aims: We aim to create a large sample of local PSB galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to study their characteristic properties, particularly morphological features indicative of gravitational distortions and indications for active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Another aim is to present a tool set for an efficient search in a large database of SDSS spectra based on Kohonen self-organising maps (SOMs). Methods: We computed a huge Kohonen SOM for ∼106 spectra from SDSS data release 7. The SOM is made fully available, in combination with an interactive user interface, for the astronomical community. We selected a large sample of PSB galaxies taking advantage of the clustering behaviour of the SOM. The morphologies of both PSB galaxies and randomly selected galaxies from a comparison sample in SDSS Stripe 82 (S82) were inspected on deep co-added SDSS images to search for indications of gravitational distortions. We used the Portsmouth galaxy property computations to study the evolutionary stage of the PSB galaxies and archival multi-wavelength data to search for hidden AGNs. Results: We compiled a catalogue of 2665 PSB galaxies with redshifts z 3 Å and z cloud, in agreement with the idea that PSB galaxies represent the transitioning phase between actively and passively evolving galaxies. The relative frequency of distorted PSB galaxies is at least 57% for EW(Hδ) > 5 Å, significantly higher than in the comparison sample. The search for AGNs based on conventional selection criteria in the radio and MIR results in a low AGN fraction of ∼2-3%. We confirm an MIR excess in the mean SED of

  20. Day/night whole sky imagers for 24-h cloud and sky assessment: history and overview.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shields, Janet E; Karr, Monette E; Johnson, Richard W; Burden, Art R

    2013-03-10

    A family of fully automated digital whole sky imagers (WSIs) has been developed at the Marine Physical Laboratory over many years, for a variety of research and military applications. The most advanced of these, the day/night whole sky imagers (D/N WSIs), acquire digital imagery of the full sky down to the horizon under all conditions from full sunlight to starlight. Cloud algorithms process the imagery to automatically detect the locations of cloud for both day and night. The instruments can provide absolute radiance distribution over the full radiance range from starlight through daylight. The WSIs were fielded in 1984, followed by the D/N WSIs in 1992. These many years of experience and development have resulted in very capable instruments and algorithms that remain unique. This article discusses the history of the development of the D/N WSIs, system design, algorithms, and data products. The paper cites many reports with more detailed technical documentation. Further details of calibration, day and night algorithms, and cloud free line-of-sight results will be discussed in future articles.

  1. A Survey of z>5.8 Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. I. Discovery of Three New Quasars and the Spatial Density of Luminous Quasars at z~6

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fan, Xiaohui; Narayanan, Vijay K.; Lupton, Robert H.; Strauss, Michael A.; Knapp, Gillian R.; Becker, Robert H.; White, Richard L.; Pentericci, Laura; Leggett, S. K.; Haiman, Zoltán; Gunn, James E.; Ivezić, Željko; Schneider, Donald P.; Anderson, Scott F.; Brinkmann, J.; Bahcall, Neta A.; Connolly, Andrew J.; Csabai, István; Doi, Mamoru; Fukugita, Masataka; Geballe, Tom; Grebel, Eva K.; Harbeck, Daniel; Hennessy, Gregory; Lamb, Don Q.; Miknaitis, Gajus; Munn, Jeffrey A.; Nichol, Robert; Okamura, Sadanori; Pier, Jeffrey R.; Prada, Francisco; Richards, Gordon T.; Szalay, Alex; York, Donald G.

    2001-12-01

    We present the results from a survey of i-dropout objects selected from ~1550 deg2 of multicolor imaging data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to search for luminous quasars at z>~5.8. Objects with i*-z*>2.2 and z*0.90. The ARC 3.5 m spectrum of SDSSp J103027.10+052455.0 shows that over a range of ~300 Å immediately blueward of the Lyα emission, the average transmitted flux is only 0.003+/-0.020 times that of the continuum level, consistent with zero flux over a ~300 Å range of the Lyα forest region and suggesting a tentative detection of the complete Gunn-Peterson trough. The existence of strong metal lines in the quasar spectra suggests early metal enrichment in the quasar environment. The three new objects, together with the previously published z=5.8 quasar SDSSp J104433.04-012502.2, form a complete color-selected flux-limited sample at z>~5.8. We estimate the selection function of this sample, taking into account the estimated variations in the quasar spectral energy distribution, as well as observational photometric errors. We find that at z=6, the comoving density of luminous quasars at M1450Canada), CONICYT (Chile), the Australian Research Council (Australia), CNPq (Brazil), and CONICET (Argentina) on observations obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation; on observations obtained at the German-Spanish Astronomical Centre, Calar Alto Observatory, operated by the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, jointly with the Spanish National Commission for Astronomy; and on observations obtained at UKIRT, which is operated by the Joint Astronomy Centre on behalf of the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council.

  2. Imaging microchannel plate detectors for XUV sky survey experiments

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Barstow, M.A.; Fraser, G.W.; Milward, S.R.

    1986-01-01

    Attention is given to the development of microchannel plate detectors for the Wide Field Camera (WFC) XUV (50-300 A) sky survey experiment on Rosat. A novel feature of the detector design is that the microchannel plates and their resistive anode readout are curved to the same radius as the WFC telescope focal surface. It is shown that curving the channel plates is not detrimental to gain uniformity. The paper describes the design of a curved resistive anode readout element and contrasts the present measurements of spatial resolution, global and local uniformity and temperature coefficient of resistance with the poor performance recently ascribed to resistive anodes in the literature. 18 references

  3. CALIFA: a diameter-selected sample for an integral field spectroscopy galaxy survey

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Walcher, C.J.; Wisotzki, L.; Bekeraite, S.; Husemann, B.; Iglesias-Paramo, J.; Backsmann, N.; Barrera-Ballesteros, J.; Catalán-Torrecilla, C.; Cortijo-Ferrero, C.; del Olmo, A.; Garcia Lorenzo, B.; Falcon-Barroso, J.; Jílková, J.; Kalinová, V.; Mast, D.; Marino, R.A.; Méndez-Abreu, J.; Pasqual, A.; Sanchez, S.F.; Trager, S.; Zibetti, S.; Aguerri, J.A.L.; Alves, J.; Bland-Hawthorn, J.; Boselli, A.; Castillo-Morales, A.; Fernandes, R.C.; Flores, H.; Galbany, L.; Gallazzi, A.; Garcia-Benito, R.; Gil de Paz, A.; Gonzalez Delgado, R.; Jahnke, K.; Jungwiert, Bruno

    2014-01-01

    Roč. 569, September (2014), A1/1-A1/18 ISSN 0004-6361 Institutional support: RVO:67985815 Keywords : surveys * digital sky survey * active galactic nuclei Subject RIV: BN - Astronomy, Celestial Mechanics, Astrophysics Impact factor: 4.378, year: 2014

  4. Airborne geophysical surveys conducted in western Nebraska, 2010: contractor reports and data

    Science.gov (United States)

    ,

    2014-01-01

    This report contains three contractor reports and data files for an airborne electromagnetic survey flown from June 28 to July 7, 2010. The first report; “SkyTEM Survey: Nebraska, USA, Data” describes data aquisition and processing from a time-domain electromagnetic and magnetic survey performed by SkyTEM Canada, Inc. (the North American SkyTEM subsidiary), in western Nebraska, USA. Digital data for this report are given in Appendix 1. The airborne geophysical data from the SkyTEM survey subsequently were processed and inverted by Aarhus Geophysics ApS, Aarhus, Denmark, to produce resistivity depth sections along each flight line. The result of that processing is described in two reports presented in Appendix 2, “Processing and inversion of SkyTEM data from USGS Area UTM–13” and “Processing and inversion of SkyTEM data from USGS Area UTM–14.” Funding for these surveys was provided by the North Platte Natural Resources District, the South Platte Natural Resources District, and the Twin Platte Natural Resources District, in Scottsbluff, Sidney, and North Platte, Nebraska, respectively. Any additional information concerning the geophysical data may be obtained from the U.S. Geological Survey Crustal Geophysics and Geochemistry Science Center, Denver Colorado.

  5. Exploring the Variable Sky with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Sesar, Branimir; Ivezic, Zeljko; Lupton, Robert; Juric, Mario; Gunn, James; Knapp, Gillian; De Lee, Nathan; Smith, J. Allyn; Miknaitis,Gajus; Lin, Huan; Tucker, Douglas; Doi, Mamoru; Tanaka, Masayuki; Fukugita, Masataka; Holtzman, Jon; Kent, Steve; Yanny, Brian; Schlegel,David; Finkbeiner, Douglas; Padmanabhan, Nikhil; Rockosi, Constance; Bond, Nicholas; Lee, Brian; Stoughton, Chris; Jester, Sebastian; Harris,Hugh; Harding, Paul; Brinkmann, Jon; Schneider, Donald; York, Donald; Richmond, Michael; Vanden Berk, Daniel

    2007-04-01

    We quantify the variability of faint unresolved optical sources using a catalog based on multiple SDSS imaging observations. The catalog covers SDSS Stripe 82, which lies along the celestial equator in the Southern Galactic Hemisphere (22h 24m < {alpha}{sub J2000} < 04h 08m, -1.27{sup o} < {delta}{sub J2000} < +1.27{sup o}, {approx} 290 deg{sup 2}), and contains 58 million photometric observations in the SDSS ugriz system for 1.4 million unresolved sources that were observed at least 4 times in each of the gri bands (with a median of 10 observations obtained over {approx}5 years). In each photometric bandpass we compute various low-order lightcurve statistics such as root-mean-square scatter (rms), {chi}{sup 2} per degree of freedom, skewness, minimum and maximum magnitude, and use them to select and study variable sources. We find that 2% of unresolved optical sources brighter than g = 20.5 appear variable at the 0.05 mag level (rms) simultaneously in the g and r bands. The majority (2/3) of these variable sources are low-redshift (< 2) quasars, although they represent only 2% of all sources in the adopted flux-limited sample. We find that at least 90% of quasars are variable at the 0.03 mag level (rms) and confirm that variability is as good a method for finding low-redshift quasars as is the UV excess color selection (at high Galactic latitudes). We analyze the distribution of lightcurve skewness for quasars and find that is centered on zero. We find that about 1/4 of the variable stars are RR Lyrae stars, and that only 0.5% of stars from the main stellar locus are variable at the 0.05 mag level. The distribution of lightcurve skewness in the g-r vs. u-g color-color diagram on the main stellar locus is found to be bimodal (with one mode consistent with Algol-like behavior). Using over six hundred RR Lyrae stars, we demonstrate rich halo substructure out to distances of 100 kpc. We extrapolate these results to expected performance by the Large Synoptic Survey

  6. Wide Field Radio Transient Surveys

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bower, Geoffrey

    2011-04-01

    The time domain of the radio wavelength sky has been only sparsely explored. Nevertheless, serendipitous discovery and results from limited surveys indicate that there is much to be found on timescales from nanoseconds to years and at wavelengths from meters to millimeters. These observations have revealed unexpected phenomena such as rotating radio transients and coherent pulses from brown dwarfs. Additionally, archival studies have revealed an unknown class of radio transients without radio, optical, or high-energy hosts. The new generation of centimeter-wave radio telescopes such as the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) will exploit wide fields of view and flexible digital signal processing to systematically explore radio transient parameter space, as well as lay the scientific and technical foundation for the Square Kilometer Array. Known unknowns that will be the target of future transient surveys include orphan gamma-ray burst afterglows, radio supernovae, tidally-disrupted stars, flare stars, and magnetars. While probing the variable sky, these surveys will also provide unprecedented information on the static radio sky. I will present results from three large ATA surveys (the Fly's Eye survey, the ATA Twenty CM Survey (ATATS), and the Pi GHz Survey (PiGSS)) and several small ATA transient searches. Finally, I will discuss the landscape and opportunities for future instruments at centimeter wavelengths.

  7. The ROSAT All-Sky Survey view of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pietsch, W.; Denner, K.; Kahabka, P.; Pakull, M.; Schaeidt, S.

    1996-01-01

    During the Rosat all sky survey, centered on the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), 516 X-ray sources were detected. The field was covered from July 1990 to January 1991. The X-ray parameters of the sources, involving position, count rates, hardness ratios, extent, and time variability during the observations, are discussed. Identifications with objects from optical, radio and infrared wavelength allow the LMC candidates to be separated from the foreground stars and the background objects.

  8. Toward long-term all-sky time domain surveys-SINDICS: a prospective concept for a Seismic INDICes Survey of half a million red giants

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michel Eric

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available CoRoT and Kepler have brought a new and deep experience in long-term photometric surveys and how to use them. This is true for exoplanets characterizing, stellar seismology and beyond for studying several other phenomena, like granulation or activity. Based on this experience, it has been possible to propose new generation projects, like TESS and PLATO, with more specific scientific objectives and more ambitious observational programs in terms of sky coverage and/or duration of the observations. In this context and as a prospective exercise, we explore here the possibility to set up an all-sky survey optimized for seismic indices measurement, providing masses, radii and evolution stages for half a million solar-type pulsators (subgiants and red giants, in our galactic neighborhood and allowing unprecedented stellar population studies.

  9. The All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) Light Curve Server v1.0

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kochanek, C. S.; Shappee, B. J.; Stanek, K. Z.; Holoien, T. W.-S.; Thompson, Todd A.; Prieto, J. L.; Dong, Subo; Shields, J. V.; Will, D.; Britt, C.; Perzanowski, D.; Pojmański, G.

    2017-10-01

    The All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) is working toward imaging the entire visible sky every night to a depth of V˜ 17 mag. The present data covers the sky and spans ˜2-5 years with ˜100-400 epochs of observation. The data should contain some ˜1 million variable sources, and the ultimate goal is to have a database of these observations publicly accessible. We describe here a first step, a simple but unprecedented web interface https://asas-sn.osu.edu/ that provides an up to date aperture photometry light curve for any user-selected sky coordinate. The V band photometry is obtained using a two-pixel (16.″0) radius aperture and is calibrated against the APASS catalog. Because the light curves are produced in real time, this web tool is relatively slow and can only be used for small samples of objects. However, it also imposes no selection bias on the part of the ASAS-SN team, allowing the user to obtain a light curve for any point on the celestial sphere. We present the tool, describe its capabilities, limitations, and known issues, and provide a few illustrative examples.

  10. Information integration for a sky survey by data warehousing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Luo, A.; Zhang, Y.; Zhao, Y.

    The virtualization service of data system for a sky survey LAMOST is very important for astronomers The service needs to integrate information from data collections catalogs and references and support simple federation of a set of distributed files and associated metadata Data warehousing has been in existence for several years and demonstrated superiority over traditional relational database management systems by providing novel indexing schemes that supported efficient on-line analytical processing OLAP of large databases Now relational database systems such as Oracle etc support the warehouse capability which including extensions to the SQL language to support OLAP operations and a number of metadata management tools have been created The information integration of LAMOST by applying data warehousing is to effectively provide data and knowledge on-line

  11. Super-sample covariance approximations and partial sky coverage

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lacasa, Fabien; Lima, Marcos; Aguena, Michel

    2018-04-01

    Super-sample covariance (SSC) is the dominant source of statistical error on large scale structure (LSS) observables for both current and future galaxy surveys. In this work, we concentrate on the SSC of cluster counts, also known as sample variance, which is particularly useful for the self-calibration of the cluster observable-mass relation; our approach can similarly be applied to other observables, such as galaxy clustering and lensing shear. We first examined the accuracy of two analytical approximations proposed in the literature for the flat sky limit, finding that they are accurate at the 15% and 30-35% level, respectively, for covariances of counts in the same redshift bin. We then developed a harmonic expansion formalism that allows for the prediction of SSC in an arbitrary survey mask geometry, such as large sky areas of current and future surveys. We show analytically and numerically that this formalism recovers the full sky and flat sky limits present in the literature. We then present an efficient numerical implementation of the formalism, which allows fast and easy runs of covariance predictions when the survey mask is modified. We applied our method to a mask that is broadly similar to the Dark Energy Survey footprint, finding a non-negligible negative cross-z covariance, i.e. redshift bins are anti-correlated. We also examined the case of data removal from holes due to, for example bright stars, quality cuts, or systematic removals, and find that this does not have noticeable effects on the structure of the SSC matrix, only rescaling its amplitude by the effective survey area. These advances enable analytical covariances of LSS observables to be computed for current and future galaxy surveys, which cover large areas of the sky where the flat sky approximation fails.

  12. Solar Wind Charge Exchange Contribution To The ROSAT Sky Survey Maps

    Science.gov (United States)

    Uprety, Y.; Chiao, M.; Collier, M. R.; Cravens, T.; Galeazzi, M.; Koutroumpa, D.; Kuntz, K. D.; Lallement, R.; Lepri, S. T.; Liu, W.; hide

    2016-01-01

    DXL (Diffuse X-ray emission from the Local Galaxy) is a sounding rocket mission designed to estimate the contribution of solar wind charge eXchange (SWCX) to the diffuse X-ray background and to help determine the properties of the Local Hot Bubble. The detectors are large area thin-window proportional counters with a spectral response that is similar to that of the PSPC (Position Sensitive Proportional Counters) used in the ROSAT All Sky Survey (RASS). A direct comparison of DXL and RASS data for the same part of the sky viewed from quite different vantage points in the solar system, and the assumption of approximate isotropy for the solar wind, allowed us to quantify the SWCX contribution to all six RASS bands (R1-R7, excluding R3). We find that the SWCX contribution at l = 140 degrees, b = 0 degrees, where the DXL path crosses the Galactic plane, is 33 percent plus or minus 6 percent (statistical) plus or minus 12 percent (systematic) for R1, 44 percent plus or minus 6 percent plus or minus 5 percent for R2, 18 percent plus or minus 12 percent plus or minus 11 percent for R4, 14 percent plus or minus 11 percent plus or minus 9 percent for R5, and negligible for the R6 and R7 bands. Reliable models for the distribution of neutral H and He in the solar system permit estimation of the contribution of interplanetary SWCX emission over the the whole sky and correction of the RASS maps. We find that the average SWCX contribution in the whole sky is 26 percent plus or minus 6 percent plus or minus 13 percent for R1, 30 percent plus or minus 4 percent plus or minus 4 percent for R2, 8 percent plus or minus 5 percent plus or minus 5 percent for R4, 6 percent plus or minus 4 percent plus or minus 4 percent for R5, and negligible for R6 and R7.

  13. There Are (super)Giants in the Sky: Searching for Misidentified Massive Stars in Algorithmically-Selected Quasar Catalogs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dorn-Wallenstein, Trevor Z.; Levesque, Emily

    2017-11-01

    Thanks to incredible advances in instrumentation, surveys like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey have been able to find and catalog billions of objects, ranging from local M dwarfs to distant quasars. Machine learning algorithms have greatly aided in the effort to classify these objects; however, there are regimes where these algorithms fail, where interesting oddities may be found. We present here an X-ray bright quasar misidentified as a red supergiant/X-ray binary, and a subsequent search of the SDSS quasar catalog for X-ray bright stars misidentified as quasars.

  14. The Sloan Lens ACS Survey. I. A large spectroscopically selected sample of massive early-type lens galaxies

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bolton, AS; Burles, S; Koopmans, LVE; Treu, T; Moustakas, LA

    2006-01-01

    The Sloan Lens ACS (SLACS) Survey is an efficient Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Snapshot imaging survey for new galaxy-scale strong gravitational lenses. The targeted lens candidates are selected spectroscopically from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) database of galaxy spectra for having multiple

  15. 78 FR 56229 - Information Collection; DigitalGov Customer Satisfaction Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-09-12

    ...] Information Collection; DigitalGov Customer Satisfaction Survey AGENCY: Office of Citizen Services and... regarding the DigitalGov Web site Customer Satisfaction Survey. DATES: Submit comments on or before November... Customer Satisfaction Survey by any of the following methods: Regulations.gov : http://www.regulations.gov...

  16. GOALS, STRATEGIES AND FIRST DISCOVERIES OF AO327, THE ARECIBO ALL-SKY 327 MHz DRIFT PULSAR SURVEY

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Deneva, J. S. [Arecibo Observatory, HC3 Box 53995, Arecibo, PR 00612 (United States); Stovall, K.; Martinez, J. G.; Jenet, F. [Center for Advanced Radio Astronomy, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Texas at Brownsville, Brownsville, TX 78520 (United States); McLaughlin, M. A.; Bates, S. D.; Bagchi, M. [Department of Physics, West Virginia University, 111 White Hall, Morgantown, WV 26506 (United States); Freire, P. C. C. [Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, D-53121 Bonn (Germany)

    2013-09-20

    We report initial results from AO327, a drift survey for pulsars with the Arecibo telescope at 327 MHz. The first phase of AO327 will cover the sky at declinations of –1° to 28°, excluding the region within 5° of the Galactic plane, where high scattering and dispersion make low-frequency surveys sub-optimal. We record data from a 57 MHz bandwidth with 1024 channels and 125 μs sampling time. The 60 s transit time through the AO327 beam means that the survey is sensitive to very tight relativistic binaries even with no acceleration searches. To date we have detected 44 known pulsars with periods ranging from 3 ms to 2.21 s and discovered 24 new pulsars. The new discoveries include 3 ms pulsars, three objects with periods of a few tens of milliseconds typical of young as well as mildly recycled pulsars, a nuller, and a rotating radio transient. Five of the new discoveries are in binary systems. The second phase of AO327 will cover the sky at declinations of 28°-38°. We compare the sensitivity and search volume of AO327 to the Green Bank North Celestial Cap survey and the GBT350 drift survey, both of which operate at 350 MHz.

  17. Adoption of open source digital library software packages: a survey

    OpenAIRE

    Jose, Sanjo

    2007-01-01

    Open source digital library packages are gaining popularity nowadays. To build a digital library under economical conditions open source software is preferable. This paper tries to identify the extent of adoption of open source digital library software packages in various organizations through an online survey. It lays down the findings from the survey.

  18. Digital readout alpha survey instrument

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jacobs, M.E.

    1976-01-01

    A prototype solid-state digital readout alpha particle survey instrument has been designed and constructed. The meter incorporates a Ludlum alpha scintillator as a detector, digital logic circuits for control and timing, and a Digilin counting module with reflective liquid crystal display. The device is used to monitor alpha radiation from a surface. Sample counts are totalized over 10-second intervals and displayed digitally in counts per minute up to 19,999. Tests over source samples with counts to 15,600 cpm have shown the device to be rapid, versatile and accurate. The instrument can be fabricated in one man-week and requires about $835 in material costs. A complete set of drawings is included

  19. A LIMIT ON THE NUMBER OF ISOLATED NEUTRON STARS DETECTED IN THE ROSAT ALL-SKY-SURVEY BRIGHT SOURCE CATALOG

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Turner, Monica L.; Rutledge, Robert E.; Letcavage, Ryan; Shevchuk, Andrew S. H.; Fox, Derek B.

    2010-01-01

    Using new and archival observations made with the Swift satellite and other facilities, we examine 147 X-ray sources selected from the ROSAT All-Sky-Survey Bright Source Catalog (RASS/BSC) to produce a new limit on the number of isolated neutron stars (INSs) in the RASS/BSC, the most constraining such limit to date. Independent of X-ray spectrum and variability, the number of INSs is ≤48 (90% confidence). Restricting attention to soft (kT eff < 200 eV), non-variable X-ray sources-as in a previous study-yields an all-sky limit of ≤31 INSs. In the course of our analysis, we identify five new high-quality INS candidates for targeted follow-up observations. A future all-sky X-ray survey with eROSITA, or another mission with similar capabilities, can be expected to increase the detected population of X-ray-discovered INSs from the 8-50 in the BSC, to (for a disk population) 240-1500, which will enable a more detailed study of neutron star population models.

  20. Target Selection for the SDSS-IV APOGEE-2 Survey

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zasowski, G.; Cohen, R. E.; Carlberg, J. K.; Fleming, Scott W.; Chojnowski, S. D.; Holtzman, J.; Santana, F.; Oelkers, R. J.; Bird, J. C.; Andrews, B.; Beaton, R. L.; Bender, C.; Cunha, K.; Bovy, J.; Covey, K.; Dell’Agli, F.; García-Hernández, D. A.; Frinchaboy, P. M.; Harding, P.; Johnson, J. A.

    2017-01-01

    APOGEE-2 is a high-resolution, near-infrared spectroscopic survey observing ∼3 × 10 5 stars across the entire sky. It is the successor to APOGEE and is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV). APOGEE-2 is expanding on APOGEE’s goals of addressing critical questions of stellar astrophysics, stellar populations, and Galactic chemodynamical evolution using (1) an enhanced set of target types and (2) a second spectrograph at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. APOGEE-2 is targeting red giant branch and red clump stars, RR Lyrae, low-mass dwarf stars, young stellar objects, and numerous other Milky Way and Local Group sources across the entire sky from both hemispheres. In this paper, we describe the APOGEE-2 observational design, target selection catalogs and algorithms, and the targeting-related documentation included in the SDSS data releases.

  1. THE SLACS SURVEY. VIII. THE RELATION BETWEEN ENVIRONMENT AND INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF EARLY-TYPE GALAXIES

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Treu, Tommaso; Gavazzi, Raphael; Gorecki, Alexia; Marshall, Philip J.; Koopmans, Leon V. E.; Bolton, Adam S.; Moustakas, Leonidas A.; Burles, Scott

    2009-01-01

    We study the relation between the internal structure of early-type galaxies and their environment using 70 strong gravitational lenses from the SLACS Survey. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) database is used to determine two measures of overdensity of galaxies around each lens-the projected

  2. A new survey of nebulae around Galactic Wolf-Rayet stars in the northern sky

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miller, Grant J.; Chu, You-Hua

    1993-01-01

    Interference filter CCD images have been obtained in H-alpha and forbidden O III 5007 A for 62 Wolf-Rayet (W-R) stars, representing a complete survey of nebulae around Galactic W-R stars in the northern sky. We find probable new ring nebulae around W-R stars number 113, 116 and 132, and possible new ring nebulae around W-R stars number 133 and 153. All survey images showing nebulosities around W-R stars are presented in this paper. New physical information is derived from the improved images of known ring nebulae. The absence of ring nebulae around most W-R stars is discussed.

  3. Overview of the SDSS-IV MaNGA Survey: Mapping nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bundy, Kevin; Bershady, Matthew A.; Law, David R.; Yan, Renbin; Drory, Niv; MacDonald, Nicholas; Wake, David A.; Cherinka, Brian; Sánchez-Gallego, José R.; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Thomas, Daniel; Tremonti, Christy; Masters, Karen; Coccato, Lodovico; Diamond-Stanic, Aleksandar M.; Aragón-Salamanca, Alfonso; Avila-Reese, Vladimir; Badenes, Carles; Falcón-Barroso, Jésus; Belfiore, Francesco; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Blanc, Guillermo A.; Bland-Hawthorn, Joss; Blanton, Michael R.; Brownstein, Joel R.; Byler, Nell; Cappellari, Michele; Conroy, Charlie; Dutton, Aaron A.; Emsellem, Eric; Etherington, James; Frinchaboy, Peter M.; Fu, Hai; Gunn, James E.; Harding, Paul; Johnston, Evelyn J.; Kauffmann, Guinevere; Kinemuchi, Karen; Klaene, Mark A.; Knapen, Johan H.; Leauthaud, Alexie; Li, Cheng; Lin, Lihwai; Maiolino, Roberto; Malanushenko, Viktor; Malanushenko, Elena; Mao, Shude; Maraston, Claudia; McDermid, Richard M.; Merrifield, Michael R.; Nichol, Robert C.; Oravetz, Daniel; Pan, Kaike; Parejko, John K.; Sanchez, Sebastian F.; Schlegel, David; Simmons, Audrey; Steele, Oliver; Steinmetz, Matthias; Thanjavur, Karun; Thompson, Benjamin A.; Tinker, Jeremy L.; van den Bosch, Remco C. E.; Westfall, Kyle B.; Wilkinson, David; Wright, Shelley; Xiao, Ting; Zhang, Kai

    We present an overview of a new integral field spectroscopic survey called MaNGA (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory), one of three core programs in the fourth-generation Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) that began on 2014 July 1. MaNGA will investigate the internal kinematic

  4. Dark-Skies Awareness

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walker, Constance E.

    2009-05-01

    The arc of the Milky Way seen from a truly dark location is part of our planet's natural heritage. More than one fifth of the world population, two thirds of the United States population and one half of the European Union population have already lost naked eye visibility of the Milky Way. This loss, caused by light pollution, is a serious and growing issue that impacts astronomical research, the economy, ecology, energy conservation, human health, public safety and our shared ability to see the night sky. For this reason, "Dark Skies” is a cornerstone project of the International Year of Astronomy. Its goal is to raise public awareness of the impact of artificial lighting on local environments by getting people worldwide involved in a variety of programs that: 1. Teach about dark skies using new technology (e.g., an activity-based planetarium show on DVD, podcasting, social networking on Facebook and MySpace, a Second Life presence) 2. Provide thematic events on light pollution at star parties and observatory open houses (Dark Skies Discovery Sites, Nights in the (National) Parks, Sidewalk Astronomy) 3. Organize events in the arts (e.g., a photography contest) 4. Involve citizen-scientists in naked-eye and digital-meter star hunting programs (e.g., GLOBE at Night, "How Many Stars?", the Great World Wide Star Count and the radio frequency interference equivalent: "Quiet Skies") and 5. Raise awareness about the link between light pollution and public health, economic issues, ecological consequences, energy conservation, safety and security, and astronomy (e.g., The Starlight Initiative, World Night in Defense of Starlight, International Dark Sky Week, International Dark-Sky Communities, Earth Hour, The Great Switch Out, a traveling exhibit, downloadable posters and brochures). The presentation will provide an update, describe how people can become involved and take a look ahead at the program's sustainability. For more information, visit www.darkskiesawareness.org.

  5. Digital radiography: a survey of pediatric dentists.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Russo, Julie M; Russo, James A; Guelmann, Marcio

    2006-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to: (1) determine the popularity of digital radiography among members of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD); and (2) report the most common systems in use. An AAPD-approved, voluntary, and anonymous electronic survey was developed and sent to 923 board certified pediatric dentists. Years in practice and in-office x-ray technology (digital or conventional) were inquired about initially. If negative for the use of digital radiography, future consideration for converting to digital radiography was ascertained. For positive responses, more in-depth information was requested. Information on type of system (sensor or phosphor plate), user friendliness, diagnostic ability, patient's comfort, general costs, durability, and parental and overall satisfaction was collected. For most of the questions, a 5-point assessment scale was used. Opportunity for additional comments was provided upon survey completion. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. A 32% (296/923) response rate was obtained. Twenty-six percent of practitioners (78/296) implemented digital radiography in their practices, whereas 71% considered future acquisition. Similar distribution for sensor and phosphor plate users was found. Sensor technology was reported to produce faster images, but was less tolerable by young children due to size and thickness. Phosphor plates were considered more children friendly, less expensive, and less durable. Parental satisfaction was very high with great marketing value. Picture quality was comparable to conventional film. Overall, digital radiography users would recommend it to other pediatric dentists. Digital radiography is not yet popular among pediatric dentists. Cost reduction and technology advancement may enhance utilization.

  6. Target Selection for the SDSS-IV APOGEE-2 Survey

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zasowski, G. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States); Cohen, R. E.; Carlberg, J. K.; Fleming, Scott W. [Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Chojnowski, S. D.; Holtzman, J. [Department of Astronomy, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88001 (United States); Santana, F. [Departamento de Astronomía, Universidad de Chile, Santiago (Chile); Oelkers, R. J.; Bird, J. C. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235 (United States); Andrews, B. [PITT PACC, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 (United States); Beaton, R. L. [The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science, Pasadena, CA 91101 (United States); Bender, C.; Cunha, K. [Steward Observatory, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719 (United States); Bovy, J. [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3H4 (Canada); Covey, K. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225 (United States); Dell’Agli, F.; García-Hernández, D. A. [Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna, and Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, La Laguna, Tenerife (Spain); Frinchaboy, P. M. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX 76129 (United States); Harding, P. [Department of Astronomy, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106 (United States); Johnson, J. A., E-mail: gail.zasowski@gmail.com [Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States); and others

    2017-11-01

    APOGEE-2 is a high-resolution, near-infrared spectroscopic survey observing ∼3 × 10{sup 5} stars across the entire sky. It is the successor to APOGEE and is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV). APOGEE-2 is expanding on APOGEE’s goals of addressing critical questions of stellar astrophysics, stellar populations, and Galactic chemodynamical evolution using (1) an enhanced set of target types and (2) a second spectrograph at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. APOGEE-2 is targeting red giant branch and red clump stars, RR Lyrae, low-mass dwarf stars, young stellar objects, and numerous other Milky Way and Local Group sources across the entire sky from both hemispheres. In this paper, we describe the APOGEE-2 observational design, target selection catalogs and algorithms, and the targeting-related documentation included in the SDSS data releases.

  7. Finding counterparts for all-sky X-ray surveys with NWAY: a Bayesian algorithm for cross-matching multiple catalogues

    Science.gov (United States)

    Salvato, M.; Buchner, J.; Budavári, T.; Dwelly, T.; Merloni, A.; Brusa, M.; Rau, A.; Fotopoulou, S.; Nandra, K.

    2018-02-01

    We release the AllWISE counterparts and Gaia matches to 106 573 and 17 665 X-ray sources detected in the ROSAT 2RXS and XMMSL2 surveys with |b| > 15°. These are the brightest X-ray sources in the sky, but their position uncertainties and the sparse multi-wavelength coverage until now rendered the identification of their counterparts a demanding task with uncertain results. New all-sky multi-wavelength surveys of sufficient depth, like AllWISE and Gaia, and a new Bayesian statistics based algorithm, NWAY, allow us, for the first time, to provide reliable counterpart associations. NWAY extends previous distance and sky density based association methods and, using one or more priors (e.g. colours, magnitudes), weights the probability that sources from two or more catalogues are simultaneously associated on the basis of their observable characteristics. Here, counterparts have been determined using a Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) colour-magnitude prior. A reference sample of 4524 XMM/Chandra and Swift X-ray sources demonstrates a reliability of ∼94.7 per cent (2RXS) and 97.4 per cent (XMMSL2). Combining our results with Chandra-COSMOS data, we propose a new separation between stars and AGN in the X-ray/WISE flux-magnitude plane, valid over six orders of magnitude. We also release the NWAY code and its user manual. NWAY was extensively tested with XMM-COSMOS data. Using two different sets of priors, we find an agreement of 96 per cent and 99 per cent with published Likelihood Ratio methods. Our results were achieved faster and without any follow-up visual inspection. With the advent of deep and wide area surveys in X-rays (e.g. SRG/eROSITA, Athena/WFI) and radio (ASKAP/EMU, LOFAR, APERTIF, etc.) NWAY will provide a powerful and reliable counterpart identification tool.

  8. The Daily 110 MHZ Sky Survey (bsa Fian): On-Line Database, Science Aims and First Results of Data Processing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Samodurov, V. A.; Rodin, A. E.; Kitaeva, M. A.; Isaev, E. A.; Dumsky, D. V.; Churakov, D. D.; Manzyuk, M. O.

    From 2012 on radio telescope BSA FIAN multi beams diagram was started. It capable at July 2014 daily observing by 96 beams in declination -8 .. 42 degrees in the frequency band 109-111.5 MHz. The number of frequency bands are from 6 to 32, the time constant are from 0.1 to 0.0125 sec. In receiving mode with 32 band (plus one common band) with a time constant of 12.5 ms (80 times per second) respectively produced 33x96x80 four byte real and so daily we produced 87.5 Gbt (yearly to 32 Tbt). These data are enormous opportunities for both short and long-term monitoring of various classes of radio sources (including radio transients) and for space weather and the Earth's ionosphere monitoring, for search for different classes of radio sources, etc. The base aims of our work are: a) to obtain new scientific data on different classes of discrete radio sources, the construction of physical models and their evolution - obtained on the basis of the clock continuous digital sky radio monitoring at frequency 109-111.5 MHz and cross-analysis of data from third-party reviews on other frequencies; c) launch the streaming data on various types of high-performance computing systems, including to create a public system of distributed computing for thousands of users on the basis of BOINC technology. The BOINC client for astronomical data from the monitoring survey of the big part of entire sky almost have not analogies. We have some first science results (new pulsars, and some new type of radiosources).

  9. Low-dose biplanar skeletal survey versus digital skeletal survey in multiple myeloma

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Boutry, Nathalie; Dutouquet, Bastien; Cotten, Anne; Leleu, Xavier; Vieillard, Marie-Helene; Duhamel, Alain

    2013-01-01

    To evaluate the low-dose biplanar (LDB) skeletal survey (SS) for the assessment of focal bone involvement in patients with multiple myeloma (MM) as compared with digital SS and to compare the two techniques in terms of image quality, patient comfort and radiation exposure. Fifty-six consecutive patients with newly diagnosed or first relapsed MM underwent LDB and digital SS on the same day. These were assessed by two radiologists for the detection of focal bone lesions. In the case of discordance, whole-body MR imaging was performed. Image quality, patient comfort and radiation dose were also assessed. Fifty-six patients (M:30, F:26, mean age, 62 years) with newly diagnosed (n = 21) or first relapse MM (n = 35) were enrolled. A total of 473 bone lesions in 46 patients (82 %) were detected. Out of that total, digital SS detected significantly more lesions than LDB SS (451 [95.35 %] versus 467 [98.73 %]), especially in osteopenic and obese patients. Overall patient satisfaction was greater with LDB SS (48.6 %) compared with digital SS (2.7 %). The radiation dose was significantly reduced (by a factor of 7.8) with the LDB X-ray device. Low-dose biplanar skeletal surveys cannot replace digital SS in all patients suffering from multiple myeloma. (orig.)

  10. Low-dose biplanar skeletal survey versus digital skeletal survey in multiple myeloma

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Boutry, Nathalie [University Hospital of Jeanne de Flandre and University of Lille 2, Departments of Pediatric and Musculoskeletal Imaging, Lille (France); University Hospital of Jeanne de Flandre and University of Lille 2, Department of Pediatric Imaging, Lille (France); Hopital Jeanne de Flandre, Service de Radiopediatrie, Lille (France); Dutouquet, Bastien; Cotten, Anne [University Hospital of Roger Salengro and University of Lille 2, Department of Musculoskeletal Imaging, Lille (France); Leleu, Xavier [University Hospital of Claude Huriez and University of Lille 2, Clinical Hematology Department, Lille (France); Vieillard, Marie-Helene [University Hospital of Roger Salengro and University of Lille 2, Rheumatology Department, Lille (France); Duhamel, Alain [University of Lille 2, Department of Medical Statistics, Lille (France)

    2013-08-15

    To evaluate the low-dose biplanar (LDB) skeletal survey (SS) for the assessment of focal bone involvement in patients with multiple myeloma (MM) as compared with digital SS and to compare the two techniques in terms of image quality, patient comfort and radiation exposure. Fifty-six consecutive patients with newly diagnosed or first relapsed MM underwent LDB and digital SS on the same day. These were assessed by two radiologists for the detection of focal bone lesions. In the case of discordance, whole-body MR imaging was performed. Image quality, patient comfort and radiation dose were also assessed. Fifty-six patients (M:30, F:26, mean age, 62 years) with newly diagnosed (n = 21) or first relapse MM (n = 35) were enrolled. A total of 473 bone lesions in 46 patients (82 %) were detected. Out of that total, digital SS detected significantly more lesions than LDB SS (451 [95.35 %] versus 467 [98.73 %]), especially in osteopenic and obese patients. Overall patient satisfaction was greater with LDB SS (48.6 %) compared with digital SS (2.7 %). The radiation dose was significantly reduced (by a factor of 7.8) with the LDB X-ray device. Low-dose biplanar skeletal surveys cannot replace digital SS in all patients suffering from multiple myeloma. (orig.)

  11. Digital Technology in the protection of cultural heritage Bao Fan Temple mural digital mapping survey

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Y. Zheng

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Peng Xi county, Sichuan province, the Bao Fan temple mural digitization survey mapping project: we use three-dimensional laserscanning, multi-baseline definition digital photography, multi-spectral digital image acquisition and other technologies for digital survey mapping. The purpose of this project is to use modern mathematical reconnaissance mapping means to obtain accurate mural shape, color, quality and other data. Combined with field investigation and laboratory analysis results, and based on a comprehensive survey and study, a comprehensive analysis of the historical Bao Fan Temple mural artistic and scientific value was conducted. A study of the mural’s many qualities (structural, material, technique, preservation environment, degradation, etc. reveal all aspects of the information carried by the Bao Fan Temple mural. From multiple angles (archeology, architecture, surveying, conservation science and other disciplines an assessment for the Bao Fan Temple mural provides basic data and recommendations for conservation of the mural. In order to achieve the conservation of cultural relics in the Bao Fan Temple mural digitization survey mapping process, we try to apply the advantages of three-dimensional laser scanning equipment. For wall murals this means obtaining three-dimensional scale data from the scan of the building and through the analysis of these data to help determine the overall condition of the settlement as well as the deformation of the wall structure. Survey analysis provides an effective set of conclusions and suggestions for appropriate mural conservation. But before data collection, analysis and research need to first to select the appropriate scanning equipment, set the appropriate scanning accuracy and layout position of stations necessary to determine the scope of required data. We use the fine features of the three-dimensional laser scanning measuring arm to scan the mural surface deformation degradation to reflect

  12. Digital Technology in the protection of cultural heritage Bao Fan Temple mural digital mapping survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zheng, Y.

    2015-08-01

    Peng Xi county, Sichuan province, the Bao Fan temple mural digitization survey mapping project: we use three-dimensional laserscanning, multi-baseline definition digital photography, multi-spectral digital image acquisition and other technologies for digital survey mapping. The purpose of this project is to use modern mathematical reconnaissance mapping means to obtain accurate mural shape, color, quality and other data. Combined with field investigation and laboratory analysis results, and based on a comprehensive survey and study, a comprehensive analysis of the historical Bao Fan Temple mural artistic and scientific value was conducted. A study of the mural's many qualities (structural, material, technique, preservation environment, degradation, etc.) reveal all aspects of the information carried by the Bao Fan Temple mural. From multiple angles (archeology, architecture, surveying, conservation science and other disciplines) an assessment for the Bao Fan Temple mural provides basic data and recommendations for conservation of the mural. In order to achieve the conservation of cultural relics in the Bao Fan Temple mural digitization survey mapping process, we try to apply the advantages of three-dimensional laser scanning equipment. For wall murals this means obtaining three-dimensional scale data from the scan of the building and through the analysis of these data to help determine the overall condition of the settlement as well as the deformation of the wall structure. Survey analysis provides an effective set of conclusions and suggestions for appropriate mural conservation. But before data collection, analysis and research need to first to select the appropriate scanning equipment, set the appropriate scanning accuracy and layout position of stations necessary to determine the scope of required data. We use the fine features of the three-dimensional laser scanning measuring arm to scan the mural surface deformation degradation to reflect the actual state of

  13. Real-time Transients from Palomar-QUEST Synoptic Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mahabal, Ashish A.; Drake, A.; Djorgovski, S. G.; Donalek, C.; Glikman, E.; Graham, M. J.; Williams, R.; Baltay, C.; Rabinowitz, D.; Bauer, A.; Ellman, N.; Lauer, R.; PQ Team Indiana

    2006-12-01

    The data from the driftscans of the Palomar-QUEST synoptic sky survey is now routinely processed in real-time. We describe here the various components of the pipeline. We search for both variable and transient objects, including supernovae, variable AGN, GRB orphan afterglows, cataclysmic variables, interesting stellar flares, novae, other types of variable stars, and do not exclude the possibility of even entirely new types of objects or phenomena. In order to flag as many asteroids as possible we have been doing two 4-hour scans of the same area covering 250 sq. deg and detect over a million sources. Flagging a source as a candidate transient requires detection in at least two filters besides its absence in fiducial sky constructed from past images. We use various software filters to eliminate instrument artifacts, and false alarms due to the proximity of bright, saturated stars which dominate the initial detection rate. This leaves up to a couple of hundred asteroids and genuine transients. Previously known asteroids are flagged through an automated comparison with a databases of known asteroids, and new ones through apparent motion. In the end, we have typically 10 20 astrophysical transients remaining per night, and we are currently working on their automated classification, and spectroscopic follow-up. We present preliminary results from real-time follow-up of a few candidates carried out with the Palomar 200-inch telescope as part of a pilot project. Finally we outline the plans for the much harder problem of classifying the transients more accurately for distribution through VOEventNet to astronomers interested only in specific types of transients, more details and overall setting of which is covered in our VOEventNet poster (Drake et al.)

  14. QUEST1 Variability Survey. III. Light Curve Catalog Update

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rengstorf, A. W.; Thompson, D. L.; Mufson, S. L.; Andrews, P.; Honeycutt, R. K.; Vivas, A. K.; Abad, C.; Adams, B.; Bailyn, C.; Baltay, C.; Bongiovanni, A.; Briceño, C.; Bruzual, G.; Coppi, P.; Della Prugna, F.; Emmet, W.; Ferrín, I.; Fuenmayor, F.; Gebhard, M.; Hernández, J.; Magris, G.; Musser, J.; Naranjo, O.; Oemler, A.; Rosenzweig, P.; Sabbey, C. N.; Sánchez, Ge.; Sánchez, Gu.; Schaefer, B.; Schenner, H.; Sinnott, J.; Snyder, J. A.; Sofia, S.; Stock, J.; van Altena, W.

    2009-03-01

    This paper reports an update to the QUEST1 (QUasar Equatorial Survey Team, Phase 1) Variability Survey (QVS) light curve catalog, which links QVS instrumental magnitude light curves to Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) objects and photometry. In the time since the original QVS catalog release, the overlap between publicly available SDSS data and QVS data has increased by 8% in sky coverage and 16,728 in number of matched objects. The astrometric matching and the treatment of SDSS masks have been refined for the updated catalog. We report on these improvements and present multiple bandpass light curves, global variability information, and matched SDSS photometry for 214,941 QUEST1 objects. Based on observations obtained at the Llano del Hato National Astronomical Observatory, operated by the Centro de Investigaciones de Astronomía for the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologia of Venezuela.

  15. SURVEYING THE DYNAMIC RADIO SKY WITH THE LONG WAVELENGTH DEMONSTRATOR ARRAY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lazio, T. Joseph W.; Clarke, Tracy E.; Lane, W. M.; Gross, C.; Kassim, N. E.; Hicks, B.; Polisensky, E.; Stewart, K.; Ray, P. S.; Wood, D.; York, J. A.; Kerkhoff, A.; Dalal, N. Paravastu; Cohen, A. S.; Erickson, W. C.

    2010-01-01

    This paper presents a search for radio transients at a frequency of 73.8 MHz (4 m wavelength) using the all-sky imaging capabilities of the Long Wavelength Demonstrator Array (LWDA). The LWDA was a 16-dipole phased array telescope, located on the site of the Very Large Array in New Mexico. The field of view of the individual dipoles was essentially the entire sky, and the number of dipoles was sufficiently small that a simple software correlator could be used to make all-sky images. From 2006 October to 2007 February, we conducted an all-sky transient search program, acquiring a total of 106 hr of data; the time sampling varied, being 5 minutes at the start of the program and improving to 2 minutes by the end of the program. We were able to detect solar flares, and in a special-purpose mode, radio reflections from ionized meteor trails during the 2006 Leonid meteor shower. We detected no transients originating outside of the solar system above a flux density limit of 500 Jy, equivalent to a limit of no more than about 10 -2 events yr -1 deg -2 , having a pulse energy density ∼>1.5 x 10 -20 J m -2 Hz -1 at 73.8 MHz for pulse widths of about 300 s. This event rate is comparable to that determined from previous all-sky transient searches, but at a lower frequency than most previous all-sky searches. We believe that the LWDA illustrates how an all-sky imaging mode could be a useful operational model for low-frequency instruments such as the Low Frequency Array, the Long Wavelength Array station, the low-frequency component of the Square Kilometre Array, and potentially the Lunar Radio Array.

  16. Meteor Shower Forecast Improvements from a Survey of All-Sky Network Observations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moorhead, Althea V.; Sugar, Glenn; Brown, Peter G.; Cooke, William J.

    2015-01-01

    Meteoroid impacts are capable of damaging spacecraft and potentially ending missions. In order to help spacecraft programs mitigate these risks, NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office (MEO) monitors and predicts meteoroid activity. Temporal variations in near-Earth space are described by the MEO's annual meteor shower forecast, which is based on both past shower activity and model predictions. The MEO and the University of Western Ontario operate sister networks of all-sky meteor cameras. These networks have been in operation for more than 7 years and have computed more than 20,000 meteor orbits. Using these data, we conduct a survey of meteor shower activity in the "fireball" size regime using DBSCAN. For each shower detected in our survey, we compute the date of peak activity and characterize the growth and decay of the shower's activity before and after the peak. These parameters are then incorporated into the annual forecast for an improved treatment of annual activity.

  17. ROTSE All-Sky Surveys for Variable Stars. I. Test Fields

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Akerlof, C.; Amrose, S.; Balsano, R.; Bloch, J.; Casperson, D.; Fletcher, S.; Gisler, G.; Hills, J.; Kehoe, R.; Lee, B.

    2000-01-01

    The Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment I (ROTSE-I) experiment has generated CCD photometry for the entire northern sky in two epochs nightly since 1998 March. These sky patrol data are a powerful resource for studies of astrophysical transients. As a demonstration project, we present first results of a search for periodic variable stars derived from ROTSE-I observations. Variable identification, period determination, and type classification are conducted via automatic algorithms. In a set of nine ROTSE-I sky patrol fields covering roughly 2000 deg2, we identify 1781 periodic variable stars with mean magnitudes between m v = 10.0 and m v = 15.5. About 90% of these objects are newly identified as variable. Examples of many familiar types are presented. All classifications for this study have been manually confirmed. The selection criteria for this analysis have been conservatively defined and are known to be biased against some variable classes. This preliminary study includes only 5.6% of the total ROTSE-I sky coverage, suggesting that the full ROTSE-I variable catalog will include more than 32,000 periodic variable stars. (c) (c) 2000. The American Astronomical Society

  18. The Dynamic Radio Sky: Future Directions at cm/m-Wavelengths

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bower, Geoffrey C.; Cordes, J.; Croft, S.; Lazio, J.; Lorimer, D.; McLaughlin, M.

    2009-01-01

    The time domain of the radio wavelength sky has been only sparsely explored. Nevertheless, recent discoveries from limited surveys and serendipitous discoveries indicate that there is much to be found on timescales from nanoseconds to years and at wavelengths from meters to millimeters. These observations have revealed unexpected phenonmena such as rotating radio transients and coherent pulses from brown dwarfs. Additionally, archival studies have revealed an unknown class of radio transients without radio, optical, or high-energy hosts. The current generation of new meter- and centimeter-wave radio telescopes such as the MWA, LWA, PAPER, and ATA will exploit wide fields of view and flexible digital signal processing to systematically explore radio transient parameter space, as well as lay the scientific and technical foundation for the SKA. Known unknowns that will be the target of future transient surveys include orphan gamma-ray burst afterglows, radio supernovae, tidally-disrupted stars, flare stars, and magnetars.

  19. Observation of the Coma cluster of galaxies with ROSAT during the all-sky survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Briel, U. G.; Henry, J. P.; Boehringer, H.

    1992-01-01

    The Coma cluster of galaxies was observed with the position sensitive proportional counter (PSPC) during the ROSAT all sky survey. We find evidence for substructure in this cluster. Diffuse X-ray emission is detected from the regions of the NGC 4839 and 4911 subgroups at 6 percent and 1 percent of the total cluster emission respectively. There may be emission associated with the NGC 4874 and 4889 subgroups as well. The NGC 4839 group appears to be in the process of merging with the cluster. These X-ray data show that at least some of the groups previously found in projection are in fact physical objects possessing potential wells deep enough to trap their own X-ray gas. Because of the unlimited field of view of the all sky survey and the low background of the PSPC, we were able to measure the azimuthally averaged surface brightness of Coma out to approximately 100 arcmin, twice as far as was previously possible. Given the validity of our mass models, these new X-ray data imply that within 5/h(50) Mpc the binding mass of the Coma cluster is 1.8 +/- 0.6 x 10 exp 15/h(50) solar mass, and the fraction of cluster mass contained in hot gas is 0.30 +/- 0.14h(50) exp -3/2. Furthermore, the binding mass is more centrally concentrated than is the X-ray gas.

  20. Assessment of Systematic Chromatic Errors that Impact Sub-1% Photometric Precision in Large-Area Sky Surveys

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Li, T. S. [et al.

    2016-05-27

    Meeting the science goals for many current and future ground-based optical large-area sky surveys requires that the calibrated broadband photometry is stable in time and uniform over the sky to 1% precision or better. Past surveys have achieved photometric precision of 1-2% by calibrating the survey's stellar photometry with repeated measurements of a large number of stars observed in multiple epochs. The calibration techniques employed by these surveys only consider the relative frame-by-frame photometric zeropoint offset and the focal plane position-dependent illumination corrections, which are independent of the source color. However, variations in the wavelength dependence of the atmospheric transmission and the instrumental throughput induce source color-dependent systematic errors. These systematic errors must also be considered to achieve the most precise photometric measurements. In this paper, we examine such systematic chromatic errors using photometry from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) as an example. We define a natural magnitude system for DES and calculate the systematic errors on stellar magnitudes, when the atmospheric transmission and instrumental throughput deviate from the natural system. We conclude that the systematic chromatic errors caused by the change of airmass in each exposure, the change of the precipitable water vapor and aerosol in the atmosphere over time, and the non-uniformity of instrumental throughput over the focal plane, can be up to 2% in some bandpasses. We compare the calculated systematic chromatic errors with the observed DES data. For the test sample data, we correct these errors using measurements of the atmospheric transmission and instrumental throughput. The residual after correction is less than 0.3%. We also find that the errors for non-stellar objects are redshift-dependent and can be larger than those for stars at certain redshifts.

  1. Dwarfs Cooler Than M: The Definition of Spectral Type L Using Discoveries from the 2-Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kirkpatrick, J.; Reid, I.; Liebert, J.; Cutri, R.; Nelson, B.; Beichman, C.; Dahn, C.; Monet, D.; Gizis, J.; Skrutskie, M.

    1998-01-01

    Before the 2-Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) began, only six objects were known with spectral types later than M9.5 V. In the first 371 sq. deg. of actual 2MASS survey data, we have identified another twenty such objects spectroscopically confirmed using the Low Resolution Imaging Spectrograph (LRIS) at the W.M. Keck Observatory.

  2. AGN Populations in Large-volume X-Ray Surveys: Photometric Redshifts and Population Types Found in the Stripe 82X Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ananna, Tonima Tasnin; Salvato, Mara; LaMassa, Stephanie; Urry, C. Megan; Cappelluti, Nico; Cardamone, Carolin; Civano, Francesca; Farrah, Duncan; Gilfanov, Marat; Glikman, Eilat; Hamilton, Mark; Kirkpatrick, Allison; Lanzuisi, Giorgio; Marchesi, Stefano; Merloni, Andrea; Nandra, Kirpal; Natarajan, Priyamvada; Richards, Gordon T.; Timlin, John

    2017-11-01

    Multiwavelength surveys covering large sky volumes are necessary to obtain an accurate census of rare objects such as high-luminosity and/or high-redshift active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Stripe 82X is a 31.3 X-ray survey with Chandra and XMM-Newton observations overlapping the legacy Sloan Digital Sky Survey Stripe 82 field, which has a rich investment of multiwavelength coverage from the ultraviolet to the radio. The wide-area nature of this survey presents new challenges for photometric redshifts for AGNs compared to previous work on narrow-deep fields because it probes different populations of objects that need to be identified and represented in the library of templates. Here we present an updated X-ray plus multiwavelength matched catalog, including Spitzer counterparts, and estimated photometric redshifts for 5961 (96% of a total of 6181) X-ray sources that have a normalized median absolute deviation, σnmad=0.06, and an outlier fraction, η = 13.7%. The populations found in this survey and the template libraries used for photometric redshifts provide important guiding principles for upcoming large-area surveys such as eROSITA and 3XMM (in X-ray) and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (optical).

  3. the impact of digital technology revolution on surveying curriculum ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    the impact of digital technology revolution on surveying curriculum review in ... Global Journal of Environmental Sciences ... Also, it focuses on the need to review the current surveying curriculum to meet the technological advancement. Finally ...

  4. EXPLORING THE VARIABLE SKY WITH LINEAR. III. CLASSIFICATION OF PERIODIC LIGHT CURVES

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Palaversa, Lovro; Eyer, Laurent; Rimoldini, Lorenzo [Observatoire Astronomique de l' Université de Genève, 51 chemin des Maillettes, CH-1290 Sauverny (Switzerland); Ivezić, Željko; Loebman, Sarah; Hunt-Walker, Nicholas; VanderPlas, Jacob; Westman, David; Becker, Andrew C. [Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, P.O. Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195-1580 (United States); Ruždjak, Domagoj; Sudar, Davor; Božić, Hrvoje [Hvar Observatory, Faculty of Geodesy, Kačićeva 26, 10000 Zagreb (Croatia); Galin, Mario [Faculty of Geodesy, Kačićeva 26, 10000 Zagreb (Croatia); Kroflin, Andrea; Mesarić, Martina; Munk, Petra; Vrbanec, Dijana [Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, Bijenička cesta 32, 10000 Zagreb (Croatia); Sesar, Branimir [Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy, Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States); Stuart, J. Scott [Lincoln Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 244 Wood Street, Lexington, MA 02420-9108 (United States); Srdoč, Gregor, E-mail: lovro.palaversa@unige.ch [Saršoni 90, 51216 Viškovo (Croatia); and others

    2013-10-01

    We describe the construction of a highly reliable sample of ∼7000 optically faint periodic variable stars with light curves obtained by the asteroid survey LINEAR across 10,000 deg{sup 2} of the northern sky. The majority of these variables have not been cataloged yet. The sample flux limit is several magnitudes fainter than most other wide-angle surveys; the photometric errors range from ∼0.03 mag at r = 15 to ∼0.20 mag at r = 18. Light curves include on average 250 data points, collected over about a decade. Using Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) based photometric recalibration of the LINEAR data for about 25 million objects, we selected ∼200,000 most probable candidate variables with r < 17 and visually confirmed and classified ∼7000 periodic variables using phased light curves. The reliability and uniformity of visual classification across eight human classifiers was calibrated and tested using a catalog of variable stars from the SDSS Stripe 82 region and verified using an unsupervised machine learning approach. The resulting sample of periodic LINEAR variables is dominated by 3900 RR Lyrae stars and 2700 eclipsing binary stars of all subtypes and includes small fractions of relatively rare populations such as asymptotic giant branch stars and SX Phoenicis stars. We discuss the distribution of these mostly uncataloged variables in various diagrams constructed with optical-to-infrared SDSS, Two Micron All Sky Survey, and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer photometry, and with LINEAR light-curve features. We find that the combination of light-curve features and colors enables classification schemes much more powerful than when colors or light curves are each used separately. An interesting side result is a robust and precise quantitative description of a strong correlation between the light-curve period and color/spectral type for close and contact eclipsing binary stars (β Lyrae and W UMa): as the color-based spectral type varies from K4 to F5, the

  5. The use of a sky camera for solar radiation estimation based on digital image processing

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Alonso-Montesinos, J.; Batlles, F.J.

    2015-01-01

    The necessary search for a more sustainable global future means using renewable energy sources to generate pollutant-free electricity. CSP (Concentrated solar power) and PV (photovoltaic) plants are the systems most in demand for electricity production using solar radiation as the energy source. The main factors affecting final electricity generation in these plants are, among others, atmospheric conditions; therefore, knowing whether there will be any change in the solar radiation hitting the plant's solar field is of fundamental importance to CSP and PV plant operators in adapting the plant's operation mode to these fluctuations. Consequently, the most useful technology must involve the study of atmospheric conditions. This is the case for sky cameras, an emerging technology that allows one to gather sky information with optimal spatial and temporal resolution. Hence, in this work, a solar radiation estimation using sky camera images is presented for all sky conditions, where beam, diffuse and global solar radiation components are estimated in real-time as a novel way to evaluate the solar resource from a terrestrial viewpoint. - Highlights: • Using a sky camera, the solar resource has been estimated for one minute periods. • The sky images have been processed to estimate the solar radiation at pixel level. • The three radiation components have been estimated under all sky conditions. • Results have been presented for cloudless, partially-cloudy and overcast conditions. • For beam and global radiation, the nRMSE value is of about 11% under overcast skies.

  6. Multifrequency observations of KAZ 102 during the ROSAT all-sky survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Treves, A.; Fink, H. H.; Malkan, M.; Wilkes, B. J.; Baganoff, F.; Heidt, J.; Pian, E.; Sadun, A.; Schaeidt, S.; Bonnell, J. T.

    1995-01-01

    The bright quasar Kaz 102, which lies in the vicinity of the North Ecliptic Pole, was monitored during the ROSAT All Sky Survey for 121.5 days from 1990 July 30 to 1991 January 25. In the course of the survey, optical photometry with various filters was peformed at several epochs, together with UV (IUE) and optical spectrophotometry. The spectral energy distribution in the 3 x 10(exp 14) -3 x 10(exp 17) Hz range is obtained simultaneously among the various frequencies to less than or = 1 day. No clear case of variability can be made in the X-rays, while in the optical and UV variability of 10%-20% is apparent. An analysis of IUE and Einstein archives indicates a doubling timescale of years for the UV and soft X-ray flux. The X-ray photon index, which in 1979 was rather flat (Gamma = 0.8(+0.6 -0.4), in 1990/1991 was found to be Gamma = 2.22 +/- 0.13, a typical value for radio-quiet quasars in this energy range. The overall energy distribution and the variability are discussed.

  7. Dark Skies Awareness Programs for the International Year of Astronomy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walker, C. E.; Pompea, S. M.

    2008-12-01

    The loss of a dark night sky as a natural resource is a growing concern. It impacts not only astronomical research, but also our environment in terms of ecology, health, safety, economics and energy conservation. For this reason, "Dark Skies are a Universal Resource" is a cornerstone project for the U.S. International Year of Astronomy (IYA) program in 2009. Its goal is to raise public awareness of the impact of artificial lighting on local environments by getting people involved in a variety of dark skies-related programs. These programs focus on citizen-scientist sky-brightness monitoring programs, a planetarium show, podcasting, social networking, a digital photography contest, the Good Neighbor Lighting Program, Earth Hour, National Dark Skies Week, a traveling exhibit, a video tutorial, Dark Skies Discovery Sites, Astronomy Nights in the (National) Parks, Sidewalk Astronomy, and a Quiet Skies program. Many similar programs are available internationally through the "Dark Skies Awareness" Global Cornerstone Project. Working groups for both the national and international dark skies cornerstone projects are being chaired by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO). The presenters from NOAO will provide the "know-how" and the means for session participants to become community advocates in promoting Dark Skies programs as public events at their home institutions. Participants will be able to get information on jump-starting their education programs through the use of well-developed instructional materials and kits. For more information, visit http://astronomy2009.us/darkskies/ and http://www.darkskiesawareness.org/.

  8. Dark Skies Ahead? Activities to Raise Awareness during the International Year of Astronomy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walker, Constance E.; Isbell, D.; Pompea, S.

    2007-12-01

    "Dark Skies as a Universal Resource” is one of 7 themes targeted for the International Year of Astronomy in 2009. The theme's goal is to raise public awareness of the impact of artificial lighting on local environments and the ongoing loss of a dark night sky as a natural resource for much of the world's population. To reach this goal, activities are being developed which highlight dark skies preservation issues 1) through new technology (e.g., programs at planetaria, blogging, podcasting); 2) at events such as star parties and observatory open houses; 3) in arts, entertainment and storytelling (e.g., art competitions, documentaries, lectures, native American traditions); 4) through unaided-eye and digital-meter star count programs involving citizen-scientists; and 5) by relating them to public health, economic issues, ecological consequences, energy conservation, safety and security. A centerpiece of the Dark Skies theme is the unaided-eye and digital-meter versions of the GLOBE at Night program. The unaided-eye version directs citizen-scientists on how to observe and record the brightness of the night sky by matching its appearance toward the constellation of Orion with one of 7 stellar maps of different limiting magnitudes. For the "digital” version, low-cost meters are used by citizen-scientists to measure the integrated sky brightness. Data sets and maps of both versions are supplied on-line for further capstone activities. In the presentation, we will outline the activities being developed as well as plans for funding, implementation, marketing and the connections to the global cornerstone IYA project, "Dark Skies Awareness".

  9. SpS1-Preparing for the harvest from large infrared surveys

    Science.gov (United States)

    Padgett, Deborah L.

    2010-11-01

    During the past decade, there has been a revolution in the availability of multi-wavelength astronomical surveys. From the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS), astronomical research based on publicly accessible datasets is becoming standard practice in the community. Beginning with the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) mission, infrared surveys have played a critical role in stellar astronomy by identifying cool and dusty stars worthy of spectroscopic characterization. IRAS' four photometric bands at 12, 25, 60, and 100 μm were ideal for detecting dusty circumstellar material. All-sky surveys like IRAS reveal the brightest members of each class of rare objects, optimizing their follow-up strategy. The case of debris disks around main sequence stars demonstrates this utility. IRAS detected dust disks around four nearby stars, Beta Pictoris, Fomalhaut, Epsilon Eridani, and Vega. The “Fabulous Four” remain the best studied debris disks, despite hundreds of additional examples discovered by the Spitzer Space Telescope. In the nearly 30 years since IRAS was launched, its highly reliable catalog of just 250000 sources, modest by modern standards, with arcminute scale resolution and 0.3 - 1 Jy sensitivity, has generated over 10,000 references in ADS. This is a success story by any measure.

  10. ASSESSMENT OF SYSTEMATIC CHROMATIC ERRORS THAT IMPACT SUB-1% PHOTOMETRIC PRECISION IN LARGE-AREA SKY SURVEYS

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Li, T. S.; DePoy, D. L.; Marshall, J. L.; Boada, S.; Mondrik, N.; Nagasawa, D. [George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy, and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A and M University, College Station, TX 77843 (United States); Tucker, D.; Annis, J.; Finley, D. A.; Kent, S.; Lin, H.; Marriner, J.; Wester, W. [Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510 (United States); Kessler, R.; Scolnic, D. [Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637 (United States); Bernstein, G. M. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (United States); Burke, D. L.; Rykoff, E. S. [SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA 94025 (United States); James, D. J.; Walker, A. R. [Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Casilla 603, La Serena (Chile); Collaboration: DES Collaboration; and others

    2016-06-01

    Meeting the science goals for many current and future ground-based optical large-area sky surveys requires that the calibrated broadband photometry is both stable in time and uniform over the sky to 1% precision or better. Past and current surveys have achieved photometric precision of 1%–2% by calibrating the survey’s stellar photometry with repeated measurements of a large number of stars observed in multiple epochs. The calibration techniques employed by these surveys only consider the relative frame-by-frame photometric zeropoint offset and the focal plane position-dependent illumination corrections, which are independent of the source color. However, variations in the wavelength dependence of the atmospheric transmission and the instrumental throughput induce source color-dependent systematic errors. These systematic errors must also be considered to achieve the most precise photometric measurements. In this paper, we examine such systematic chromatic errors (SCEs) using photometry from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) as an example. We first define a natural magnitude system for DES and calculate the systematic errors on stellar magnitudes when the atmospheric transmission and instrumental throughput deviate from the natural system. We conclude that the SCEs caused by the change of airmass in each exposure, the change of the precipitable water vapor and aerosol in the atmosphere over time, and the non-uniformity of instrumental throughput over the focal plane can be up to 2% in some bandpasses. We then compare the calculated SCEs with the observed DES data. For the test sample data, we correct these errors using measurements of the atmospheric transmission and instrumental throughput from auxiliary calibration systems. The residual after correction is less than 0.3%. Moreover, we calculate such SCEs for Type Ia supernovae and elliptical galaxies and find that the chromatic errors for non-stellar objects are redshift-dependent and can be larger than those for

  11. Convergent Television and 'Audience Participation': The Early Days of Interactive Digital Television in the UK

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vivi Theodoropoulou

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available The paper focuses on the introduction of interactive digital television (DTV in the UK, at the turn of the millennium, and its take-up and use by early audiences. It discusses whether the processes of television technological convergence went together with “consumer behavior convergence”[i], enhanced audience engagement with the interactive TV services offered, and participation. Based on findings from a UK-wide survey and interviews with early Sky digital subscribers[ii] it shows that early interactive DTV was taken up because of its multichannel offering and thematic orientation and, interestingly, was approached and appreciated mostly as a television content provider. It thus notes a divergence on industry’s attempts to promote convergence in broadcasting and on the level and pace with which users adopt and adapt to such change. In so doing it highlights the evolutionary nature and slow rate of ‘change’ of cultural habits and forms. [i] Horst Stipp, ‘Convergence now?’, The International Journal of Media Management, 1, 1, 1999, 10-13. [ii] A postal survey using a simple random sample of 1986 early Sky digital subscribers was conducted and achieved a response rate of 35.25%. This was complemented by 15 in-depth interviews with a stratified sample of the original survey sample. In the quotes that follow the gender initial (Male or Female and age of the interviewee is used as an identification mark.

  12. Exploring Ancient Skies An Encyclopedic Survey of Archaeoastronomy

    CERN Document Server

    Kelley, David H

    2005-01-01

    Exploring Ancient Skies brings together the methods of archaeology and the insights of modern astronomy to explore the science of astronomy as it was practiced in various cultures prior to the invention of the telescope. The book reviews an enormous and growing body of literature on the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, the Far East, and the New World (particularly Mesoamerica), putting the ancient astronomical materials into their archaeological and cultural contexts. The authors begin with an overview of the field and proceed to essential aspects of naked-eye astronomy, followed by an examination of specific cultures. The book concludes by taking into account the purposes of ancient astronomy: astrology, navigation, calendar regulation, and (not least) the understanding of our place and role in the universe. Skies are recreated to display critical events as they would have appeared to ancient observers - events such as the supernova of 1054, the 'lion horoscope' or the 'Star of Bethlehem.' Exploring An...

  13. ``Dark Skies are a Universal Resource'' Programs Planned for the International Year of Astronomy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walker, C. E.; Berglund, K.; Bueter, C.; Crelin, B.; Duriscoe, D.; Moore, C.; Gauthier, A.; Gay, P. L.; Foster, T.; Heatherly, S. A.; Maddalena, R.; Mann, T.; Patten, K.; Pompea, S. M.; Sparks, R.; Schaaf, F.; Simmons, M.; Smith, C.; Smith, M.; Tafreshi, B.

    2008-11-01

    In an effort to help more people appreciate the ongoing loss of a dark night sky for much of the world's population and to raise public knowledge about diverse impacts of excess artificial lighting on local environments, the International Year of Astronomy's Dark Skies Working Group has established six ``Dark Skies'' programs and six ``Dark Skies'' resources. The Dark Skies programs include GLOBE at Night (with Earth Hour), Astronomy Nights in the [National] Parks, Dark Skies Discovery Sites, Quiet Skies, Good Neighbor Lighting, and a digital photography contest. Resources include the light education toolkit, the ``Let There Be Night'' DVD and planetarium program, the 6-minute video, online interactions like Second Life, podcasts, and traveling exhibits. The programs and resources are summarized here, as they were in a poster for the June 2008 ASP/AAS conference. For more information on these programs and resources, visit http://astronomy2009.us/darkskies/.

  14. Attitudes towards digital treatment for depression : A European stakeholder survey

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Topooco, Naira; Riper, Heleen; Araya, Ricardo; Berking, Matthias; Brunn, Matthias; Chevreul, Karine; Cieslak, Roman; Ebert, David Daniel; Etchmendy, Ernestina; Herrero, Rocío; Kleiboer, Annet; Krieger, Tobias; García-Palacios, Azucena; Cerga-Pashoja, Arlinda; Smoktunowicz, Ewelina; Urech, Antoine; Vis, Christiaan; Andersson, Gerhard

    2017-01-01

    Background The integration of digital treatments into national mental health services is on the agenda in the European Union. The E-COMPARED consortium conducted a survey aimed at exploring stakeholders’ knowledge, acceptance and expectations of digital treatments for depression, and at identifying

  15. SOUTH POL: Revealing the Polarized Southern Sky

    Science.gov (United States)

    Magalhaes, Antonio Mario Mario; Ramírez, Edgar; Ribeiro, Nadili; Seriacopi, Daiane; Rubinho, Marcelo; Ferrari, Tiberio; Rodrigues, Claudia; Schoenell, William; Herpich, Fabio; Pereyra, Antonio

    2018-01-01

    SOUTH POL will be a survey of the Southern sky in optical polarized light. It will use a newly built polarimeter for T80-S, an 84 cm robotic telescope installed at Cerro Tololo (CTIO), Chile. It will initially cover the sky South of declination -15 deg with a polarimetric accuracy Solar System.The polarimeter has just been commissioned in mid-November, 2017. The data reduction pipeline has already been built. We will describe the instrument and the data reduction, as well as a few of the science cases. The survey is expected to begin midway through the 1st semester of 2018. Both catalog data and raw images will be made available.

  16. VizieR Online Data Catalog: HerMES Large Mode Survey catalogue (Asboth+, 2016)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Asboth, V.; Conley, A.; Sayers, J.; Bethermin, M.; Chapman, S. C.; Clements, D. L.; Cooray, A.; Dannerbauer, H.; Farrah, D.; Glenn, J.; Golwala, S. R.; Halpern, M.; Ibar, E.; Ivison, R. J.; Maloney, P. R.; Marques-Chaves, R.; Martinez-Navajas, P. I.; Oliver, S. J.; Perez-Fournon, I.; Riechers, D. A.; Rowan-Robinson, M.; Scott, D.; Siegel, S. R.; Vieira, J. D.; Viero, M.; Wang, L.; Wardlow, J.; Wheeler, J.

    2018-01-01

    The HerMES Large Mode Survey (HeLMS) consists of a large area shallow observation of an equatorial field at wavelengths of 250, 350 and 500um, obtained using the SPIRE aboard the Herschel Space Observatory. HeLMS is an extension of HerMES (Oliver et al., 2012MNRAS.424.1614O, Cat. VIII/95 and VIII/103), a 'wedding cake' type survey containing small and deep maps and larger shallower observations of different fields. HeLMS covers about 302deg2 of the sky, making it the largest area observed in the HerMES. The HeLMS field spans 23h14mDigital Sky Survey;s Stripe 82 field (Abazajian et al., 2009ApJS..182..543A), one of the most highly observed areas of the sky, with extensive multiwavelength ancillary data coverage. The equatorial area has the advantage that it can be observed from almost any ground-based telescope site in the world. (1 data file).

  17. Polarization patterns of the twilight sky

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cronin, Thomas W.; Warrant, Eric J.; Greiner, Birgit

    2005-08-01

    Although natural light sources produce depolarized light, patterns of partially linearly polarized light appear in the sky due to scattering from air molecules, dust, and aerosols. Many animals, including bees and ants, orient themselves to patterns of polarization that are present in daytime skies, when the intensity is high and skylight polarization is strong and predictable. The halicitid bee Megalopta genalis inhabits rainforests in Central America. Unlike typical bees, it forages before sunrise and after sunset, when light intensities under the forest canopy are very low, and must find its way to food sources and return to its nest in visually challenging circumstances. An important cue for the orientation could be patterns of polarization in the twilight sky. Therefore, we used a calibrated digital camera to image skylight polarization in an overhead patch of sky, 87.6° across, before dawn on Barro Colorado Island in Panama, where the bees are found. We simultaneously measured the spectral properties of polarized light in a cloudless patch of sky 15° across centered on the zenith. We also performed full-sky imaging of polarization before dawn and after dusk on Lizard Island in Australia, another tropical island. During twilight, celestial polarized light occurs in a wide band stretching perpendicular to the location of the hidden sun and reaching typical degrees of polarization near 80% at wavelengths >600 nm. This pattern appears about 45 minutes before local sunrise or disappears 45 minutes after local sunset (about 20 minutes after the onset of astronomical twilight at dawn, or before its end at dusk) and extends with little change through the entire twilight period. Such a strong and reliable orientation cue could be used for flight orientation by any animal with polarization sensitivity that navigates during twilight.

  18. Night-sky brightness monitoring in Hong Kong: a city-wide light pollution assessment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pun, Chun Shing Jason; So, Chu Wing

    2012-04-01

    Results of the first comprehensive light pollution survey in Hong Kong are presented. The night-sky brightness was measured and monitored around the city using a portable light-sensing device called the Sky Quality Meter over a 15-month period beginning in March 2008. A total of 1,957 data sets were taken at 199 distinct locations, including urban and rural sites covering all 18 Administrative Districts of Hong Kong. The survey shows that the environmental light pollution problem in Hong Kong is severe-the urban night skies (sky brightness at 15.0 mag arcsec(- 2)) are on average ~ 100 times brighter than at the darkest rural sites (20.1 mag arcsec(- 2)), indicating that the high lighting densities in the densely populated residential and commercial areas lead to light pollution. In the worst polluted urban location studied, the night-sky at 13.2 mag arcsec(- 2) can be over 500 times brighter than the darkest sites in Hong Kong. The observed night-sky brightness is found to be affected by human factors such as land utilization and population density of the observation sites, together with meteorological and/or environmental factors. Moreover, earlier night skies (at 9:30 p.m. local time) are generally brighter than later time (at 11:30 p.m.), which can be attributed to some public and commercial lightings being turned off later at night. On the other hand, no concrete relationship between the observed sky brightness and air pollutant concentrations could be established with the limited survey sampling. Results from this survey will serve as an important database for the public to assess whether new rules and regulations are necessary to control the use of outdoor lightings in Hong Kong.

  19. An All-Sky Portable (ASP) Optical Catalogue

    Science.gov (United States)

    Flesch, Eric Wim

    2017-06-01

    This optical catalogue combines the all-sky USNO-B1.0/A1.0 and most-sky APM catalogues, plus overlays of SDSS optical data, into a single all-sky map presented in a sparse binary format that is easily downloaded at 9 Gb zipped. Total count is 1 163 237 190 sources and each has J2000 astrometry, red and blue magnitudes with PSFs and variability indicator, and flags for proper motion, epoch, and source survey and catalogue for each of the photometry and astrometry. The catalogue is available on http://quasars.org/asp.html, and additional data for this paper is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.4225/50/5807fbc12595f.

  20. Sky Mining - Application to Photomorphic Redshift Estimation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nayak, Pragyansmita

    severity every day, alternative method "Photometric redshift" has been studied in the past. It uses the brightness of the object viewed through various standard filters, each of which lets through a relatively broad spectrum of colors. However, these methods are bound by the degeneracy problem (objects with different color profiles have the same redshift) which leads to low predictive accuracy. As part of our study, we are looking beyond color attributes to identify other measured attributes as degeneracy resolvers as well as generate estimators that are highly accurate; termed as "Photomorphic redshift" estimators. The present study investigates the photometric information of the objects such as color and magnitude (= observed flux) and morphology attributes such as shape, size, orientation and concentration in the different wavelengths. The specific type of magnitude used in this study are the PSF, Fiber and Petrosian magnitude. The morphology attributes are the ratio of Fiber to Petrosian magnitude, concentration index and Petrosian radius. All these attributes are in the five bands ugriz of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Machine learning techniques based on Naive Bayes (NB), Bayesian Network (BN) and Generalized Linear Model (GLM) are researched to better understand their applicability, advantages and resulting predictive performance in terms of efficiency and accuracy. Note: The SDSS Data Release (DR) 10 data was used in the executed experiments (total of 700,777 galaxies with forty-five attributes associated with each galaxy). The significant findings of the present work are as follows: 1. Magnitude and morphology attributes have been found to be successful degeneracy resolvers. 2. Magnitude and morphology attributes have been found to be better redshift estimators than color attributes alone. 3. Naive Bayes, Bayesian Network and GLM have been found to be viable redshift estimation methods. Attribute selection is an important factor in computational performance

  1. THE MASSIVE DISTANT CLUSTERS OF WISE SURVEY: THE FIRST DISTANT GALAXY CLUSTER DISCOVERED BY WISE

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gettings, Daniel P.; Gonzalez, Anthony H.; Mancone, Conor; Stanford, S. Adam; Eisenhardt, Peter R. M.; Stern, Daniel; Brodwin, Mark; Zeimann, Gregory R.; Masci, Frank J.; Papovich, Casey; Tanaka, Ichi; Wright, Edward L.

    2012-01-01

    We present spectroscopic confirmation of a z = 0.99 galaxy cluster discovered using data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). This is the first z ∼ 1 cluster candidate from the Massive Distant Clusters of WISE Survey to be confirmed. It was selected as an overdensity of probable z ∼> 1 sources using a combination of WISE and Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR8 photometric catalogs. Deeper follow-up imaging data from Subaru and WIYN reveal the cluster to be a rich system of galaxies, and multi-object spectroscopic observations from Keck confirm five cluster members at z = 0.99. The detection and confirmation of this cluster represents a first step toward constructing a uniformly selected sample of distant, high-mass galaxy clusters over the full extragalactic sky using WISE data.

  2. Development of PIC-based digital survey meter

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nor Arymaswati Abdullah; Nur Aira Abdul Rahman; Mohd Ashhar Khalid; Taiman Kadni; Glam Hadzir Patai Mohamad; Abd Aziz Mhd Ramli; Chong Foh Yong

    2006-01-01

    The need of radiation monitoring and monitoring of radioactive contamination in the workplace is very important especially when x-ray machines, linear accelerators, electron beam machines and radioactive sources are present. The appropriate use of radiation detector is significant in order to maintain a radiation and contamination free workplace. This paper reports on the development of a prototype of PIC-based digital survey meter. This prototype of digital survey meter is a hand held instrument for general-purpose radiation monitoring and surface contamination meter. Generally, the device is able to detect some or all of the three major types of ionizing radiation, namely alpha, beta and gamma. It uses a Geiger-Muller tube as a radiation detector, which converts gamma radiation quanta to electric pulses and further processed by the electronic devices. The development involved the design of the controller, counter and high voltage circuit. All these circuit are assembled and enclosed in a plastic casing together with a GM detector and LCD display to form a prototype survey meter. The number of counts of the pulses detected by the survey meter varies due to the random nature of radioactivity. By averaging the reading over a time-period, more accurate and stable reading is achieved. To test the accuracy and the linearity of the design, the prototype was calibrated using standard procedure at the Secondary Standard Dosimetry Laboratory (SSDL) in MINT. (Author)

  3. The B3-VLA CSS sample. VIII. New optical identifications from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey The ultraviolet-optical spectral energy distribution of the young radio sources

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fanti, C.; Fanti, R.; Zanichelli, A.; Dallacasa, D.; Stanghellini, C.

    2011-04-01

    Context. Compact steep-spectrum radio sources and giga-hertz peaked spectrum radio sources (CSS/GPS) are generally considered to be mostly young radio sources. In recent years we studied at many wavelengths a sample of these objects selected from the B3-VLA catalog: the B3-VLA CSS sample. Only ≈60% of the sources were optically identified. Aims: We aim to increase the number of optical identifications and study the properties of the host galaxies of young radio sources. Methods: We cross-correlated the CSS B3-VLA sample with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), DR7, and complemented the SDSS photometry with available GALEX (DR 4/5 and 6) and near-IR data from UKIRT and 2MASS. Results: We obtained new identifications and photometric redshifts for eight faint galaxies and for one quasar and two quasar candidates. Overall we have 27 galaxies with SDSS photometry in five bands, for which we derived the ultraviolet-optical spectral energy distribution (UV-O-SED). We extended our investigation to additional CSS/GPS selected from the literature. Most of the galaxies show an excess of ultra-violet (UV) radiation compared with the UV-O-SED of local radio-quiet ellipticals. We found a strong dependence of the UV excess on redshift and analyzed it assuming that it is generated either from the nucleus (hidden quasar) or from a young stellar population (YSP). We also compare the UV-O-SEDs of our CSS/GPS sources with those of a selection of large size (LSO) powerful radio sources from the literature. Conclusions: If the major process of the UV excess is caused by a YSP, our conclusion is that it is the result of the merger process that also triggered the onset of the radio source with some time delay. We do not see evidence for a major contribution from a YSP triggered by the radio sources itself. Appendices A-G are only available in electronic form at http://www.aanda.org

  4. The High Time Resolution Universe surveys for pulsars and fast transients

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keith, Michael J.

    2013-03-01

    The High Time Resolution Universe survey for pulsars and transients is the first truly all-sky pulsar survey, taking place at the Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia and the Effelsberg Radio Telescope in Germany. Utilising multibeam receivers with custom built all-digital recorders the survey targets the fastest millisecond pulsars and radio transients on timescales of 64 μs to a few seconds. The new multibeam digital filter-bank system at has a factor of eight improvement in frequency resolution over previous Parkes multibeam surveys, allowing us to probe further into the Galactic plane for short duration signals. The survey is split into low, mid and high Galactic latitude regions. The mid-latitude portion of the southern hemisphere survey is now completed, discovering 107 previously unknown pulsars, including 26 millisecond pulsars. To date, the total number of discoveries in the combined survey is 135 and 29 MSPs These discoveries include the first magnetar to be discovered by it's radio emission, unusual low-mass binaries, gamma-ray pulsars and pulsars suitable for pulsar timing array experiments.

  5. THE MASSIVE AND DISTANT CLUSTERS OF WISE SURVEY. II. INITIAL SPECTROSCOPIC CONFIRMATION OF z ∼ 1 GALAXY CLUSTERS SELECTED FROM 10,000 deg2

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Stanford, S. A.; Gonzalez, Anthony H.; Gettings, Daniel P.; Brodwin, Mark; Eisenhardt, Peter R. M.; Stern, Daniel; Wylezalek, Dominika

    2014-01-01

    We present optical and infrared imaging and optical spectroscopy of galaxy clusters which were identified as part of an all-sky search for high-redshift galaxy clusters, the Massive and Distant Clusters of WISE Survey (MaDCoWS). The initial phase of MaDCoWS combined infrared data from the all-sky data release of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) with optical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to select probable z ∼ 1 clusters of galaxies over an area of 10,000 deg 2 . Our spectroscopy confirms 19 new clusters at 0.7 < z < 1.3, half of which are at z > 1, demonstrating the viability of using WISE to identify high-redshift galaxy clusters. The next phase of MaDCoWS will use the greater depth of the AllWISE data release to identify even higher redshift cluster candidates

  6. The Core Collapse Supernova Rate from the SDSS-II Supernova Survey

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Taylor, Matt; Cinabro, David; Dilday, Ben; Galbany, Lluis; Gupta, Ravi R.; Kessler, R.; Marriner, John; Nichol, Robert C.; Richmond, Michael; Schneider, Donald P.; Sollerman, Jesper

    2014-08-26

    We use the Sloan Digital Sky Survey II Supernova Survey (SDSS-II SNS) data to measure the volumetric core collapse supernova (CCSN) rate in the redshift range (0.03 < z < 0.09). Using a sample of 89 CCSN, we find a volume-averaged rate of 1.06 ± 0.19 × 10(–)(4)((h/0.7)(3)/(yr Mpc(3))) at a mean redshift of 0.072 ± 0.009. We measure the CCSN luminosity function from the data and consider the implications on the star formation history.

  7. Digital Field Mapping with the British Geological Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leslie, Graham; Smith, Nichola; Jordan, Colm

    2014-05-01

    The BGS•SIGMA project was initiated in 2001 in response to a major stakeholder review of onshore mapping within the British Geological Survey (BGS). That review proposed a significant change for BGS with the recommendation that digital methods should be implemented for field mapping and data compilation. The BGS•SIGMA project (System for Integrated Geoscience MApping) is an integrated workflow for geoscientific surveying and visualisation using digital methods for geological data visualisation, recording and interpretation, in both 2D and 3D. The project has defined and documented an underpinning framework of best practice for survey and information management, best practice that has then informed the design brief and specification for a toolkit to support this new methodology. The project has now delivered BGS•SIGMA2012. BGS•SIGMA2012 is a integrated toolkit which enables assembly and interrogation/visualisation of existing geological information; capture of, and integration with, new data and geological interpretations; and delivery of 3D digital products and services. From its early days as a system which used PocketGIS run on Husky Fex21 hardware, to the present day system which runs on ruggedized tablet PCs with integrated GPS units, the system has evolved into a complete digital mapping and compilation system. BGS•SIGMA2012 uses a highly customised version of ESRI's ArcGIS 10 and 10.1 with a fully relational Access 2007/2010 geodatabase. BGS•SIGMA2012 is the third external release of our award-winning digital field mapping toolkit. The first free external release of the award-winning digital field mapping toolkit was in 2009, with the third version (BGS-SIGMAmobile2012 v1.01) released on our website (http://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/sigma/home.html) in 2013. The BGS•SIGMAmobile toolkit formed the major part of the first two releases but this new version integrates the BGS•SIGMAdesktop functionality that BGS routinely uses to transform our field

  8. A Type II Supernova Hubble diagram from the CSP-I, SDSS-II, and SNLS surveys

    OpenAIRE

    de Jaeger, T.; González-Gaitán, S.; Hamuy, M.; Galbany, L.; Anderson, J. P.; Phillips, M. M.; Stritzinger, M. D.; Carlberg, R. G.; Sullivan, M.; Gutiérrez, C. P.; Hook, I. M.; Howell, D. Andrew; Hsiao, E. Y.; Kuncarayakti, H.; Ruhlmann-Kleider, V.

    2016-01-01

    The coming era of large photometric wide-field surveys will increase the detection rate of supernovae by orders of magnitude. Such numbers will restrict spectroscopic follow-up in the vast majority of cases, and hence new methods based solely on photometric data must be developed. Here, we construct a complete Hubble diagram of Type II supernovae (SNe II) combining data from three different samples: the Carnegie Supernova Project-I, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey II SN, and th...

  9. The cosmological principle is not in the sky

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, Chan-Gyung; Hyun, Hwasu; Noh, Hyerim; Hwang, Jai-chan

    2017-08-01

    The homogeneity of matter distribution at large scales, known as the cosmological principle, is a central assumption in the standard cosmological model. The case is testable though, thus no longer needs to be a principle. Here we perform a test for spatial homogeneity using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Luminous Red Galaxies (LRG) sample by counting galaxies within a specified volume with the radius scale varying up to 300 h-1 Mpc. We directly confront the large-scale structure data with the definition of spatial homogeneity by comparing the averages and dispersions of galaxy number counts with allowed ranges of the random distribution with homogeneity. The LRG sample shows significantly larger dispersions of number counts than the random catalogues up to 300 h-1 Mpc scale, and even the average is located far outside the range allowed in the random distribution; the deviations are statistically impossible to be realized in the random distribution. This implies that the cosmological principle does not hold even at such large scales. The same analysis of mock galaxies derived from the N-body simulation, however, suggests that the LRG sample is consistent with the current paradigm of cosmology, thus the simulation is also not homogeneous in that scale. We conclude that the cosmological principle is neither in the observed sky nor demanded to be there by the standard cosmological world model. This reveals the nature of the cosmological principle adopted in the modern cosmology paradigm, and opens a new field of research in theoretical cosmology.

  10. Extracting Leaf Area Index by Sunlit Foliage Component from Downward-Looking Digital Photography under Clear-Sky Conditions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yelu Zeng

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available The development of near-surface remote sensing requires the accurate extraction of leaf area index (LAI from networked digital cameras under all illumination conditions. The widely used directional gap fraction model is more suitable for overcast conditions due to the difficulty to discriminate the shaded foliage from the shadowed parts of images acquired on sunny days. In this study, a new LAI extraction method by the sunlit foliage component from downward-looking digital photography under clear-sky conditions is proposed. In this method, the sunlit foliage component was extracted by an automated image classification algorithm named LAB2, the clumping index was estimated by a path length distribution-based method, the LAD and G function were quantified by leveled digital images and, eventually, the LAI was obtained by introducing a geometric-optical (GO model which can quantify the sunlit foliage proportion. The proposed method was evaluated at the YJP site, Canada, by the 3D realistic structural scene constructed based on the field measurements. Results suggest that the LAB2 algorithm makes it possible for the automated image processing and the accurate sunlit foliage extraction with the minimum overall accuracy of 91.4%. The widely-used finite-length method tends to underestimate the clumping index, while the path length distribution-based method can reduce the relative error (RE from 7.8% to 6.6%. Using the directional gap fraction model under sunny conditions can lead to an underestimation of LAI by (1.61; 55.9%, which was significantly outside the accuracy requirement (0.5; 20% by the Global Climate Observation System (GCOS. The proposed LAI extraction method has an RMSE of 0.35 and an RE of 11.4% under sunny conditions, which can meet the accuracy requirement of the GCOS. This method relaxes the required diffuse illumination conditions for the digital photography, and can be applied to extract LAI from downward-looking webcam images

  11. A sample of galaxy pairs identified from the LAMOST spectral survey and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shen, Shi-Yin; Argudo-Fernández, Maria; Chen, Li; Feng, Shuai; Hou, Jin-Liang; Shao, Zheng-Yi; Chen, Xiao-Yan; Luo, A-Li; Wu, Hong; Yang, Hai-Feng; Yang, Ming; Hou, Yong-Hui; Wang, Yue-Fei; Jiang, Peng; Wang, Ting-Gui; Jing, Yi-Peng; Kong, Xu; Wang, Wen-Ting; Luo, Zhi-Jian; Wu, Xue-Bing

    2016-01-01

    A small fraction (< 10%) of the SDSS main galaxy (MG) sample has not been targeted with spectroscopy due to the effect of fiber collisions. These galaxies have been compiled into the input catalog of the LAMOST ExtraGAlactic Surveys and named the complementary galaxy sample. In this paper, we introduce this project and status of the spectroscopies associated with the complementary galaxies in the first two years of the LAMOST spectral survey (till Sep. of 2014). Moreover, we present a sample of 1102 galaxy pairs identified from the LAMOST complementary galaxies and SDSS MGs, which are defined as two members that have a projected distance smaller than 100 h −1 70 kpc and a recessional velocity difference smaller than 500 km s −1 . Compared with galaxy pairs that are only selected from SDSS, the LAMOST-SDSS pairs have the advantages of not being biased toward large separations and therefore act as a useful supplement in statistical studies of galaxy interaction and galaxy merging. (paper)

  12. SED16 autonomous star tracker night sky testing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Foisneau, Thierry; Piriou, Véronique; Perrimon, Nicolas; Jacob, Philippe; Blarre, Ludovic; Vilaire, Didier

    2017-11-01

    The SED16 is an autonomous multi-missions star tracker which delivers three axis satellite attitude in an inertial reference frame and the satellite angular velocity with no prior information. The qualification process of this star sensor includes five validation steps using optical star simulator, digitized image simulator and a night sky tests setup. The night sky testing was the final step of the qualification process during which all the functions of the star tracker were used in almost nominal conditions : Autonomous Acquisition of the attitude, Autonomous Tracking of ten stars. These tests were performed in Calern in the premises of the OCA (Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur). The test set-up and the test results are described after a brief review of the sensor main characteristics and qualification process.

  13. The optical, infrared and radio properties of extragalactic sources observed by SDSS, 2mass and first surveys

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Z. Ivezic et al.

    2002-01-01

    We positionally match sources observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), and the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-cm (FIRST) survey. Practically all 2MASS sources are matched to an SDSS source within 2 arcsec; ∼ 11% of them are optically resolved galaxies and the rest are dominated by stars. About 1/3 of FIRST sources are matched to an SDSS source within 2 arcsec; ∼ 80% of these are galaxies and the rest are dominated by quasars. Based on these results, we project that by the completion of these surveys the matched samples will include about 10 7 and 10 6 galaxies observed by both SDSS and 2MASS, and about 250,000 galaxies and 50,000 quasars observed by both SDSS and FIRST. Here we present a preliminary analysis of the optical, infrared and radio properties for the extragalactic sources from the matched samples. In particular, we find that the fraction of quasars with stellar colors missed by the SDSS spectroscopic survey is probably not larger than ∼ 10%, and that the optical colors of radio-loud quasars are ∼ 0.05 mag. redder (with 4σ significance) than the colors of radio-quiet quasars

  14. Panchromatic properties of 99 000 galaxies detected by SDSS, and (some by) ROSAT, GALEX, 2MASS, IRAS, GB6, FIRST, NVSS and WENSS surveys

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Obric, M.; Ivezic, Z.; Best, P. N.; Lupton, R. H.; Tremonti, C.; Brinchmann, J.; Agueeros, M. A.; Knapp, G. R.; Gunn, J. E.; Rockosi, C. M.; Schlegel, D.; Finkbeiner, D.; Gacesa, M.; Smolcic, V.; Anderson, S. F.; Voges, W.; Juric, M.; Siverd, R. J.; Steinhardt, W.; Jagoda, A. S.; Blanton, M. R.; Schneider, D. P.

    2006-01-01

    We discuss the panchromatic properties of 99 088 galaxies selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 1 'main' spectroscopic sample ( a flux-limited sample for 1360 deg(2)). These galaxies are positionally matched to sources detected by ROSAT, Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX),

  15. BANYAN. V. A SYSTEMATIC ALL-SKY SURVEY FOR NEW VERY LATE-TYPE LOW-MASS STARS AND BROWN DWARFS IN NEARBY YOUNG MOVING GROUPS

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gagné, Jonathan; Lafrenière, David; Doyon, René; Malo, Lison; Artigau, Étienne [Département de Physique, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128 Succ. Centre-ville, Montréal, QC H3C 3J7 (Canada)

    2015-01-10

    We present the BANYAN All-Sky Survey (BASS) catalog, consisting of 228 new late-type (M4-L6) candidate members of nearby young moving groups (YMGs) with an expected false-positive rate of ∼13%. This sample includes 79 new candidate young brown dwarfs and 22 planetary-mass objects. These candidates were identified through the first systematic all-sky survey for late-type low-mass stars and brown dwarfs in YMGs. We cross-matched the Two Micron All Sky Survey and AllWISE catalogs outside of the galactic plane to build a sample of 98,970 potential ≥M5 dwarfs in the solar neighborhood and calculated their proper motions with typical precisions of 5-15 mas yr{sup –1}. We selected highly probable candidate members of several YMGs from this sample using the Bayesian Analysis for Nearby Young AssociatioNs II tool (BANYAN II). We used the most probable statistical distances inferred from BANYAN II to estimate the spectral type and mass of these candidate YMG members. We used this unique sample to show tentative signs of mass segregation in the AB Doradus moving group and the Tucana-Horologium and Columba associations. The BASS sample has already been successful in identifying several new young brown dwarfs in earlier publications, and will be of great interest in studying the initial mass function of YMGs and for the search of exoplanets by direct imaging; the input sample of potential close-by ≥M5 dwarfs will be useful to study the kinematics of low-mass stars and brown dwarfs and search for new proper motion pairs.

  16. eGSM: A extended Sky Model of Diffuse Radio Emission

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Doyeon; Liu, Adrian; Switzer, Eric

    2018-01-01

    Both cosmic microwave background and 21cm cosmology observations must contend with astrophysical foreground contaminants in the form of diffuse radio emission. For precise cosmological measurements, these foregrounds must be accurately modeled over the entire sky Ideally, such full-sky models ought to be primarily motivated by observations. Yet in practice, these observations are limited, with data sets that are observed not only in a heterogenous fashion, but also over limited frequency ranges. Previously, the Global Sky Model (GSM) took some steps towards solving the problem of incomplete observational data by interpolating over multi-frequency maps using principal component analysis (PCA).In this poster, we present an extended version of GSM (called eGSM) that includes the following improvements: 1) better zero-level calibration 2) incorporation of non-uniform survey resolutions and sky coverage 3) the ability to quantify uncertainties in sky models 4) the ability to optimally select spectral models using Bayesian Evidence techniques.

  17. INTEGRATED DIGITAL SURVEY OF THE "FONTANA RUSTICA" IN THE GARDENS OF THE QUIRINALE.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    L. Paris

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available The paper illustrates the results of a research on integrated digital survey of the "Fontana Rustica" in the gardens of the Quirinale, artifact somewhat atypical for its particular organical configuration, and whose history is still to be discovered. The activity is performed by Critevat, interdepartmental research center in Rieti, within of the scientific collaboration with the Office for the conservation of artistic heritage of the Quirinale Palace. The integrated digital survey in recent years has had a strong impulse thanks to the technological development of the shape acquisition instruments. The research has analyzed the problems of interaction and integration of digital data obtainable using the latest digital technologies such as 3D laser-scanner and digital photogrammetry. A further level of research has focused on the possibility of management of 3D models in relation to data obtained by instruments and methods of investigation of different scientific culture such as seismic transmission tomography and thermografy.

  18. Integrated Digital Survey of the "FONTANA RUSTICA" in the Gardens of the Quirinale.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paris, L.; Troiano, W.

    2013-07-01

    The paper illustrates the results of a research on integrated digital survey of the "Fontana Rustica" in the gardens of the Quirinale, artifact somewhat atypical for its particular organical configuration, and whose history is still to be discovered. The activity is performed by Critevat, interdepartmental research center in Rieti, within of the scientific collaboration with the Office for the conservation of artistic heritage of the Quirinale Palace. The integrated digital survey in recent years has had a strong impulse thanks to the technological development of the shape acquisition instruments. The research has analyzed the problems of interaction and integration of digital data obtainable using the latest digital technologies such as 3D laser-scanner and digital photogrammetry. A further level of research has focused on the possibility of management of 3D models in relation to data obtained by instruments and methods of investigation of different scientific culture such as seismic transmission tomography and thermografy.

  19. Report of the Committee on the Participation of Women in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Myers, Adam D.; Diamond-Stanic, Aleks; Gallagher, John S.; Gillespie, Bruce Andrew; Ho, Shirley; Kinemuchi, Karen; Lucatello, Sara; Lundgren, Britt; Tremonti, Christina A.; Zasowski, Gail; SDSS-III Collaboration, SDSS-IV Collaboration

    2015-01-01

    The Committee on the Participation of Women in the SDSS (CPWS) was formed by the SDSS to evaluate the gender climate within the collaboration. The CPWS seeks to foster gender balance in our collaboration by fielding concerns from our members and by recommending best practices for establishing the SDSS leadership team. An important aspect of the mission of the CPWS is to regularly assess gender diversity and inclusiveness within the SDSS. Against the backdrop of the transition from SDSS-III to SDSS-IV, the CPWS has been collecting data relevant to gender issues through interviews and surveys. In April, 2014, the CPWS surveyed 251 SDSS-IV members (~50% of active membership) regarding gender and leadership. Broad findings from this survey include that the male-to-female ratio in SDSS-IV is about 3:1 and that the male-to-female ratio among those that identify themselves as being in an SDSS-IV leadership role is also close to 3:1. About 35% of those surveyed self-identify as an SDSS-IV "leader," though we recognize the possibility that active stakeholders might be more likely to respond to a demographics survey. About 80% of those that self-identify as leaders consider their leadership role within SDSS-IV to be officially acknowledged, regardless of gender. The fraction of women in SDSS leadership roles appears to be a weak function of current job position in that 6 of 32 (19%) senior faculty that are SDSS leaders are women, compared to 4 of 13 (31%) postdocs. Similarly, the fraction of SDSS leaders who are women is highest (32%) amongst those leaders who received their PhDs 6-10 years ago, while the fraction of female leaders amongst other age demographics is somewhat lower (20%). Although these are small sample sizes, this hints at a trend where women are most likely to fill SDSS leadership roles at certain stages of their lives and careers. The CPWS intends to use this initial survey data to establish a baseline for tracking SDSS-IV demographics, and thus hopes to

  20. The Eighth Data Release Of The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Data From SDSS-3

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-04-01

    of galaxies (Strauss et al. 2002; Eisenstein et al. 2001), quasars (Richards et al. 2002b), stars (Yanny et al. 2009), and other objects are selected...interlocking surveys; it is described in detail in a companion paper ( Eisenstein et al. 2011). In brief, these surveys are as follows. 1. SEGUE-2. This...algorithms were refined in various ways, as detailed in C. Rockosi et al. (2011, in preparation; see also Eisenstein et al. 2011). We summarize the

  1. WHITE-DWARF-MAIN-SEQUENCE BINARIES IDENTIFIED FROM THE LAMOST PILOT SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ren Juanjuan; Luo Ali; Li Yinbi; Wei Peng; Zhao Jingkun; Zhao Yongheng; Song Yihan; Zhao Gang

    2013-01-01

    We present a set of white-dwarf-main-sequence (WDMS) binaries identified spectroscopically from the Large sky Area Multi-Object fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST, also called the Guo Shou Jing Telescope) pilot survey. We develop a color selection criteria based on what is so far the largest and most complete Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR7 WDMS binary catalog and identify 28 WDMS binaries within the LAMOST pilot survey. The primaries in our binary sample are mostly DA white dwarfs except for one DB white dwarf. We derive the stellar atmospheric parameters, masses, and radii for the two components of 10 of our binaries. We also provide cooling ages for the white dwarf primaries as well as the spectral types for the companion stars of these 10 WDMS binaries. These binaries tend to contain hot white dwarfs and early-type companions. Through cross-identification, we note that nine binaries in our sample have been published in the SDSS DR7 WDMS binary catalog. Nineteen spectroscopic WDMS binaries identified by the LAMOST pilot survey are new. Using the 3σ radial velocity variation as a criterion, we find two post-common-envelope binary candidates from our WDMS binary sample

  2. Impact of Indoor Use of Wood on the Quality of Interior Ambiances under Overcast and Clear Skies: Case Study of the Eugene H. Kruger Building, Québec City

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hoda Jafarian

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper explores the potential of wood for improving environmental quality in interior spaces. In northern climate cities where overcast skies predominate, interior spaces may appear gloomy or dull, since natural light is white and uniform. Nevertheless it is observed that wooden surfaces tend to create warmer and brighter spaces under overcast sky conditions. The objectives of this research were twofold. The first was evaluating the quality of wooden spaces under two sky conditions in terms of color, brightness and contrast. The second objective was to investigate daylight quantity of wooden spaces under diffuse and clear sky conditions. The method involved on site-surveys using Photolux, a calibrated photoluminance meter. Data consist of calibrated digital images that were processed to analyze the quality of spaces based on brightness, contrast, and color. The Kruger Building, with its internal wooden architectural structure and decorative indoor panels, was chosen as a site study for this research. Conclusions suggest that knowing the effect of different sky conditions on wooden spaces can help architects and other professionals in designing more comfortable and efficient ambiances. More particularly, this research addresses issues related to the quantitative effects of wood on daylighting distribution, visual comfort and luminance diversity.

  3. Can the periodic spectral modulations observed in 236 Sloan Sky Survey stars be due to dark matter effects?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tamburini, Fabrizio; Licata, Ignazio

    2017-09-01

    The search for dark matter (DM) is one of the most active and challenging areas of current research. Possible DM candidates are ultralight fields such as axions and weak interacting massive particles (WIMPs). Axions piled up in the center of stars are supposed to generate matter/DM configurations with oscillating geometries at a very rapid frequency, which is a multiple of the axion mass m B (Brito et al (2015); Brito et al (2016)). Borra and Trottier (2016) recently found peculiar ultrafast periodic spectral modulations in 236 main sequence stars in the sample of 2.5 million spectra of galactic halo stars of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (˜1% of main sequence stars in the F-K spectral range) that were interpreted as optical signals from extraterrestrial civilizations, suggesting them as possible candidates for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) program. We argue, instead, that this could be the first indirect evidence of bosonic axion-like DM fields inside main sequence stars, with a stable radiative nucleus, where a stable DM core can be hosted. These oscillations were not observed in earlier stellar spectral classes probably because of the impossibility of starting a stable oscillatory regime due to the presence of chaotic motions in their convective nuclei. The axion mass values, (50< {m}B< 2.4× {10}3) μ {eV}, obtained from the frequency range observed by Borra and Trottier, (0.6070< f< 0.6077) THz, agree with the recent theoretical results from high-temperature lattice quantum chromodynamics (Borsanyi et al (2016); Borsanyi et al (2016b)).

  4. DISCOVERY OF A HALO AROUND THE HELIX NEBULA NGC 7293 IN THE WISE ALL-SKY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhang Yong; Hsia, Chih-Hao; Kwok, Sun

    2012-01-01

    We report the discovery of an extended halo (∼40' in diameter) around the planetary nebula NGC 7293 (the Helix Nebula) observed in the 12 μm band from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer all-sky survey. The mid-infrared halo has an axisymmetric structure with a sharp boundary to the northeast and a more diffuse boundary to the southwest, suggesting an interaction between the stellar wind and the interstellar medium (ISM). The symmetry axis of the halo is well aligned with that of a northeast arc, suggesting that the two structures are physically associated. We have attempted to fit the observed geometry with a model of a moving steady-state stellar wind interacting with the ISM. Possible combinations of the ISM density and the stellar velocity are derived from these fittings. The discrepancies between the model and the observations suggest that the stellar mass loss has a more complicated history, including possible time and angle dependences.

  5. Exploring Ancient Skies A Survey of Ancient and Cultural Astronomy

    CERN Document Server

    Kelley, David H

    2011-01-01

    Exploring Ancient Skies brings together the methods of archaeology and the insights of modern astronomy to explore the science of astronomy as it was practiced in various cultures prior to the invention of the telescope. The book reviews an enormous and growing body of literature on the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, the Far East, and the New World (particularly Mesoamerica), putting the ancient astronomical materials into their archaeological and cultural contexts. The authors begin with an overview of the field and proceed to essential aspects of naked-eye astronomy, followed by an examination of specific cultures. The book concludes by taking into account the purposes of ancient astronomy: astrology, navigation, calendar regulation, and (not least) the understanding of our place and role in the universe. Skies are recreated to display critical events as they would have appeared to ancient observers—events such as the supernova of 1054 A.D., the "lion horoscope," and the Star of Bethlehem. Explori...

  6. The Open Cluster Chemical Abundances and Mapping (OCCAM) Survey: Detailed Age and Abundance Gradients using DR12

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frinchaboy, Peter M.; Thompson, Benjamin A.; O'Connell, Julia; Meyer, Brianne; Donor, John; Majewski, Steven R.; Holtzman, Jon A.; Zasowski, Gail; Beers, Timothy C.; Beaton, Rachael; Cunha, Katia M. L.; Hearty, Fred; Nidever, David L.; Schiavon, Ricardo P.; Smith, Verne V.; Hayden, Michael R.

    2015-01-01

    We present detailed abundance results for Galactic open clusters as part of the Open Cluster Chemical Abundances and Mapping (OCCAM) Survey, which is based primarily on data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey/ Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment. Using 100 open clusters from the uniformly observed complete SDSS-III/APOGEE-1 DR12 dataset, we present age and multi-element abundance gradients for the disk of the Milky Way.This work is supported by an NSF AAG grant AST-1311835.

  7. Dark Skies Awareness Programs for the U.S. International Year of Astronomy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walker, Constance E.; U. S. IYA Dark Skies Working Group

    2009-01-01

    The loss of a dark night sky as a natural resource is a growing concern. It impacts not only astronomical research, but also our ecology, health, safety, economics and energy conservation. For this reason, "Dark Skies are a Universal Resource” is one of seven primary themes of the U.S. International Year of Astronomy program in 2009. Its goal is to raise public awareness of the impact of artificial lighting on local environments by getting people involved in a variety of dark skies-related programs. To reach this goal, activities have been developed that: 1) Teach about dark skies using new technology (e.g., an activity-based planetarium show on DVD, podcasting, social networking, Second Life) 2) Provide thematic events on light pollution at star parties and observatory open houses (Dark Skies Discovery Sites, Astronomy Nights in the (National) Parks, Sidewalk Astronomy Nights) 3) Organize an event in the arts (e.g., a photography contest) 4) Involve citizen-scientists in unaided-eye and digital-meter star counting programs, as well as RFI monitoring (e.g., GLOBE at Night and Quiet Skies) and 5) Raise awareness about the link between light pollution and public health, economic issues, ecological consequences, energy conservation, safety and security (e.g., the Dark Skies Toolkit, Good Neighbor Lighting, Earth Hour, National Dark Skies Week, traveling exhibits and a 6-minute video tutorial). To deliver these programs, strategic networks have been established with astronomy clubs (ASP's Night Sky Network's astronomy clubs and the Astronomical League), science and nature centers (Astronomy from the Ground Up and the Association of Science and Technology), educational programs (Project ASTRO and GLOBE) and the International Dark-sky Association. The poster will describe the "know-how” and the means for people to become community advocates in promoting Dark Skies programs as public events at their home institutions. For more information, visit http://astronomy2009

  8. The Infrared Sky - Science from 2MASS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Skrutskie, Michael

    2002-01-01

    The Two Micron All Sky Survey has imaged 100% of the celestial sphere in the near-infrared J (1.2 μm), H (1.6 μm) and Ks (2.2 μm) photometric bands. Pipeline processing of these data has produced catalogs containing 500 million stars and 1.5 million extended sources which will be released later this year. The catalogs are characterized by great photometric uniformity (1%) and precision (2-3%) around the sky as well as good astrometric accuracy (100 mas). This talk will focus on some of the initial scientific results enabled by this database ranging from brown dwarfs in the solar neighborhood to large scale structure in the early universe.

  9. Sky camera imagery processing based on a sky classification using radiometric data

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Alonso, J.; Batlles, F.J.; López, G.; Ternero, A.

    2014-01-01

    As part of the development and expansion of CSP (concentrated solar power) technology, one of the most important operational requirements is to have complete control of all factors which may affect the quantity and quality of the solar power produced. New developments and tools in this field are focused on weather forecasting improving both operational security and electricity production. Such is the case with sky cameras, devices which are currently in use in some CSP plants and whose use is expanding in the new technology sector. Their application is mainly focused on cloud detection, estimating their movement as well as their influence on solar radiation attenuation indeed, the presence of clouds is the greatest factor involved in solar radiation attenuation. The aim of this work is the detection and analysis of clouds from images taken by a TSI-880 model sky. In order to obtain accurate image processing, three different models were created, based on a previous sky classification using radiometric data and representative sky conditions parameters. As a consequence, the sky can be classified as cloudless, partially-cloudy or overcast, delivering an average success rate of 92% in sky classification and cloud detection. - Highlights: • We developed a methodology for detection of clouds in total sky imagery (TSI-880). • A classification of sky is presented according to radiometric data and sky parameters. • The sky can be classified as cloudless, partially cloudy and overcast. • The images processing is based on the sky classification for the detection of clouds. • The average success of the developed model is around 92%

  10. Alaskan Auroral All-Sky Images on the World Wide Web

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stenbaek-Nielsen, H. C.

    1997-01-01

    In response to a 1995 NASA SPDS announcement of support for preservation and distribution of important data sets online, the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Alaska, proposed to provide World Wide Web access to the Poker Flat Auroral All-sky Camera images in real time. The Poker auroral all-sky camera is located in the Davis Science Operation Center at Poker Flat Rocket Range about 30 miles north-east of Fairbanks, Alaska, and is connected, through a microwave link, with the Geophysical Institute where we maintain the data base linked to the Web. To protect the low light-level all-sky TV camera from damage due to excessive light, we only operate during the winter season when the moon is down. The camera and data acquisition is now fully computer controlled. Digital images are transmitted each minute to the Web linked data base where the data are available in a number of different presentations: (1) Individual JPEG compressed images (1 minute resolution); (2) Time lapse MPEG movie of the stored images; and (3) A meridional plot of the entire night activity.

  11. THE GALAXY OPTICAL LUMINOSITY FUNCTION FROM THE AGN AND GALAXY EVOLUTION SURVEY

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Cool, Richard J. [The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, CA 91101 (United States); Eisenstein, Daniel J. [Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721 (United States); Kochanek, Christopher S. [Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States); Brown, Michael J. I. [School of Physics, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800 (Australia); Caldwell, Nelson; Forman, William R.; Hickox, Ryan C.; Jones, Christine; Murray, Stephen S. [Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Dey, Arjun; Jannuzi, Buell T. [National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Tucson, AZ 85726 (United States); Moustakas, John [Center for Astrophysics and Space Science, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093 (United States)

    2012-03-20

    We present the galaxy optical luminosity function for the redshift range 0.05 < z < 0.75 from the AGN and Galaxy Evolution Survey, a spectroscopic survey of 7.6 deg{sup 2} in the Booetes field of the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey. Our statistical sample is composed of 12,473 galaxies with known redshifts down to I = 20.4 (AB). Our results at low redshift are consistent with those from Sloan Digital Sky Survey; at higher redshift, we find strong evidence for evolution in the luminosity function, including differential evolution between blue and red galaxies. We find that the luminosity density evolves as (1 + z){sup (0.54{+-}0.64)} for red galaxies and (1 + z){sup (1.64{+-}0.39)} for blue galaxies.

  12. Dark Sky Protection and Education - Izera Dark Sky Park

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berlicki, Arkadiusz; Kolomanski, Sylwester; Mrozek, Tomasz; Zakowicz, Grzegorz

    2015-08-01

    Darkness of the night sky is a natural component of our environment and should be protected against negative effects of human activities. The night darkness is necessary for balanced life of plants, animals and people. Unfortunately, development of human civilization and technology has led to the substantial increase of the night-sky brightness and to situation where nights are no more dark in many areas of the World. This phenomenon is called "light pollution" and it can be rank among such problems as chemical pollution of air, water and soil. Besides the environment, the light pollution can also affect e.g. the scientific activities of astronomers - many observatories built in the past began to be located within the glow of city lights making the night observations difficult, or even impossible.In order to protect the natural darkness of nights many so-called "dark sky parks" were established, where the darkness is preserved, similar to typical nature reserves. The role of these parks is not only conservation but also education, supporting to make society aware of how serious the problem of the light pollution is.History of the dark sky areas in Europe began on November 4, 2009 in Jizerka - a small village situated in the Izera Mountains, when Izera Dark Sky Park (IDSP) was established - it was the first transboundary dark sky park in the World. The idea of establishing that dark sky park in the Izera Mountains originated from a need to give to the society in Poland and Czech Republic the knowledge about the light pollution. Izera Dark Sky Park is a part of the astro-tourism project "Astro Izery" that combines tourist attraction of Izera Valley and astronomical education under the wonderful starry Izera sky. Besides the IDSP, the project Astro Izery consists of the set of simple astronomical instruments (gnomon, sundial), natural educational trail "Solar System Model", and astronomical events for the public. In addition, twice a year we organize a 3-4 days

  13. Modelling and Display of the Ultraviolet Sky

    Science.gov (United States)

    Daniels, J.; Henry, R.; Murthy, J.; Allen, M.; McGlynn, T. A.; Scollick, K.

    1994-12-01

    A computer program is currently under development to model in 3D - one dimension of which is wavelength - all the known and major speculated sources of ultraviolet (900 A - 3100 A ) radiation over the celestial sphere. The software is being written in Fortran 77 and IDL and currently operates under IRIX (the operating system of the Silicon Graphics Iris Machine); all output models are in FITS format. Models along with display software will become available to the astronomical community. The Ultraviolet Sky Model currently includes the Zodiacal Light, Point Sources of Emission, and the Diffuse Galactic Light. The Ultraviolet Sky Model is currently displayed using SkyView: a package under development at NASA/ GSFC, which allows users to retrieve and display publically available all-sky astronomical survey data (covering many wavebands) over the Internet. We present a demonstration of the SkyView display of the Ultraviolet Model. The modelling is a five year development project: the work illustrated here represents product output at the end of year one. Future work includes enhancements to the current models and incorporation of the following models: Galactic Molecular Hydrogen Fluorescence; Galactic Highly Ionized Atomic Line Emission; Integrated Extragalactic Light; and speculated sources in the intergalactic medium such as Ionized Plasma and radiation from Non-Baryonic Particle Decay. We also present a poster which summarizes the components of the Ultraviolet Sky Model and outlines a further package that will be used to display the Ultraviolet Model. This work is supported by United States Air Force Contract F19628-93-K-0004. Dr J. Daniels is supported with a post-doctoral Fellowship from the Leverhulme Foundation, London, United Kingdom. We are also grateful for the encouragement of Dr Stephen Price (Phillips Laboratory, Hanscomb Air Force Base, MA)

  14. Polyphase-discrete Fourier transform spectrum analysis for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence sky survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zimmerman, G. A.; Gulkis, S.

    1991-01-01

    The sensitivity of a matched filter-detection system to a finite-duration continuous wave (CW) tone is compared with the sensitivities of a windowed discrete Fourier transform (DFT) system and an ideal bandpass filter-bank system. These comparisons are made in the context of the NASA Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) microwave observing project (MOP) sky survey. A review of the theory of polyphase-DFT filter banks and its relationship to the well-known windowed-DFT process is presented. The polyphase-DFT system approximates the ideal bandpass filter bank by using as few as eight filter taps per polyphase branch. An improvement in sensitivity of approx. 3 dB over a windowed-DFT system can be obtained by using the polyphase-DFT approach. Sidelobe rejection of the polyphase-DFT system is vastly superior to the windowed-DFT system, thereby improving its performance in the presence of radio frequency interference (RFI).

  15. VizieR Online Data Catalog: Wisconsin soft X-ray diffuse background all-sky Survey (McCammon+ 1983)

    Science.gov (United States)

    McCammon, D.; Burrows, D. N.; Sanders, W. T.; Kraushaar, W. L.

    1997-10-01

    The catalog contains all-sky survey of the soft X-ray diffuse background and the count-rate data from which the maps were made for the ten flights included in the survey. It contains 40 files in the machine-readable version and includes documentation and utility subroutines. The data files contain different band maps (B, C, M, M1, M2, I, J, 2-6 keV) in a 0 degree-centered Aitoff projection, in a 180-degree-centered Aitoff projection, in a north polar projection, and in a south polar projection. Lookup tables in the form of FITS images are provided for conversion between pixel coordinates and Galactic coordinates for the various projections. The bands are: B = 130-188eV C = 160-284eV M1 = 440-930eV M2 = 600-1100eV I = 770-1500eV J = 1100-2200eV 2-6keV = 1800-6300eV (51 data files).

  16. CHARACTERIZING THE MID-INFRARED EXTRAGALACTIC SKY WITH WISE AND SDSS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yan Lin; Donoso, E.; Tsai, Chao-Wei; Cutri, R.; Jarrett, T.; Stern, D.; Assef, R. J.; Eisenhardt, P.; Blain, A. W.; Stanford, S. A.; Wright, E.; Bridge, C.; Riechers, D. A.

    2013-01-01

    The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has completed its all-sky survey in four channels at 3.4-22 μm, detecting hundreds of millions of objects. We merge the WISE mid-infrared data with optical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and provide a phenomenological characterization of WISE extragalactic sources. WISE is most sensitive at 3.4 μm (W1) and least sensitive at 22 μm (W4). The W1 band probes massive early-type galaxies out to z ∼> 1. This is more distant than SDSS identified early-type galaxies, consistent with the fact that 28% of 3.4 μm sources have faint or no r-band counterparts (r > 22.2). In contrast, 92%-95% of 12 μm and 22 μm sources have SDSS optical counterparts with r ≤ 22.2. WISE 3.4 μm detects 89.8% of the entire SDSS QSO catalog at S/N W1 >7σ, but only 18.9% at 22 μm with S/N W4 > 5σ. We show that WISE colors alone are effective in isolating stars (or local early-type galaxies), star-forming galaxies, and strong active galactic nuclei (AGNs)/QSOs at z ∼ 0.8 and W2 –2 . (2) Selection of dust-obscured, type-2 AGN/QSO candidates. We show that WISE W1 – W2 > 0.8, W2 6 (Vega) colors can be used to identify type-2 AGN candidates. The fraction of these type-2 AGN candidates is one-third of all WISE color-selected AGNs. (3) Selection of ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) at z ∼ 2 with extremely red colors, r – W4 > 14 or well-detected 22 μm sources lacking detections in the 3.4 and 4.6 μm bands. The surface density of z ∼ 2 ULIRG candidates selected with r – W4 > 14 is 0.9 ± 0.07 deg –2 at S/N W4 ≥ 5 (the corresponding, lowest flux density of 2.5 mJy), which is consistent with that inferred from smaller area Spitzer surveys. Optical spectroscopy of a small number of these high-redshift ULIRG candidates confirms our selection, and reveals a possible trend that optically fainter or r – W4 redder candidates are at higher redshifts.

  17. SSGSS: THE SPITZER–SDSS–GALEX SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    O'Dowd, Matthew J.; Schiminovich, David; Johnson, Benjamin D.; Treyer, Marie A.; Martin, Christopher D.; Wyder, Ted K.; Charlot, Stéphane; Heckman, Timothy M.; Martins, Lucimara P.; Seibert, Mark; Van der Hulst, J. M.

    2011-01-01

    The Spitzer-SDSS-GALEX Spectroscopic Survey (SSGSS) provides a new sample of 101 star-forming galaxies at z < 0.2 with unprecedented multi-wavelength coverage. New mid- to far-infrared spectroscopy from the Spitzer Space Telescope is added to a rich suite of previous imaging and spectroscopy, including ROSAT, Galaxy Evolution Explorer, Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Two Micron All Sky Survey, and Spitzer/SWIRE. Sample selection ensures an even coverage of the full range of normal galaxy properties, spanning two orders of magnitude in stellar mass, color, and dust attenuation. In this paper we present the SSGSS data set, describe the science drivers, and detail the sample selection, observations, data reduction, and quality assessment. Also in this paper, we compare the shape of the thermal continuum and the degree of silicate absorption of these typical, star-forming galaxies to those of starburst galaxies. We investigate the link between star formation rate, infrared luminosity, and total polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon luminosity, with a view to calibrating the latter for spectral energy distribution models in photometric samples and at high redshift. Last, we take advantage of the 5-40 μm spectroscopic and far-infrared photometric coverage of this sample to perform detailed fitting of the Draine et al. dust models, and investigate the link between dust mass and star formation history and active galactic nucleus properties.

  18. Night sky luminance under clear sky conditions: Theory vs. experiment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kocifaj, Miroslav

    2014-01-01

    Sky glow is caused by both natural phenomena and factors of anthropogenic origin, and of the latter ground-based light sources are the most important contributors for they emit the spatially linked spectral radiant intensity distribution of artificial light sources, which are further modulated by local atmospheric optics and perceived as the diffuse light of a night sky. In other words, sky glow is closely related to a city's shape and pattern of luminaire distribution, in practical effect an almost arbitrary deployment of random orientation of heterogeneous electrical light sources. Thus the luminance gradation function measured in a suburban zone or near the edges of a city is linked to the City Pattern or vice versa. It is shown that clear sky luminance/radiance data recorded in an urban area can be used to retrieve the bulk luminous/radiant intensity distribution if some a-priori information on atmospheric aerosols is available. For instance, the single scattering albedo of aerosol particles is required under low turbidity conditions, as demonstrated on a targeted experiment in the city of Frýdek-Mistek. One of the main advantages of the retrieval method presented in this paper is that the single scattering approximation is satisfactorily accurate in characterizing the light field near the ground because the dominant contribution to the sky glow has originated from beams propagated along short optical paths. - Highlights: • Urban sky glow is interpreted in terms of city emission function. • Luminance function in a suburban zone is linked to the City Pattern. • Single scattering approximation is applicable in modeling urban sky glow. • Information on aerosols represents valuable inputs to the retrieval procedure. • Sky glow patterns vary with light source distribution and spectral emission

  19. Web Surveys to Digital Movies: Technological Tools of the Trade.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fetterman, David M.

    2002-01-01

    Highlights some of the technological tools used by educational researchers today, focusing on data collection related tools such as Web surveys, digital photography, voice recognition and transcription, file sharing and virtual office, videoconferencing on the Internet, instantaneous chat and chat rooms, reporting and dissemination, and digital…

  20. Digital Relationships

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ledborg Hansen, Richard

    -­rich information and highly interesting communication are sky-­high and rising. With a continuous increase in digitized communication follows a decrease in face-­to-­face encounters and our ability to engage in inter-­personal relationships are suffering for it (Davis, 2013). The behavior described in this paper......-­‐Jones, 2011) for increases in effectiveness and efficiency we indiscriminately embrace digital communication and digitized information dissemination with enthusiasm – at the risk of ignoring the potentially dark side of technology. However, technology also holds a promise for better understanding precisely...... for the same reasons – that the growing amount of digitized communication “out there” represents data waiting to be sifted, analyzed and decoded. In this paper “Facebook behavior” refers to a particular behavior characterized by presenting your self and representations of selected self in the hope of getting...

  1. Dark Sky Education | CTIO

    Science.gov (United States)

    Calendar Activities NOAO-S EPO Programs CADIAS Astro Chile Hugo E. Schwarz Telescope Dark Sky Education ‹› You are here CTIO Home » Outreach » NOAO-S EPO Programs » Dark Sky Education Dark Sky Education Dark Sky Education (in progress) Is an EPO Program. It runs Globe at Night, an annual program to

  2. SEGUE: A Spectroscopic Survey of 240,000 stars with g=14-20

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yanny, Brian; /Fermilab; Rockosi, Constance; /UC, Santa Cruz; Newberg, Heidi Jo; /Rensselaer Poly.; Knapp, Gillian R.; /Princeton U.; Adelman-McCarthy, Jennifer K.; /Fermilab; Alcorn, Bonnie; /Fermilab; Allam, Sahar S.; /Fermilab; Prieto, Carlos Allende; /Texas U. /University Coll. London; An, Deokkeun; /Ohio State U.; Anderson, Kurt S.J.; /Apache Point Observ. /New Mexico State U.; Anderson, Scott; /Washington U., Seattle

    2009-02-01

    The Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE) Survey obtained {approx}240,000 moderate-resolution (R {approx} 1800) spectra from 3900 {angstrom} to 9000 {angstrom} of fainter Milky Way stars (14.0 < g < 20.3) of a wide variety of spectral types, both main-sequence and evolved objects, with the goal of studying the kinematics and populations of our Galaxy and its halo. The spectra are clustered in 212 regions spaced over three quarters of the sky. Radial velocity accuracies for stars are {sigma}(RV) {approx} 4 km s{sup -1} at g < 18, degrading to {sigma}(RV) {approx} 15 km s{sup -1} at g {approx} 20. For stars with signal-to-noise ratio >10 per resolution element, stellar atmospheric parameters are estimated, including metallicity, surface gravity, and effective temperature. SEGUE obtained 3500 deg{sup 2} of additional ugriz imaging (primarily at low Galactic latitudes) providing precise multicolor photometry ({sigma}(g, r, i) {approx} 2%), ({sigma}(u, z) {approx} 3%) and astrometry ({approx}0.1) for spectroscopic target selection. The stellar spectra, imaging data, and derived parameter catalogs for this survey are publicly available as part of Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7.

  3. THE GALAXY OPTICAL LUMINOSITY FUNCTION FROM THE AGN AND GALAXY EVOLUTION SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cool, Richard J.; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Kochanek, Christopher S.; Brown, Michael J. I.; Caldwell, Nelson; Forman, William R.; Hickox, Ryan C.; Jones, Christine; Murray, Stephen S.; Dey, Arjun; Jannuzi, Buell T.; Moustakas, John

    2012-01-01

    We present the galaxy optical luminosity function for the redshift range 0.05 2 in the Boötes field of the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey. Our statistical sample is composed of 12,473 galaxies with known redshifts down to I = 20.4 (AB). Our results at low redshift are consistent with those from Sloan Digital Sky Survey; at higher redshift, we find strong evidence for evolution in the luminosity function, including differential evolution between blue and red galaxies. We find that the luminosity density evolves as (1 + z) (0.54±0.64) for red galaxies and (1 + z) (1.64±0.39) for blue galaxies.

  4. Relevant training issues for introduction of digital radiology: Results of a survey

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Peer, S.; Faulkner, K.; Torbica, P.; Peer, R.; Busch, H. P.; Vetter, S.; Neofotistou, E.; Back, C.; Bosmans, H.; Vano, E.

    2005-01-01

    Council Directive 97/43/Euratom establishes the need for adequate training of radiology staff. The transition to digital radiology implies changes in various imaging aspects, which are not sufficiently covered by current institutional training programmes. This work aimed to assess how professionals, experienced in digital imaging, acquired their expertise and hence, what form institutional training should take. Within DIMOND III, a survey on training and resources was performed among radiology professionals. A lack of institutional education for digital radiology was found. In the transition to digital radiology, 30-35% train on the job and another 23-28% receive training from digital equipment vendors. A general agreement exists on the need for new quality criteria and strategies for dose management. Issues relevant for conventional/digital transition are only sparsely covered in EC training programmes. Based on these results, a set of training issues was produced, to be included in future European guidelines. (authors)

  5. The LOFAR Multifrequency Snapshot Sky Survey (MSSS) : Description and First Results

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Heald, George H.; de Bruyn, G.; Nijboer, R.; Wise, M.; Pizzo, R.; Collaboration, LOFAR

    One of the primary scientific applications of LOFAR is to produce high-quality images of large areas of the low-frequency radio sky. Much of the required data processing will be performed in an automated fashion. The calibration of LOFAR imaging data will strongly benefit from an initial broadband

  6. The WIRED Survey. 2; Infrared Excesses in the SDSS DR7 White Dwarf Catalog

    Science.gov (United States)

    Debes, John H.; Hoard, D. W.; Wachter, Stefanie; Leisawitz, David T.; Cohen, Martin

    2011-01-01

    With the launch of the Wide-field Infrar.ed Survey Explorer (WISE), a new era of detecting planetary debris and brown dwarfs (BDs) around white dwarfs (WDs) has begun with the WISE InfraRed Excesses around Degenerates (WIRED) Survey. The WIRED Survey is sensitive to substellar objects and dusty debris around WDs out to distances exceeding 100 pc, well beyond the completeness level of local WDs. In this paper, we present a cross-correlation of the preliminary Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 (DR7) WD catalog between the WISE, Two-Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS), and SDSS DR7 photometric catalogs. From -18,000 input targets, there are WISE detections comprising 344 "naked" WDs (detection of the WD photosphere only), 1020 candidate WD+M dwarf binaries, 42 candidate WD+BD systems, 52 candidate WD+dust disk systems, and 69 targets with indeterminate infrared excess. We classified all of the detected targets through spectral energy distribution model fitting of the merged optical, near-IR, and WISE photometry. Some of these detections could be the result of contaminating sources within the large (approx. 6") WISE point-spread function; we make a preliminary estimate for the rates of contamination for our WD+BD and WD+disk candidates and provide notes for each target of interest. Each candidate presented here should be confirmed with higher angular resolution infrared imaging or infrared spectroscopy. We also present an overview of the observational characteristics of the detected WDs in the WISE photometric bands, including the relative frequencies of candidate WD+M, WD+BD, and WD+disk systems.

  7. The History of the CONCAM Project: All Sky Monitors in the Digital Age

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nemiroff, Robert; Shamir, Lior; Pereira, Wellesley

    2018-01-01

    The CONtinuous CAMera (CONCAM) project, which ran from 2000 to (about) 2008, consisted of real-time, Internet-connected, fisheye cameras located at major astronomical observatories. At its peak, eleven CONCAMs around the globe monitored most of the night sky, most of the time. Initially designed to search for transients and stellar variability, CONCAMs gained initial notoriety as cloud monitors. As such, CONCAMs made -- and its successors continue to make -- ground-based astronomy more efficient. The original, compact, fisheye-observatory-in-a-suitcase design underwent several iterations, starting with CONCAM0 and with the last version dubbed CONCAM3. Although the CONCAM project itself concluded after centralized funding diminished, today more locally-operated, commercially-designed, CONCAM-like devices operate than ever before. It has even been shown that modern smartphones can operate in a CONCAM-like mode. It is speculated that the re-instatement of better global coordination of current wide-angle sky monitors could lead to better variability monitoring of the brightest stars and transients.

  8. PePSS - A portable sky scanner for measuring extremely low night-sky brightness

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kocifaj, Miroslav; Kómar, Ladislav; Kundracik, František

    2018-05-01

    A new portable sky scanner designed for low-light-level detection at night is developed and employed in night sky brightness measurements in a rural region. The fast readout, adjustable sensitivity and linear response guaranteed in 5-6 orders of magnitude makes the device well suited for narrow-band photometry in both dark areas and bright urban and suburban environments. Quasi-monochromatic night-sky brightness data are advantageous in the accurate characterization of spectral power distribution of scattered and emitted light and, also allows for the possibility to retrieve light output patterns from whole-city light sources. The sky scanner can operate in both night and day regimes, taking advantage of the complementarity of both radiance data types. Due to its inherent very high sensitivity the photomultiplier tube could be used in night sky radiometry, while the spectrometer-equipped system component capable of detecting elevated intensities is used in daylight monitoring. Daylight is a source of information on atmospheric optical properties that in turn are necessary in processing night sky radiances. We believe that the sky scanner has the potential to revolutionize night-sky monitoring systems.

  9. Dark Skies are a Universal Resource: Programs Planned for the International Year of Astronomy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walker, Constance E.; US IYA Dark Skies Working Group

    2008-05-01

    The dark night sky is a natural resource that is being lost by much of the world's population. This loss is a growing, serious issue that impacts not only astronomical research, but also human health, ecology, safety, economics and energy conservation. One of the themes of the US Node targeted for the International Year of Astronomy (IYA) is "Dark Skies are a Universal Resource". The goal is to raise public awareness of the impact of artificial lighting on local environments by getting people involved locally in a variety of dark skies-related events. To reach this goal, activities are being developed that: 1) Teach about dark skies using new technology (e.g., an activity-based planetarium show on DVD, podcasting, social networking) 2) Provide thematic events on light pollution at star parties and observatory open houses (Dark Skies Teaching Sites, Astronomy Nights in the (National) Parks, Sidewalk Astronomy Nights) 3) Organize events in the arts (e.g., a photography contest) 4) Involve citizen-scientists in unaided-eye and digital-meter star counting programs (e.g., GLOBE at Night, "How Many Stars?” and the Great World Wide Star Count) and 5) Raise awareness about the link between light pollution and public health, economic issues, ecological consequences, energy conservation, safety and security (e.g., The Great Switch Out, Earth Hour, National Dark Skies Week, traveling exhibits and a 6-minute video tutorial on lighting issues). To deliver these programs, strategic networks have been established with the ASP's Night Sky Network's astronomy clubs, Astronomy from the Ground Up's science and nature centers and the Project and Family ASTRO programs, as well as the International Dark-Sky Association, GLOBE and the Astronomical League, among others. The poster presentation will outline the activities being developed, the plans for funding, implementation, marketing and the connections to the global cornerstone IYA project, "Dark Skies Awareness".

  10. Decade of wildlife tracking in the Sky Islands

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jessica A. Lamberton-Moreno; Sergio Avila-Villegas

    2013-01-01

    In 2001 Sky Island Alliance developed a citizen science program that uses track and sign identification and count surveys to monitor potential wildlife corridors throughout southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. The goal of the Wildlife Linkages Program is to protect and advocate for an interconnected landscape where wildlife, based on their ecological needs...

  11. A Multi-Survey Approach to White Dwarf Discovery

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-04-01

    LSPM-North), the Two Micron All Sky Survey ( 2MASS ), and the USNO-B1.0 catalog, we use a succession of methods to isolate white dwarf (WD) candidates...including SDSS, the Two Micron All Sky Survey ( 2MASS ; Skrutskie et al. 2006), USNO-B1.0 (Monet et al. 2003), and the proper motion survey of Lépine & Shara...Shara Proper Motion North Catalog (LSPM-North), the Two Micron All Sky Survey ( 2MASS ), and the USNO-B1.0 catalog, we use a succession of methods to

  12. THE TIME-DOMAIN SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY: UNDERSTANDING THE OPTICALLY VARIABLE SKY WITH SEQUELS IN SDSS-III

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ruan, John J.; Anderson, Scott F.; Davenport, James R. A.; Green, Paul J.; Morganson, Eric; Eracleous, Michael; Brandt, William N.; Myers, Adam D.; Badenes, Carles; Bershady, Matthew A.; Chambers, Kenneth C.; Flewelling, Heather; Kaiser, Nick; Dawson, Kyle S.; Heckman, Timothy M.; Isler, Jedidah C.; Kneib, Jean-Paul; MacLeod, Chelsea L.; Ross, Nicholas P.; Paris, Isabelle

    2016-01-01

    The Time-Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS) is an SDSS-IV eBOSS subproject primarily aimed at obtaining identification spectra of ∼220,000 optically variable objects systematically selected from SDSS/Pan-STARRS1 multi-epoch imaging. We present a preview of the science enabled by TDSS, based on TDSS spectra taken over ∼320 deg 2 of sky as part of the SEQUELS survey in SDSS-III, which is in part a pilot survey for eBOSS in SDSS-IV. Using the 15,746 TDSS-selected single-epoch spectra of photometrically variable objects in SEQUELS, we determine the demographics of our variability-selected sample and investigate the unique spectral characteristics inherent in samples selected by variability. We show that variability-based selection of quasars complements color-based selection by selecting additional redder quasars and mitigates redshift biases to produce a smooth quasar redshift distribution over a wide range of redshifts. The resulting quasar sample contains systematically higher fractions of blazars and broad absorption line quasars than from color-selected samples. Similarly, we show that M dwarfs in the TDSS-selected stellar sample have systematically higher chromospheric active fractions than the underlying M-dwarf population based on their H α emission. TDSS also contains a large number of RR Lyrae and eclipsing binary stars with main-sequence colors, including a few composite-spectrum binaries. Finally, our visual inspection of TDSS spectra uncovers a significant number of peculiar spectra, and we highlight a few cases of these interesting objects. With a factor of ∼15 more spectra, the main TDSS survey in SDSS-IV will leverage the lessons learned from these early results for a variety of time-domain science applications.

  13. Sky Detection in Hazy Image.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Song, Yingchao; Luo, Haibo; Ma, Junkai; Hui, Bin; Chang, Zheng

    2018-04-01

    Sky detection plays an essential role in various computer vision applications. Most existing sky detection approaches, being trained on ideal dataset, may lose efficacy when facing unfavorable conditions like the effects of weather and lighting conditions. In this paper, a novel algorithm for sky detection in hazy images is proposed from the perspective of probing the density of haze. We address the problem by an image segmentation and a region-level classification. To characterize the sky of hazy scenes, we unprecedentedly introduce several haze-relevant features that reflect the perceptual hazy density and the scene depth. Based on these features, the sky is separated by two imbalance SVM classifiers and a similarity measurement. Moreover, a sky dataset (named HazySky) with 500 annotated hazy images is built for model training and performance evaluation. To evaluate the performance of our method, we conducted extensive experiments both on our HazySky dataset and the SkyFinder dataset. The results demonstrate that our method performs better on the detection accuracy than previous methods, not only under hazy scenes, but also under other weather conditions.

  14. Methods for rapidly processing angular masks of next-generation galaxy surveys

    Science.gov (United States)

    Swanson, M. E. C.; Tegmark, Max; Hamilton, Andrew J. S.; Hill, J. Colin

    2008-07-01

    As galaxy surveys become larger and more complex, keeping track of the completeness, magnitude limit and other survey parameters as a function of direction on the sky becomes an increasingly challenging computational task. For example, typical angular masks of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey contain about N = 300000 distinct spherical polygons. Managing masks with such large numbers of polygons becomes intractably slow, particularly for tasks that run in time with a naive algorithm, such as finding which polygons overlap each other. Here we present a `divide-and-conquer' solution to this challenge: we first split the angular mask into pre-defined regions called `pixels', such that each polygon is in only one pixel, and then perform further computations, such as checking for overlap, on the polygons within each pixel separately. This reduces tasks to , and also reduces the important task of determining in which polygon(s) a point on the sky lies from to , resulting in significant computational speedup. Additionally, we present a method to efficiently convert any angular mask to and from the popular HEALPIX format. This method can be generically applied to convert to and from any desired spherical pixelization. We have implemented these techniques in a new version of the MANGLE software package, which is freely available at http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/mangle/, along with complete documentation and example applications. These new methods should prove quite useful to the astronomical community, and since MANGLE is a generic tool for managing angular masks on a sphere, it has the potential to benefit terrestrial mapmaking applications as well.

  15. a Survey on Topics, Researchers and Cultures in the Field of Digital Heritage

    Science.gov (United States)

    Münster, S.

    2017-08-01

    Digital heritage comprises a broad variety of approaches and topics and involves researchers from multiple disciplines. While the use of digital methods in the text-oriented disciplines dealing with cultural heritage is widely discussed and canonized, an up-to-date investigation on cultural heritage as a scholarly field is currently missing. The extended abstract is about a three-stage investigation on standards, publications, disciplinary cultures as well as scholars in the field of digital heritage, carried out in 2016 and 2017. It includes results of a workshop-based survey involving 44 researchers, 15 qualitative interviews as well as an online survey with nearly 1000 participants. As an overall finding, a community is driven by researchers from European countries and especially Italy with a background in humanities, dealing with topics of data acquisition, data management and visualization. Moreover, conference series are most relevant for a scientific discourse, and especially EU projects set pace as most important research endeavours.

  16. THE PPMXL CATALOG OF POSITIONS AND PROPER MOTIONS ON THE ICRS. COMBINING USNO-B1.0 AND THE TWO MICRON ALL SKY SURVEY (2MASS)

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Roeser, S.; Demleitner, M.; Schilbach, E.

    2010-01-01

    USNO-B1.0 and the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) are the most widely used all-sky surveys. However, 2MASS has no proper motions at all, and USNO-B1.0 published only relative, not absolute (i.e., on the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRS), proper motions. We performed a new determination of mean positions and proper motions on the ICRS system by combining USNO-B1.0 and 2MASS astrometry. This catalog is called PPMXL (VO access to the catalog is possible via http://vo.uni-hd.de/ppmxl), and it aims to be completed from the brightest stars down to about V ∼ 20 all sky. PPMXL contains about 900 million objects, some 410 million with 2MASS photometry, and is the largest collection of ICRS proper motions at present. As representative for the ICRS, we chose PPMX. The recently released UCAC3 could not be used because we found plate-dependent distortions in its proper motion system north of -20 0 declination. UCAC3 served as an intermediate system for δ ≤ -20 0 . The resulting typical individual mean errors of the proper motions range from 4 mas yr -1 to more than 10 mas yr -1 depending on observational history. The mean errors of positions at epoch 2000.0 are 80-120 mas, if 2MASS astrometry could be used, 150-300 mas else. We also give correction tables to convert USNO-B1.0 observations of, e.g., minor planets to the ICRS system.

  17. Sky subtraction at the Poisson limit with fibre-optic multiobject spectroscopy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sharp, R.; Parkinson, H.

    2010-11-01

    We report on the limitations of sky-subtraction accuracy for long-duration fibre-optic multiobject spectroscopy of faint astronomical sources during long-duration exposures. We show that while standard sky subtraction techniques yield accuracies consistent with the Poisson noise limit for exposures of 1h duration, there are large-scale systematic defects that inhibit the sensitivity gains expected on the summation of longer duration exposures. For the AAOmega system at the Anglo-Australian Telescope, we identify a limiting systematic sky-subtraction accuracy, which is reached after integration times of 4-10h. We show that these systematic defects can be avoided through the use of the fibre nod-and-shuffle (N+S) observing mode, but with a potential cost in observing efficiency. Finally, we demonstrate that these disadvantages can be overcome through the application of a Principal Components Analysis (PCA) sky-subtraction routine. Such an approach minimize systematic residuals across long-duration exposures, allowing deep integrations. We apply the PCA approach to over 200h of on-sky observations and conclude that for the AAOmega system, the residual error in long-duration observations falls at a rate proportional to τ-0.32 in contrast to the τ-0.5 rate expected from theoretical considerations. With this modest rate of decline, the PCA approach represents a more efficient mode of observation than the N+S technique for observations in the sky limited regime with durations of 10-100h (even before accounting for the additional signal-to-noise ratio and targeting efficiency losses often associated with the N+S technique). This conclusion has important implications for the observing strategies of the next generation of fibre-optics redshift surveys with existing facilities as well as design implications for fibre-optic systems destined for new facilities. It argues against the use of the inherently inefficient N+S technique for faint object fibre-optic survey

  18. A daytime measurement of the lunar contribution to the night sky brightness in LSST's ugrizy bands-initial results

    Science.gov (United States)

    Coughlin, Michael; Stubbs, Christopher; Claver, Chuck

    2016-06-01

    We report measurements from which we determine the spatial structure of the lunar contribution to night sky brightness, taken at the LSST site on Cerro Pachon in Chile. We use an array of six photodiodes with filters that approximate the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope's u, g, r, i, z, and y bands. We use the sun as a proxy for the moon, and measure sky brightness as a function of zenith angle of the point on sky, zenith angle of the sun, and angular distance between the sun and the point on sky. We make a correction for the difference between the illumination spectrum of the sun and the moon. Since scattered sunlight totally dominates the daytime sky brightness, this technique allows us to cleanly determine the contribution to the (cloudless) night sky from backscattered moonlight, without contamination from other sources of night sky brightness. We estimate our uncertainty in the relative lunar night sky brightness vs. zenith and lunar angle to be between 0.3-0.7 mags depending on the passband. This information is useful in planning the optimal execution of the LSST survey, and perhaps for other astronomical observations as well. Although our primary objective is to map out the angular structure and spectrum of the scattered light from the atmosphere and particulates, we also make an estimate of the expected number of scattered lunar photons per pixel per second in LSST, and find values that are in overall agreement with previous estimates.

  19. Light-pollution measurement with the Wide-field all-sky image analyzing monitoring system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vítek, S.

    2017-07-01

    The purpose of this experiment was to measure light pollution in the capital of Czech Republic, Prague. As a measuring instrument is used calibrated consumer level digital single reflex camera with IR cut filter, therefore, the paper reports results of measuring and monitoring of the light pollution in the wavelength range of 390 - 700 nm, which most affects visual range astronomy. Combining frames of different exposure times made with a digital camera coupled with fish-eye lens allow to create high dynamic range images, contain meaningful values, so such a system can provide absolute values of the sky brightness.

  20. Mapping the Sloan Digital Sky Survey's Global Impact

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Chaomei; Zhang, Jian; Vogeley, Michael S.

    2009-07-01

    The scientific capacity of a country is essential in todayâ's increasingly globalized science and technology ecosystem. Scientific capacity has four increasingly advanced levels of capabilities: absorbing, applying, creating, and retaining scientific knowledge. Moving to a advanced level requires additional skills and training. For example, it requires more specialized skills to apply scientific knowledge than to absorb knowledge. Similarly, making new discoveries requires more knowledge than applying existing procedures. Research has shown the importance of addressing specific, local problems while tapping into globally available expertise and resources. Accessing scientific knowledge is the first step towards absorbing knowledge. Low-income countries have increased their access to scientific literature on the Internet, but to what extent has this access led to more advanced levels of scientific capacity? Interdisciplinary and international collaboration may hold the key to creating and retaining knowledge. For example, creative ideas tend to be associated with inspirations originated from a diverse range of perspectives On the other hand, not all collaborations are productive. Assessing global science and technology needs to address both successes and failures and reasons behind them.

  1. Dark Skies Awareness Programs for the International Year of Astronomy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walker, Constance E.; US IYA Dark Skies Working Group

    2009-05-01

    The arc of the Milky Way seen from a truly dark location is part of our planet's cultural and natural heritage. More than 1/5 of the world population, 2/3 of the United States population and 1/2 of the European Union population have already lost naked-eye visibility of the Milky Way. This loss, caused by light pollution, is a serious and growing issue that impacts astronomical research, the economy, ecology, energy conservation, human health, public safety and our shared ability to see the night sky. For this reason, "Dark Skies” is a cornerstone project of the International Year of Astronomy. Its goal is to raise public awareness of the impact of artificial lighting on local environments by getting people worldwide involved in a variety of programs that: 1) Teach about dark skies using new technology (e.g., an activity-based planetarium show on DVD, podcasting, social networking on Facebook and MySpace, a Second Life presence) 2) Provide thematic events on light pollution at star parties and observatory open houses (Dark Skies Discovery Sites, Nights in the (National) Parks, Sidewalk Astronomy) 3) Organize events in the arts (e.g., a photography contest) 4) Involve citizen-scientists in naked-eye and digital-meter star hunting programs (e.g., GLOBE at Night, "How Many Stars?", the Great World Wide Star Count and the radio frequency interference equivalent: "Quiet Skies") and 5) Raise awareness about the link between light pollution and public health, economic issues, ecological consequences, energy conservation, safety and security, and astronomy (e.g., The Starlight Initiative, World Night in Defense of Starlight, International Dark Sky Week, International Dark-Sky Communities, Earth Hour, The Great Switch Out, a traveling exhibit, downloadable posters and brochures). The poster will provide an update, describe how people can continue to participate, and take a look ahead at the program's sustainability. For more information, visit www.darkskiesawareness.org.

  2. Do We Still Have a Digital Divide in Mental Health? A Five-Year Survey Follow-up.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Robotham, Dan; Satkunanathan, Safarina; Doughty, Lisa; Wykes, Til

    2016-11-22

    Nearly everyone in society uses the Internet in one form or another. The Internet is heralded as an efficient way of providing mental health treatments and services. However, some people are still excluded from using Internet-enabled technology through lack of resources, skills, and confidence. Five years ago, we showed that people with severe mental illness were at risk of digital exclusion, especially middle-aged patients with psychosis and/or people from black or minority ethnic groups with psychosis. An understanding of the breadth of potential digital exclusion is vital for the implementation of digital health services. The aim of this study is to understand the context of digital exclusion for people who experience mental illness. We conducted a survey involving people with a primary diagnosis of psychosis or depression in London, United Kingdom. A total of 241 participants were recruited: 121 with psychosis and 120 with depression. The majority of surveys were collected face-to-face (psychosis: n=109; depression: n=71). Participants answered questions regarding familiarity, access, use, motivation, and confidence with Internet-enabled technologies (ie, computers and mobile phones). Variables predicting digital exclusion were identified in regression analyses. The results were compared with the survey conducted in 2011. Digital exclusion has declined since 2011. Online survey collection introduced biases into the sample, masking those who were likely to be excluded. Only 18.3% (20/109) of people with psychosis in our sample were digitally excluded, compared with 30% (28/93) in 2011 (χ 2 1 =3.8, P=.04). People with psychosis had less confidence in using the Internet than people with depression (χ 2 1 =7.4, P=.004). Only 9.9% (24/241) of participants in the total sample were digitally excluded, but the majority of these people had psychosis (n=20). Those with psychosis who were digitally excluded were significantly older than their included peers (t 30 =3

  3. A Survey for Low Surface Brightness Galaxies Around M31. II. The Newly Discovered Dwarf Andromeda VI

    OpenAIRE

    Armandroff, Taft E.; Jacoby, George H.; Davies, James E.

    1999-01-01

    We present B-, V-, and I-band images, as well as an H alpha image, of And VI. This is the second newly identified dwarf spheroidal (dSph) companion to M31 found using a digital filtering technique applied to the second Palomar Sky Survey for which 1550 square degrees now have been surveyed. And VI was confirmed to be a nearby dSph galaxy when it resolved into stars easily with a short 4-m V-band exposure. Sub-arcsec images taken at the Kitt Peak WIYN 3.5-m telescope provided (I,V-I) and (V,B-...

  4. THE TIME-DOMAIN SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY: UNDERSTANDING THE OPTICALLY VARIABLE SKY WITH SEQUELS IN SDSS-III

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ruan, John J.; Anderson, Scott F.; Davenport, James R. A. [Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States); Green, Paul J.; Morganson, Eric [Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Eracleous, Michael; Brandt, William N. [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 525 Davey Lab, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States); Myers, Adam D. [Department of Physics and Astronomy 3905, University of Wyoming, 1000 E. University, Laramie, WY 82071 (United States); Badenes, Carles [Department of Physics and Astronomy and Pittsburgh Particle Physics, Astrophysics, and Cosmology Center (PITT-PACC), University of Pittsburgh (United States); Bershady, Matthew A. [Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 475 N. Charter Street, Madison, WI 53706 (United States); Chambers, Kenneth C.; Flewelling, Heather; Kaiser, Nick [Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822 (United States); Dawson, Kyle S. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States); Heckman, Timothy M. [Center for Astrophysical Sciences, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Isler, Jedidah C. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235 (United States); Kneib, Jean-Paul [Laboratoire d’astrophysique, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Observatoire de Sauverny, 1290 Versoix (Switzerland); MacLeod, Chelsea L.; Ross, Nicholas P. [Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, EH9 3HJ (United Kingdom); Paris, Isabelle, E-mail: jruan@astro.washington.edu [INAF—Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Via G. B. Tiepolo 11, I-34131 Trieste (Italy); and others

    2016-07-10

    The Time-Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS) is an SDSS-IV eBOSS subproject primarily aimed at obtaining identification spectra of ∼220,000 optically variable objects systematically selected from SDSS/Pan-STARRS1 multi-epoch imaging. We present a preview of the science enabled by TDSS, based on TDSS spectra taken over ∼320 deg{sup 2} of sky as part of the SEQUELS survey in SDSS-III, which is in part a pilot survey for eBOSS in SDSS-IV. Using the 15,746 TDSS-selected single-epoch spectra of photometrically variable objects in SEQUELS, we determine the demographics of our variability-selected sample and investigate the unique spectral characteristics inherent in samples selected by variability. We show that variability-based selection of quasars complements color-based selection by selecting additional redder quasars and mitigates redshift biases to produce a smooth quasar redshift distribution over a wide range of redshifts. The resulting quasar sample contains systematically higher fractions of blazars and broad absorption line quasars than from color-selected samples. Similarly, we show that M dwarfs in the TDSS-selected stellar sample have systematically higher chromospheric active fractions than the underlying M-dwarf population based on their H α emission. TDSS also contains a large number of RR Lyrae and eclipsing binary stars with main-sequence colors, including a few composite-spectrum binaries. Finally, our visual inspection of TDSS spectra uncovers a significant number of peculiar spectra, and we highlight a few cases of these interesting objects. With a factor of ∼15 more spectra, the main TDSS survey in SDSS-IV will leverage the lessons learned from these early results for a variety of time-domain science applications.

  5. Observations of variable and transient X-ray sources with the Ariel V Sky Survey Experiment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pounds, K.A.; Cooke, B.A.; Ricketts, M.J.; Turner, M.J.; Peacock, A.; Eadie, G.

    1976-01-01

    Results obtained during the first six months in orbit of Aerial V with the Leicester Sky Survey are reviewed. Among 80 sources found by a scan of the Milky Way, 16 are new, and 11 UHURU sources in the scanned region are not detected. Some of these sources may be transient. The light curve of Cen X-3 in a binary cycle shows a dip between phase 0.5 and 0.75, and a secondary maximum at the centre of the dip. The dip and the maximum get progressively weaker in the succeeding cycles. These features are interpreted in terms of the stellar wind accretion model. Cyg X-1 observation for 14 days gives a broad minimum around superior conjunction. Four bright transient sources of nova-like light curves have been observed. The light curves and the spectra are given for TrA X-1 (A1524-62) and Tau X-T (A0535+26). (Auth.)

  6. Software Ergonomics of Iranian Digital Library Software’s: An Accessibility-Centered Survey

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Saeideh Jahanghiri

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Purpose: The Purpose of this study is to evaluate accessibility features of Iranian Digital Library Software’s (IDLS. Method/Approach: This is an applied research and has done as a heuristic survey. Statistical population of the study includes five Digital Library Softwares: Azarakhsh, Nosa, Papyrus, Parvanpajooh and Payam. The researcher-made criteria list of this study is based on ISO 9241-171 and has prepared through a Delphi method. Different types of descriptive statistical techniques in collaboration with Friedman test and SAW decision making method used for data analyzing. Findings: Research results showed that IDLSs have made no impressive effort for regarding accessibility features and their accessibility has obtained solely through the Operating System and Platform that the software runs on it. That’s why input accessibility features – which have regarded through OS-, have gained first rank among other accessibility features. There is meaningful statistical difference between IDLSs in regarding accessibility features. Originality/Value: This study which survey the accessibility features of IDLSs, is one of the first attending software accessibility features in Iran and it can have an important role in introducing disable users’ needs to software developers and digital collection makers.

  7. A new simple parameterization of daily clear-sky global solar radiation including horizon effects

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lopez, Gabriel; Javier Batlles, F.; Tovar-Pescador, Joaquin

    2007-01-01

    Estimation of clear-sky global solar radiation is usually an important previous stage for calculating global solar radiation under all sky conditions. This is, for instance, a common procedure to derive incoming solar radiation from remote sensing or by using digital elevation models. In this work, we present a new model to calculate daily values of clear-sky global solar irradiation. The main goal is the simple parameterization in terms of atmospheric temperature and relative humidity, Angstroem's turbidity coefficient, ground albedo and site elevation, including a factor to take into account horizon obstructions. This allows us to obtain estimates even though a free horizon is not present as is the case of mountainous locations. Comparisons of calculated daily values with measured data show that this model is able to provide a good level of accurate estimates using either daily or mean monthly values of the input parameters. This new model has also been shown to improve daily estimates against those obtained using the clear-sky model from the European Solar Radiation Atlas and other accurate parameterized daily irradiation models. The introduction of Angstroem's turbidity coefficient and ground albedo should allow us to use the increasing worldwide aerosol information available and to consider those sites affected by snow covers in an easy and fast way. In addition, the proposed model is intended to be a useful tool to select clear-sky conditions

  8. A Survey of Digital Cultural Heritage Initiatives and Their Sustainability Concerns. Managing Economic Challenges.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zorich, Diane M.

    In September 2002, the Council on Library and Information Re-sources (CLIR) commissioned a survey of North American-based digital cultural heritage initiatives (DCHIs). The purpose of the survey was to identify the scope, financing, organizational structure, and sustainability of DCHIs. To gain a funder's perspective on these initiatives, the…

  9. Linear feature detection algorithm for astronomical surveys - II. Defocusing effects on meteor tracks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bektešević, Dino; Vinković, Dejan; Rasmussen, Andrew; Ivezić, Željko

    2018-03-01

    Given the current limited knowledge of meteor plasma micro-physics and its interaction with the surrounding atmosphere and ionosphere, meteors are a highly interesting observational target for high-resolution wide-field astronomical surveys. Such surveys are capable of resolving the physical size of meteor plasma heads, but they produce large volumes of images that need to be automatically inspected for possible existence of long linear features produced by meteors. Here, we show how big aperture sky survey telescopes detect meteors as defocused tracks with a central brightness depression. We derive an analytic expression for a defocused point source meteor track and use it to calculate brightness profiles of meteors modelled as uniform brightness discs. We apply our modelling to meteor images as seen by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and Large Synoptic Survey Telescope telescopes. The expression is validated by Monte Carlo ray-tracing simulations of photons travelling through the atmosphere and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope telescope optics. We show that estimates of the meteor distance and size can be extracted from the measured full width at half-maximum and the strength of the central dip in the observed brightness profile. However, this extraction becomes difficult when the defocused meteor track is distorted by the atmospheric seeing or contaminated by a long-lasting glowing meteor trail. The full width at half-maximum of satellite tracks is distinctly narrower than meteor values, which enables removal of a possible confusion between satellites and meteors.

  10. Survey of Integration Cost-Adoption between Digital Library Systems in Iran

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mehdi Alipour-Hafezi

    2013-03-01

    Full Text Available The main goal of this article was identifying cost elements in syntactic integrating digital library systems in Iran. The levels of integration are content, technical, and organizational. It is obvious we could access some sub goals such as identifying current situation of information systems from the view points of data storage, needed standard outputs, and the current situation of interoperability in Iran, and suitable integration model in Iranian digital libraries. The analytical survey method was used in this research. Research population included 11 digital library systems that were used in Iranian digital libraries. In order to gather information, a researcher made questionnaire was used because of not existing standard collecting data tool. Findings demonstrated that we should search on three levels of interoperability: content, technical, and organizational level in order to identifying cost-adoption elements in syntactic interoperability. Also, findings showed that the elements of organizational level were too important level in cost-adoption elements. Also this research demonstrated that the high cost of adoption was related to libraries and their organizations.

  11. Sky coverage modeling for the whole sky for laser guide star multiconjugate adaptive optics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Lianqi; Andersen, David; Ellerbroek, Brent

    2012-06-01

    The scientific productivity of laser guide star adaptive optics systems strongly depends on the sky coverage, which describes the probability of finding natural guide stars for the tip/tilt wavefront sensor(s) to achieve a certain performance. Knowledge of the sky coverage is also important for astronomers planning their observations. In this paper, we present an efficient method to compute the sky coverage for the laser guide star multiconjugate adaptive optics system, the Narrow Field Infrared Adaptive Optics System (NFIRAOS), being designed for the Thirty Meter Telescope project. We show that NFIRAOS can achieve more than 70% sky coverage over most of the accessible sky with the requirement of 191 nm total rms wavefront.

  12. The 60 Month All-Sky Burst Alert Telescope Survey of Active Galactic Nucleus and the Anisotropy of Nearby AGNs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ajello, M.; Alexander, D. M.; Greiner, J.; Madejeski, G. M.; Gehrels, N.; Burlon, D.

    2014-01-01

    Surveys above 10 keV represent one of the best resources to provide an unbiased census of the population of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). We present the results of 60 months of observation of the hard X-ray sky with Swift/Burst Alert Telescope (BAT). In this time frame, BAT-detected (in the 15-55 keV band) 720 sources in an all-sky survey of which 428 are associated with AGNs, most of which are nearby. Our sample has negligible incompleteness and statistics a factor of approx. 2 larger over similarly complete sets of AGNs. Our sample contains (at least) 15 bona fide Compton-thick AGNs and 3 likely candidates. Compton-thick AGNs represent approx. 5% of AGN samples detected above 15 keV. We use the BAT data set to refine the determination of the log N-log S of AGNs which is extremely important, now that NuSTAR prepares for launch, toward assessing the AGN contribution to the cosmic X-ray background. We show that the log N-log S of AGNs selected above 10 keV is now established to approx. 10% precision. We derive the luminosity function of Compton-thick AGNs and measure a space density of 7.9(+4.1/-2.9)× 10(exp -5)/cubic Mpc for objects with a de-absorbed luminosity larger than 2 × 10(exp 42) erg / s. As the BAT AGNs are all mostly local, they allow us to investigate the spatial distribution of AGNs in the nearby universe regardless of absorption. We find concentrations of AGNs that coincide spatially with the largest congregations of matter in the local (much < 85 Mpc) universe. There is some evidence that the fraction of Seyfert 2 objects is larger than average in the direction of these dense regions..

  13. Exploring Digital Health Use and Opinions of University Students: Field Survey Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Montagni, Ilaria; Cariou, Tanguy; Feuillet, Tiphaine; Langlois, Emmanuel; Tzourio, Christophe

    2018-03-15

    During university, students face some potentially serious health risks, and their lifestyle can have a direct effect on health and health behaviors later in life. Concurrently, university students are digital natives having easy access to the internet and new technologies. Digital health interventions offer promising new opportunities for health promotion, disease prevention, and care in this specific population. The description of the current use of and opinions on digital health among university students can inform future digital health strategies and interventions within university settings. The aim of this exploratory study was to report on university students' use and opinions regarding information and communication technologies for health and well-being, taking into account sociodemographic and self-rated general and mental health correlates. This field survey was conducted from March to April 2017. An informed consent form and a paper questionnaire were given to students aged 18 to 24 years in 4 university campuses in Bordeaux, France. The survey was formulated in 3 sections: (1) sociodemographic characteristics and self-rated general and mental health, (2) information about the use of digital health, and (3) opinions about digital health. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and tests of independence. A total of 59.8% (303/507 females) students completed the questionnaire. Concerning digital health use, 34.9% (174/498) had at least 1 health app mostly for physical activity (49.4%, 86/174) and general health monitoring (41.4%, 72/174,), but only 3.9% (20/507) of students had a wearable device. Almost all (94.8%, 450/476) had searched for Web-based health-related information at least once in the last 12 months. The most sought health-related topics were nutrition (68.1%, 324/476); pain and illnesses (64.5%, 307/476); and stress, anxiety, or depression (51.1%, 243/476). Although Wikipedia (79.7%, 357/448) and general health websites (349/448, 77

  14. Exploring Digital Health Use and Opinions of University Students: Field Survey Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cariou, Tanguy; Feuillet, Tiphaine; Langlois, Emmanuel; Tzourio, Christophe

    2018-01-01

    Background During university, students face some potentially serious health risks, and their lifestyle can have a direct effect on health and health behaviors later in life. Concurrently, university students are digital natives having easy access to the internet and new technologies. Digital health interventions offer promising new opportunities for health promotion, disease prevention, and care in this specific population. The description of the current use of and opinions on digital health among university students can inform future digital health strategies and interventions within university settings. Objective The aim of this exploratory study was to report on university students’ use and opinions regarding information and communication technologies for health and well-being, taking into account sociodemographic and self-rated general and mental health correlates. Methods This field survey was conducted from March to April 2017. An informed consent form and a paper questionnaire were given to students aged 18 to 24 years in 4 university campuses in Bordeaux, France. The survey was formulated in 3 sections: (1) sociodemographic characteristics and self-rated general and mental health, (2) information about the use of digital health, and (3) opinions about digital health. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and tests of independence. Results A total of 59.8% (303/507 females) students completed the questionnaire. Concerning digital health use, 34.9% (174/498) had at least 1 health app mostly for physical activity (49.4%, 86/174) and general health monitoring (41.4%, 72/174,), but only 3.9% (20/507) of students had a wearable device. Almost all (94.8%, 450/476) had searched for Web-based health-related information at least once in the last 12 months. The most sought health-related topics were nutrition (68.1%, 324/476); pain and illnesses (64.5%, 307/476); and stress, anxiety, or depression (51.1%, 243/476). Although Wikipedia (79.7%, 357/448) and

  15. Dark Skies are a Universal Resource. So are Quiet Skies!

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maddalena, Ronald J.; Heatherly, S.

    2008-05-01

    You've just purchased your first telescope. But where to set it up? Certainly not a WalMart parking lot. Too much light pollution! In the same way that man-made light obscures our night sky and blinds ground-based optical telescopes, man-made radio signals blind radio telescopes as well. NRAO developed the Quiet Skies project to increase awareness of radio frequency interference (RFI) and radio astronomy in general by engaging students in local studies of RFI. To do that we created a sensitive detector which measures RFI. We produced 20 of these, and assembled kits containing detectors and supplementary materials for loan to schools. Students conduct experiments to measure the properties of RFI in their area, and input their measurements into a web-based data base. The Quiet Skies project is a perfect complement to the IYA Dark Skies Awareness initiative. We hope to place 500 Quiet Skies detectors into the field through outreach to museums and schools around the world. Should we be successful, we will sustain this global initiative via a continuing loan program. One day we hope to have a publicly generated image of the Earth which shows RFI much as the Earth at Night image illustrates light pollution. The poster will present the components of the project in detail, including our plans for IYA, and various low-cost alternative strategies for introducing RFI and radio astronomy to the public. We will share the results of some of the experiments already being performed by high school students. Development of the Quiet Skies project was funded by a NASA IDEAS grant. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

  16. ESTIMATING PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFTS OF QUASARS VIA THE k-NEAREST NEIGHBOR APPROACH BASED ON LARGE SURVEY DATABASES

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zhang Yanxia; Ma He; Peng Nanbo; Zhao Yongheng [Key Laboratory of Optical Astronomy, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100012 Beijing (China); Wu Xuebing, E-mail: zyx@bao.ac.cn [Department of Astronomy, Peking University, 100871 Beijing (China)

    2013-08-01

    We apply one of the lazy learning methods, the k-nearest neighbor (kNN) algorithm, to estimate the photometric redshifts of quasars based on various data sets from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS), and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE; the SDSS sample, the SDSS-UKIDSS sample, the SDSS-WISE sample, and the SDSS-UKIDSS-WISE sample). The influence of the k value and different input patterns on the performance of kNN is discussed. kNN performs best when k is different with a special input pattern for a special data set. The best result belongs to the SDSS-UKIDSS-WISE sample. The experimental results generally show that the more information from more bands, the better performance of photometric redshift estimation with kNN. The results also demonstrate that kNN using multiband data can effectively solve the catastrophic failure of photometric redshift estimation, which is met by many machine learning methods. Compared with the performance of various other methods of estimating the photometric redshifts of quasars, kNN based on KD-Tree shows superiority, exhibiting the best accuracy.

  17. ESTIMATING PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFTS OF QUASARS VIA THE k-NEAREST NEIGHBOR APPROACH BASED ON LARGE SURVEY DATABASES

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhang Yanxia; Ma He; Peng Nanbo; Zhao Yongheng; Wu Xuebing

    2013-01-01

    We apply one of the lazy learning methods, the k-nearest neighbor (kNN) algorithm, to estimate the photometric redshifts of quasars based on various data sets from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS), and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE; the SDSS sample, the SDSS-UKIDSS sample, the SDSS-WISE sample, and the SDSS-UKIDSS-WISE sample). The influence of the k value and different input patterns on the performance of kNN is discussed. kNN performs best when k is different with a special input pattern for a special data set. The best result belongs to the SDSS-UKIDSS-WISE sample. The experimental results generally show that the more information from more bands, the better performance of photometric redshift estimation with kNN. The results also demonstrate that kNN using multiband data can effectively solve the catastrophic failure of photometric redshift estimation, which is met by many machine learning methods. Compared with the performance of various other methods of estimating the photometric redshifts of quasars, kNN based on KD-Tree shows superiority, exhibiting the best accuracy.

  18. COSMO-SkyMed and GIS applications

    Science.gov (United States)

    Milillo, Pietro; Sole, Aurelia; Serio, Carmine

    2013-04-01

    Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing have become key technology tools for the collection, storage and analysis of spatially referenced data. Industries that utilise these spatial technologies include agriculture, forestry, mining, market research as well as the environmental analysis . Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is a coherent active sensor operating in the microwave band which exploits relative motion between antenna and target in order to obtain a finer spatial resolution in the flight direction exploiting the Doppler effect. SAR have wide applications in Remote Sensing such as cartography, surface deformation detection, forest cover mapping, urban planning, disasters monitoring , surveillance etc… The utilization of satellite remote sensing and GIS technology for this applications has proven to be a powerful and effective tool for environmental monitoring. Remote sensing techniques are often less costly and time-consuming for large geographic areas compared to conventional methods, moreover GIS technology provides a flexible environment for, analyzing and displaying digital data from various sources necessary for classification, change detection and database development. The aim of this work si to illustrate the potential of COSMO-SkyMed data and SAR applications in a GIS environment, in particular a demostration of the operational use of COSMO-SkyMed SAR data and GIS in real cases will be provided for what concern DEM validation, river basin estimation, flood mapping and landslide monitoring.

  19. MMT hypervelocity star survey. III. The complete survey

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Brown, Warren R.; Geller, Margaret J.; Kenyon, Scott J., E-mail: wbrown@cfa.harvard.edu, E-mail: mgeller@cfa.harvard.edu, E-mail: skenyon@cfa.harvard.edu [Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)

    2014-05-20

    We describe our completed spectroscopic survey for unbound hypervelocity stars (HVSs) ejected from the Milky Way. Three new discoveries bring the total number of unbound late B-type stars to 21. We place new constraints on the nature of the stars and on their distances using moderate resolution MMT spectroscopy. Half of the stars are fast rotators; they are certain 2.5-4 M {sub ☉} main sequence stars at 50-120 kpc distances. Correcting for stellar lifetime, our survey implies that unbound 2.5-4 M {sub ☉} stars are ejected from the Milky Way at a rate of 1.5 × 10{sup –6} yr{sup –1}. These unbound HVSs are likely ejected continuously over the past 200 Myr and do not share a common flight time. The anisotropic spatial distribution of HVSs on the sky remains puzzling. Southern hemisphere surveys like SkyMapper will soon allow us to map the all-sky distribution of HVSs. Future proper motion measurements with Hubble Space Telescope and Gaia will provide strong constraints on origin. Existing observations are all consistent with HVS ejections from encounters with the massive black hole in the Galactic center.

  20. MMT hypervelocity star survey. III. The complete survey

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Brown, Warren R.; Geller, Margaret J.; Kenyon, Scott J.

    2014-01-01

    We describe our completed spectroscopic survey for unbound hypervelocity stars (HVSs) ejected from the Milky Way. Three new discoveries bring the total number of unbound late B-type stars to 21. We place new constraints on the nature of the stars and on their distances using moderate resolution MMT spectroscopy. Half of the stars are fast rotators; they are certain 2.5-4 M ☉ main sequence stars at 50-120 kpc distances. Correcting for stellar lifetime, our survey implies that unbound 2.5-4 M ☉ stars are ejected from the Milky Way at a rate of 1.5 × 10 –6 yr –1 . These unbound HVSs are likely ejected continuously over the past 200 Myr and do not share a common flight time. The anisotropic spatial distribution of HVSs on the sky remains puzzling. Southern hemisphere surveys like SkyMapper will soon allow us to map the all-sky distribution of HVSs. Future proper motion measurements with Hubble Space Telescope and Gaia will provide strong constraints on origin. Existing observations are all consistent with HVS ejections from encounters with the massive black hole in the Galactic center.

  1. Solar Resource Assessment with Sky Imagery and a Virtual Testbed for Sky Imager Solar Forecasting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kurtz, Benjamin Bernard

    In recent years, ground-based sky imagers have emerged as a promising tool for forecasting solar energy on short time scales (0 to 30 minutes ahead). Following the development of sky imager hardware and algorithms at UC San Diego, we present three new or improved algorithms for sky imager forecasting and forecast evaluation. First, we present an algorithm for measuring irradiance with a sky imager. Sky imager forecasts are often used in conjunction with other instruments for measuring irradiance, so this has the potential to decrease instrumentation costs and logistical complexity. In particular, the forecast algorithm itself often relies on knowledge of the current irradiance which can now be provided directly from the sky images. Irradiance measurements are accurate to within about 10%. Second, we demonstrate a virtual sky imager testbed that can be used for validating and enhancing the forecast algorithm. The testbed uses high-quality (but slow) simulations to produce virtual clouds and sky images. Because virtual cloud locations are known, much more advanced validation procedures are possible with the virtual testbed than with measured data. In this way, we are able to determine that camera geometry and non-uniform evolution of the cloud field are the two largest sources of forecast error. Finally, with the assistance of the virtual sky imager testbed, we develop improvements to the cloud advection model used for forecasting. The new advection schemes are 10-20% better at short time horizons.

  2. Improving Standard Poststratification Techniques For Random-Digit-Dialing Telephone Surveys

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michael P. Battaglia

    2008-03-01

    Full Text Available Random-digit-dialing surveys in the United States such as the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS typically poststratify on age, gender and race/ethnicity using control totals from an appropriate source such as the 2000 Census, the Current Population Survey, or the American Community Survey. Using logistic regression and interaction detection software we identified key "main effect" socio-demographic variables and important two-factor interactions associated with several health risk factor outcomes measured in the BRFSS, one of the largest annual RDD surveys in the United States. A procedure was developed to construct control totals, which were consistent with estimates of age, gender, and race/ethnicity obtained from a commercial source and distributions of other demographic variables from the Current Population Survey. Raking was used to incorporate main effects and two-factor interaction margins into the weighting of the BRFSS survey data. The resulting risk factor estimates were then compared with those based on the current BRFSS weighting methodology and mean squared error estimates were developed. The research demonstrates that by identifying socio-demographic variables associated with key outcome variables and including these variables in the weighting methodology, nonresponse bias can be substantially reduced.

  3. Sky surveys with Einstein

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gioia, I.M.

    1990-01-01

    Since the early times after the launch of the Einstein Observatory, systematic studies of serendipitous Einstein x-ray sources have been carried out by several observers with interests in both galactic and extragalactic astronomy. The majority of these studies were not surveys in the strict sense of the word: in several cases no analyses requiring flux completeness were performed. However, these systematic searches for sources added much to our knowledge of the behaviour in the X-ray domain of the different classes of astronomical objects and in many instances led to the study of their properties at different wavebands. (author)

  4. IS THE TWO MICRON ALL SKY SURVEY CLUSTERING DIPOLE CONVERGENT?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bilicki, Maciej; Chodorowski, Michal; Jarrett, Thomas; Mamon, Gary A.

    2011-01-01

    There is a long-standing controversy about the convergence of the dipole moment of the galaxy angular distribution (the so-called clustering dipole). Is the dipole convergent at all, and if so, what is the scale of the convergence? We study the growth of the clustering dipole of galaxies as a function of the limiting flux of the sample from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS). Contrary to some earlier claims, we find that the dipole does not converge before the completeness limit of the 2MASS Extended Source Catalog, i.e., up to 13.5 mag in the near-infrared K s band (equivalent to an effective distance of 300 Mpc h -1 ). We compare the observed growth of the dipole with the theoretically expected, conditional one (i.e., given the velocity of the Local Group relative to the cosmic microwave background), for the ΛCDM power spectrum and cosmological parameters constrained by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe. The observed growth turns out to be within 1σ confidence level of its theoretical counterpart once the proper observational window of the 2MASS flux-limited catalog is included. For a contrast, if the adopted window is a top hat, then the predicted dipole grows significantly faster and converges (within the errors) to its final value for a distance of about 300 Mpc h -1 . By comparing the observational windows, we show that for a given flux limit and a corresponding distance limit, the 2MASS flux-weighted window passes less large-scale signal than the top-hat one. We conclude that the growth of the 2MASS dipole for effective distances greater than 200 Mpc h -1 is only apparent. On the other hand, for a distance of 80 Mpc h -1 (mean depth of the 2MASS Redshift Survey) and the ΛCDM power spectrum, the true dipole is expected to reach only ∼80% of its final value. Eventually, since for the window function of 2MASS the predicted growth is consistent with the observed one, we can compare the two to evaluate β ≡ Ω m 0.55 /b. The result is β = 0.38

  5. The All Sky Automated Survey. The Catalog of Bright Variable Stars in the I-band, South of Declination +28o

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sitek, M.; Pojmański, G.

    2014-06-01

    This paper presents the results of our extensive search for the bright variable stars in approximately 30 000 square degrees of the south sky in the I-band data collected by 9o×9o camera of the All Sky Automated Survey between 2002 and 2009. Lists of over 27 000 variable stars brighter than 9 mag at maximum light, with amplitudes ranging from 0.02 mag to 7 mag and variability time-scales from hours to years, as well as corresponding light curves are provided. Automated classification algorithm based on stellar properties (period, Fourier coefficients, 2MASS J, H, K, colors, ASAS V-band data) was used to roughly classify objects. Despite low spatial resolution of the ASAS data (≍15'') we cross-identified all objects with other available data sources. Coordinates of the most probable 2MASS counterparts are provided. 27 705 stars brighter than I=9 mag were found to be variable, of which 7842 objects were detected to be variable for the first time. Brief statistics and discussion of the presented data is provided. All the photometric data is available over the Internet at http://www.astrouw.edu.pl/ gp/asas/AsasBrightI.html

  6. Digital Natives or Digital Tribes?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Watson, Ian Robert

    2013-01-01

    This research builds upon the discourse surrounding digital natives. A literature review into the digital native phenomena was undertaken and found that researchers are beginning to identify the digital native as not one cohesive group but of individuals influenced by other factors. Primary research by means of questionnaire survey of technologies…

  7. Treasures of the Southern Sky

    CERN Document Server

    Gendler, Robert; Malin, David

    2011-01-01

    In these pages, the reader can follow the engaging saga of astronomical exploration in the southern hemisphere, in a modern merger of aesthetics, science, and a story of human endeavor. This book is truly a celebration of southern skies.  Jerry Bonnell, Editor - Astronomy Picture of the Day The southern sky became accessible to scientific scrutiny only a few centuries ago, after the first European explorers ventured south of the equator. Modern observing and imaging techniques have since revealed what seems like a new Universe, previously hidden below the horizon, a fresh astronomical bounty of beauty and knowledge uniquely different from the northern sky. The authors have crafted a book that brings this hidden Universe to all, regardless of location or latitude. Treasures of the Southern Sky celebrates the remarkable beauty and richness of the southern sky in words and with world-class imagery. In part, a photographic anthology of deep sky wonders south of the celestial equator, this book also celebrates th...

  8. Can You See the Stars? Citizen-Science Programs to Measure Night Sky Brightness

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walker, Constance E.

    2009-05-01

    For the IYA2009 Dark Skies Awareness Cornerstone Project, partners in dark-sky, astronomy and environmental education are promoting three citizen-scientist programs that measure light pollution at local levels worldwide. These programs take the form of "star hunts", providing people with fun and direct ways to acquire heightened awareness about light pollution through first-hand observations of the night sky. Together the programs are spanning the entire IYA, namely: GLOBE at Night in March, Great World Wide Star Count in October, and How Many Stars during the rest of the year. Citizen-scientists - students, educators, amateur astronomers and the general public - measure the darkness of their local skies and contribute observations online to a world map. Anyone anywhere anytime can look within particular constellations for the faintest stars and match them to one of seven star maps. For more precise measurements, digital sky-brightness meters can be used. Measurements, along with the measurement location, time, and date, are submitted online, and within a few days to weeks a world map showing results is available. These measurements can be compared with data from previous years, as well as with satellite data, population densities, and electrical power-usage maps. Measurements are available online via Google Earth or other tools and as downloadable datasets. Data from multiple locations in one city or region are especially interesting, and can be used as the basis of a class project or science fair experiment, or even to inform the development of public policy. In the last few years these programs successfully conducted campaigns in which more than 35,000 observations were submitted from over 100 countries. The presentation will provide an update, describe how people can become involved and take a look ahead at the program's sustainability. For further information about these and other Dark Skies Awareness programs, please visit www.darkskiesawareness.org.

  9. A Survey of the Usability of Digital Reference Services on Academic Health Science Library Web Sites

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dee, Cheryl; Allen, Maryellen

    2006-01-01

    Reference interactions with patrons in a digital library environment using digital reference services (DRS) has become widespread. However, such services in many libraries appear to be underutilized. A study surveying the ease and convenience of such services for patrons in over 100 academic health science library Web sites suggests that…

  10. Survey of timing/synchronization of operating wideband digital communications networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mitchell, R. L.

    1978-01-01

    In order to benefit from experience gained from the synchronization of operational wideband digital networks, a survey was made of three such systems: Data Transmission Company, Western Union Telegraph Company, and the Computer Communications Group of the Trans-Canada Telephone System. The focus of the survey was on deployment and operational experience from a practical (as opposed to theoretical) viewpoint. The objective was to provide a report on the results of deployment how the systems performed, and wherein the performance differed from that predicted or intended in the design. It also attempted to determine how the various system designers would use the benefit of hindsight if they could design those same systems today.

  11. First-Year Spectroscopy for the SDSS-II Supernova Survey

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zheng, Chen; Romani, Roger W.; Sako, Masao; Marriner, John; Bassett, Bruce; Becker, Andrew; Choi, Changsu; Cinabro, David; DeJongh, Fritz; Depoy, Darren L.; Dilday, Ben; Doi, Mamoru; Frieman, Joshua A.; Garnavich, Peter M.; Hogan, Craig J.; Holtzman, Jon; Im, Myungshin; Jha, Saurabh; Kessler, Richard; Konishi, Kohki; Lampeitl, Hubert

    2008-03-25

    This paper presents spectroscopy of supernovae discovered in the first season of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey. This program searches for and measures multi-band light curves of supernovae in the redshift range z = 0.05-0.4, complementing existing surveys at lower and higher redshifts. Our goal is to better characterize the supernova population, with a particular focus on SNe Ia, improving their utility as cosmological distance indicators and as probes of dark energy. Our supernova spectroscopy program features rapid-response observations using telescopes of a range of apertures, and provides confirmation of the supernova and host-galaxy types as well as precise redshifts. We describe here the target identification and prioritization, data reduction, redshift measurement, and classification of 129 SNe Ia, 16 spectroscopically probable SNe Ia, 7 SNe Ib/c, and 11 SNe II from the first season. We also describe our efforts to measure and remove the substantial host galaxy contamination existing in the majority of our SN spectra.

  12. Surveying the Dynamic Radio Sky with the Long Wavelength Demonstrator Array

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    radio wavelengths, there are well-known classes of transients, such as the Sun and ra- dio pulsars , as well as a long history of observ- ing transients...Rupen et al. 2002). Fur- ther, a series of observations and discoveries over the past decade have emphasized that the radio sky may be quite dynamic...Bailes 2010); intense giant pulses have been detected from the Crab pulsar (Hankins et al. 2003); and several as-yet unidentified radio transients have

  13. HiPS - Hierarchical Progressive Survey Version 1.0

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fernique, Pierre; Allen, Mark; Boch, Thomas; Donaldson, Tom; Durand, Daniel; Ebisawa, Ken; Michel, Laurent; Salgado, Jesus; Stoehr, Felix; Fernique, Pierre

    2017-05-01

    This document presents HiPS, a hierarchical scheme for the description, storage and access of sky survey data. The system is based on hierarchical tiling of sky regions at finer and finer spatial resolution which facilitates a progressive view of a survey, and supports multi-resolution zooming and panning. HiPS uses the HEALPix tessellation of the sky as the basis for the scheme and is implemented as a simple file structure with a direct indexing scheme that leads to practical implementations.

  14. The night sky companion a yearly guide to sky-watching 2008-2009

    CERN Document Server

    Plotner, Tammy

    2007-01-01

    The Night Sky Companion is a comprehensive guide to what can be explored in the heavens on a nightly basis. Designed to appeal to readers at all skill levels, it provides a digest for sky watchers interested in all types of astronomical information.

  15. THE EFFELSBERG-BONN H I SURVEY: DATA REDUCTION

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Winkel, B.; Kalberla, P. M. W.; Kerp, J.; Floeer, L.

    2010-01-01

    Starting in winter 2008/2009 an L-band seven-feed-array receiver is used for a 21 cm line survey performed with the 100 m telescope, the Effelsberg-Bonn H I survey (EBHIS). The EBHIS will cover the whole northern hemisphere for decl. > - 5 0 comprising both the galactic and extragalactic sky out to a distance of about 230 Mpc. Using state-of-the-art FPGA-based digital fast Fourier transform spectrometers, superior in dynamic range and temporal resolution to conventional correlators, allows us to apply sophisticated radio frequency interference (RFI) mitigation schemes. In this paper, the EBHIS data reduction package and first results are presented. The reduction software consists of RFI detection schemes, flux and gain-curve calibration, stray-radiation removal, baseline fitting, and finally the gridding to produce data cubes. The whole software chain is successfully tested using multi-feed data toward many smaller test fields (1-100 deg 2 ) and recently applied for the first time to data of two large sky areas, each covering about 2000 deg 2 . The first large area is toward the northern galactic pole and the second one toward the northern tip of the Magellanic Leading Arm. Here, we demonstrate the data quality of EBHIS Milky Way data and give a first impression on the first data release in 2011.

  16. THE INFRARED PROPERTIES OF SOURCES MATCHED IN THE WISE ALL-SKY AND HERSCHEL ATLAS SURVEYS

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Bond, Nicholas A.; Benford, Dominic J.; Gardner, Jonathan P. [Cosmology Laboratory (Code 665), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States); Amblard, Alexandre [Astrophysics Branch, NASA/Ames Research Center, MS 245-6, Moffett Field, CA 94035 (United States); Fleuren, Simone [School of Mathematical Sciences, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS (United Kingdom); Blain, Andrew W. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH (United Kingdom); Dunne, Loretta; Maddox, Steve J.; Hoyos, Carlos; Bourne, Nathan [School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD (United Kingdom); Smith, Daniel J. B.; Bonfield, David [Centre for Astrophysics Research, Science and Technology Research Institute, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, Herts AL10 9AB (United Kingdom); Baes, Maarten [Sterrenkundig Observatorium, Universiteit Gent, Krijgslaan 281 S9, B-9000 Gent (Belgium); Bridge, Carrie [Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States); Buttiglione, Sara; De Zotti, Gianfranco [INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Vicolo Osservatorio 5, I-35122 Padova (Italy); Cava, Antonio [Departamento de Astrofisica, Facultad de CC. Fisicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, E-28040 Madrid (Spain); Clements, David [Imperial College, Astrophysics Group, Blackett Lab, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2AZ (United Kingdom); Cooray, Asantha [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697 (United States); Dariush, Ali [Physics Department, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, SW7 2AZ (United Kingdom); and others

    2012-05-01

    We describe the infrared properties of sources detected over {approx}36 deg{sup 2} of sky in the GAMA 15 hr equatorial field, using data from both the Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large-Area Survey (H-ATLAS) and Wide-field Infrared Survey (WISE). With 5{sigma} point-source depths of 34 and 0.048 mJy at 250 {mu}m and 3.4 {mu}m, respectively, we are able to identify 50.6% of the H-ATLAS sources in the WISE survey, corresponding to a surface density of {approx}630 deg{sup -2}. Approximately two-thirds of these sources have measured spectroscopic or optical/near-IR photometric redshifts of z < 1. For sources with spectroscopic redshifts at z < 0.3, we find a linear correlation between the infrared luminosity at 3.4 {mu}m and that at 250 {mu}m, with {+-}50% scatter over {approx}1.5 orders of magnitude in luminosity, {approx}10{sup 9}-10{sup 10.5} L{sub Sun }. By contrast, the matched sources without previously measured redshifts (r {approx}> 20.5) have 250-350 {mu}m flux density ratios which suggest either high-redshift galaxies (z {approx}> 1.5) or optically faint low-redshift galaxies with unusually low temperatures (T {approx}< 20). Their small 3.4-250 {mu}m flux ratios favor a high-redshift galaxy population, as only the most actively star-forming galaxies at low redshift (e.g., Arp 220) exhibit comparable flux density ratios. Furthermore, we find a relatively large active galactic nucleus fraction ({approx}30%) in a 12 {mu}m flux-limited subsample of H-ATLAS sources, also consistent with there being a significant population of high-redshift sources in the no-redshift sample.

  17. Sky Subtraction with Fiber-Fed Spectrograph

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rodrigues, Myriam

    2017-09-01

    "Historically, fiber-fed spectrographs had been deemed inadequate for the observation of faint targets, mainly because of the difficulty to achieve high accuracy on the sky subtraction. The impossibility to sample the sky in the immediate vicinity of the target in fiber instruments has led to a commonly held view that a multi-object fibre spectrograph cannot achieve an accurate sky subtraction under 1% contrary to their slit counterpart. The next generation of multi-objects spectrograph at the VLT (MOONS) and the planed MOS for the E-ELT (MOSAIC) are fiber-fed instruments, and are aimed to observed targets fainter than the sky continuum level. In this talk, I will present the state-of-art on sky subtraction strategies and data reduction algorithm specifically developed for fiber-fed spectrographs. I will also present the main results of an observational campaign to better characterise the sky spatial and temporal variations ( in particular the continuum and faint sky lines)."

  18. Adnyamathanha Night Skies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Curnow, Paul

    2009-06-01

    Aboriginal Australians have been viewing the night skies of Australia for some 45,000 years and possibly much longer. During this time they have been able to develop a complex knowledge of the night sky, the terrestrial environment in addition to seasonal changes. However, few of us in contemporary society have an in-depth knowledge of the nightly waltz of stars above.

  19. The Data Reduction Pipeline for the SDSS-IV MaNGA IFU Galaxy Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Law, David R.; Cherinka, Brian; Yan, Renbin; Andrews, Brett H.; Bershady, Matthew A.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Blanc, Guillermo A.; Blanton, Michael R.; Bolton, Adam S.; Brownstein, Joel R.; Bundy, Kevin; Chen, Yanmei; Drory, Niv; D'Souza, Richard; Fu, Hai; Jones, Amy; Kauffmann, Guinevere; MacDonald, Nicholas; Masters, Karen L.; Newman, Jeffrey A.; Parejko, John K.; Sánchez-Gallego, José R.; Sánchez, Sebastian F.; Schlegel, David J.; Thomas, Daniel; Wake, David A.; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Westfall, Kyle B.; Zhang, Kai

    2016-10-01

    Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) is an optical fiber-bundle integral-field unit (IFU) spectroscopic survey that is one of three core programs in the fourth-generation Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV). With a spectral coverage of 3622-10354 Å and an average footprint of ˜500 arcsec2 per IFU the scientific data products derived from MaNGA will permit exploration of the internal structure of a statistically large sample of 10,000 low-redshift galaxies in unprecedented detail. Comprising 174 individually pluggable science and calibration IFUs with a near-constant data stream, MaNGA is expected to obtain ˜100 million raw-frame spectra and ˜10 million reduced galaxy spectra over the six-year lifetime of the survey. In this contribution, we describe the MaNGA Data Reduction Pipeline algorithms and centralized metadata framework that produce sky-subtracted spectrophotometrically calibrated spectra and rectified three-dimensional data cubes that combine individual dithered observations. For the 1390 galaxy data cubes released in Summer 2016 as part of SDSS-IV Data Release 13, we demonstrate that the MaNGA data have nearly Poisson-limited sky subtraction shortward of ˜8500 Å and reach a typical 10σ limiting continuum surface brightness μ = 23.5 AB arcsec-2 in a five-arcsecond-diameter aperture in the g-band. The wavelength calibration of the MaNGA data is accurate to 5 km s-1 rms, with a median spatial resolution of 2.54 arcsec FWHM (1.8 kpc at the median redshift of 0.037) and a median spectral resolution of σ = 72 km s-1.

  20. THE DATA REDUCTION PIPELINE FOR THE SDSS-IV MaNGA IFU GALAXY SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Law, David R.; Cherinka, Brian; Yan, Renbin; Andrews, Brett H.; Bershady, Matthew A.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Blanc, Guillermo A.; Blanton, Michael R.; Bolton, Adam S.; Brownstein, Joel R.; Bundy, Kevin; Chen, Yanmei; Drory, Niv; D’Souza, Richard; Jones, Amy; Kauffmann, Guinevere; Fu, Hai

    2016-01-01

    Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) is an optical fiber-bundle integral-field unit (IFU) spectroscopic survey that is one of three core programs in the fourth-generation Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV). With a spectral coverage of 3622–10354 Å and an average footprint of ∼500 arcsec 2 per IFU the scientific data products derived from MaNGA will permit exploration of the internal structure of a statistically large sample of 10,000 low-redshift galaxies in unprecedented detail. Comprising 174 individually pluggable science and calibration IFUs with a near-constant data stream, MaNGA is expected to obtain ∼100 million raw-frame spectra and ∼10 million reduced galaxy spectra over the six-year lifetime of the survey. In this contribution, we describe the MaNGA Data Reduction Pipeline algorithms and centralized metadata framework that produce sky-subtracted spectrophotometrically calibrated spectra and rectified three-dimensional data cubes that combine individual dithered observations. For the 1390 galaxy data cubes released in Summer 2016 as part of SDSS-IV Data Release 13, we demonstrate that the MaNGA data have nearly Poisson-limited sky subtraction shortward of ∼8500 Å and reach a typical 10 σ limiting continuum surface brightness μ  = 23.5 AB arcsec −2 in a five-arcsecond-diameter aperture in the g -band. The wavelength calibration of the MaNGA data is accurate to 5 km s −1 rms, with a median spatial resolution of 2.54 arcsec FWHM (1.8 kpc at the median redshift of 0.037) and a median spectral resolution of σ  = 72 km s −1 .

  1. Causality and skies: is non-refocussing necessary?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bautista, A; Ibort, A; Lafuente, J

    2015-01-01

    The causal structure of a strongly causal, null pseudo-convex, space-time M is completely characterized in terms of a partial order on its space of skies defined by means of a class of non-negative Legendrian isotopies called sky isotopies. It is also shown that such partial order is determined by the class of future causal celestial curves, that is, curves in the space of light rays which are tangent to skies and such that they determine non-negative sky isotopies. It will also be proved that the space of skies Σ equipped with Low’s (or reconstructive) topology is homeomorphic and diffeomorphic to M under the only additional assumption that M separates skies, that is, that different events determine different skies. The sky-separating property of M is sharp and the previous result provides an answer to the question about the class of space-times whose causal structure, topological and differentiable structure can be reconstructed from their spaces of light rays and skies. These results can be understood as a Malament–Hawking-like theorem stated in terms of the partial order defined on the space of skies. (paper)

  2. Ambitious Survey Spots Stellar Nurseries

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-08-01

    -dimensional geometry of the Magellanic system. Chris Evans from the VMC team adds: "The VISTA images will allow us to extend our studies beyond the inner regions of the Tarantula into the multitude of smaller stellar nurseries nearby, which also harbour a rich population of young and massive stars. Armed with the new, exquisite infrared images, we will be able to probe the cocoons in which massive stars are still forming today, while also looking at their interaction with older stars in the wider region." The wide-field image shows a host of different objects. The bright area above the centre is the Tarantula Nebula itself, with the RMC 136 cluster of massive stars in its core. To the left is the NGC 2100 star cluster. To the right is the tiny remnant of the supernova SN1987A (eso1032). Below the centre are a series of star-forming regions including NGC 2080 - nicknamed the "Ghost Head Nebula" - and the NGC 2083 star cluster. The VISTA Magellanic Cloud Survey is one of six huge near-infrared surveys of the southern sky that will take up most of the first five years of operations of VISTA. Notes [1] VISTA ― the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy ― is the newest telescope at ESO's Paranal Observatory in northern Chile. VISTA is a survey telescope working at near-infrared wavelengths and is the world's largest survey telescope. Its large mirror, wide field of view and very sensitive detectors will reveal a completely new view of the southern sky. The telescope is housed on the peak adjacent to the one hosting ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) and shares the same exceptional observing conditions. VISTA has a main mirror that is 4.1 m across. In photographic terms it can be thought of as a 67-megapixel digital camera with a 13 000 mm f/3.25 mirror lens. More information ESO, the European Southern Observatory, is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive astronomical observatory. It is supported by 14 countries

  3. The S201 far-ultraviolet imaging survey - A summary of results and implications for future surveys

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carruthers, G. R.; Page, T.

    1984-01-01

    The results from all-sky surveys with the S201 FUV camera/spectrograph from the moon during the Apollo 16 mission are summarized with respect to implications for future UV all-sky surveys. The scans provided imagery of 10 fields, each 20 deg in diameter, in the wavelength ranges 1050-1600 A and 1250-1600 A. Best detection thresholds were obtained with 10 and 30 min exposures at 1400 A. Only 7 percent sky coverage was recorded, and then only down to 11th mag. A Mark II camera may be flown on the Shuttle on the Spartan 3 mission, as may be an all-reflector Schmidt telescope. An additional 20 percent of the sky will be mapped and microchannel intensification will increase the diffuse source sensitivity by two orders of magnitude. Several objects sighted with the S201 will be reviewed with the Mark II.

  4. Uncertainties of parameterized surface downward clear-sky shortwave and all-sky longwave radiation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gubler, S.; Gruber, S.; Purves, R. S.

    2012-06-01

    As many environmental models rely on simulating the energy balance at the Earth's surface based on parameterized radiative fluxes, knowledge of the inherent model uncertainties is important. In this study we evaluate one parameterization of clear-sky direct, diffuse and global shortwave downward radiation (SDR) and diverse parameterizations of clear-sky and all-sky longwave downward radiation (LDR). In a first step, SDR is estimated based on measured input variables and estimated atmospheric parameters for hourly time steps during the years 1996 to 2008. Model behaviour is validated using the high quality measurements of six Alpine Surface Radiation Budget (ASRB) stations in Switzerland covering different elevations, and measurements of the Swiss Alpine Climate Radiation Monitoring network (SACRaM) in Payerne. In a next step, twelve clear-sky LDR parameterizations are calibrated using the ASRB measurements. One of the best performing parameterizations is elected to estimate all-sky LDR, where cloud transmissivity is estimated using measured and modeled global SDR during daytime. In a last step, the performance of several interpolation methods is evaluated to determine the cloud transmissivity in the night. We show that clear-sky direct, diffuse and global SDR is adequately represented by the model when using measurements of the atmospheric parameters precipitable water and aerosol content at Payerne. If the atmospheric parameters are estimated and used as a fix value, the relative mean bias deviance (MBD) and the relative root mean squared deviance (RMSD) of the clear-sky global SDR scatter between between -2 and 5%, and 7 and 13% within the six locations. The small errors in clear-sky global SDR can be attributed to compensating effects of modeled direct and diffuse SDR since an overestimation of aerosol content in the atmosphere results in underestimating the direct, but overestimating the diffuse SDR. Calibration of LDR parameterizations to local conditions

  5. Uncertainties of parameterized surface downward clear-sky shortwave and all-sky longwave radiation.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S. Gubler

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available As many environmental models rely on simulating the energy balance at the Earth's surface based on parameterized radiative fluxes, knowledge of the inherent model uncertainties is important. In this study we evaluate one parameterization of clear-sky direct, diffuse and global shortwave downward radiation (SDR and diverse parameterizations of clear-sky and all-sky longwave downward radiation (LDR. In a first step, SDR is estimated based on measured input variables and estimated atmospheric parameters for hourly time steps during the years 1996 to 2008. Model behaviour is validated using the high quality measurements of six Alpine Surface Radiation Budget (ASRB stations in Switzerland covering different elevations, and measurements of the Swiss Alpine Climate Radiation Monitoring network (SACRaM in Payerne. In a next step, twelve clear-sky LDR parameterizations are calibrated using the ASRB measurements. One of the best performing parameterizations is elected to estimate all-sky LDR, where cloud transmissivity is estimated using measured and modeled global SDR during daytime. In a last step, the performance of several interpolation methods is evaluated to determine the cloud transmissivity in the night.

    We show that clear-sky direct, diffuse and global SDR is adequately represented by the model when using measurements of the atmospheric parameters precipitable water and aerosol content at Payerne. If the atmospheric parameters are estimated and used as a fix value, the relative mean bias deviance (MBD and the relative root mean squared deviance (RMSD of the clear-sky global SDR scatter between between −2 and 5%, and 7 and 13% within the six locations. The small errors in clear-sky global SDR can be attributed to compensating effects of modeled direct and diffuse SDR since an overestimation of aerosol content in the atmosphere results in underestimating the direct, but overestimating the diffuse SDR. Calibration of LDR parameterizations

  6. A survey of risk factors for digit injuries among dogs training and competing in agility events.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sellon, Debra C; Martucci, Katherine; Wenz, John R; Marcellin-Little, Denis J; Powers, Michelle; Cullen, Kimberley L

    2018-01-01

    OBJECTIVE To identify potential risk factors for digit injuries in dogs training and competing in agility events. DESIGN Internet-based, retrospective, cross-sectional survey. ANIMALS 1,081 dogs training or competing in agility events. PROCEDURES Data were collected for eligible animals via retrospective surveys distributed electronically to handlers of dogs participating in agility-related activities. Variables evaluated included demographic (handlers) and signalment (dogs) information, physical characteristics of dogs, and injury characteristics. A separate survey of dogs competing in similar agility-related activities but without digit injuries was also administered. Multivariable logistic regression was used to develop a model for assessment of risk factors. RESULTS Data were collected from 207 agility dogs with digit injuries and 874 agility dogs without digit injuries. Factors associated with significantly increased odds of injury included Border Collie breed (OR, 2.3; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.5 to 3.3), long nails (OR, 2.4; 95% CI, 1.3 to 4.5), absence of front dewclaws (OR, 1.9; 95% CI, 1.3 to 2.6), and greater weight-to-height ratio (OR, 1.5; 95% CI, 1.1 to 2.0). Odds of injury decreased with increasing age of the dog (OR, 0.8; 95% CI, 0.76 to 0.86). CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Results should be cautiously interpreted because of potential respondent and recall bias and lack of review of medical records. Nevertheless, results suggested that retaining healthy dewclaws, maintaining lean body mass, and trimming nails short for training and competition may decrease the likelihood of digit injuries. Research to investigate training practices, obstacle construction specifcations, and surface considerations for dogs competing in agility activities is indicated.

  7. Retrieval of Garstang's emission function from all-sky camera images

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kocifaj, Miroslav; Solano Lamphar, Héctor Antonio; Kundracik, František

    2015-10-01

    The emission function from ground-based light sources predetermines the skyglow features to a large extent, while most mathematical models that are used to predict the night sky brightness require the information on this function. The radiant intensity distribution on a clear sky is experimentally determined as a function of zenith angle using the theoretical approach published only recently in MNRAS, 439, 3405-3413. We have made the experiments in two localities in Slovakia and Mexico by means of two digital single lens reflex professional cameras operating with different lenses that limit the system's field-of-view to either 180º or 167º. The purpose of using two cameras was to identify variances between two different apertures. Images are taken at different distances from an artificial light source (a city) with intention to determine the ratio of zenith radiance relative to horizontal irradiance. Subsequently, the information on the fraction of the light radiated directly into the upward hemisphere (F) is extracted. The results show that inexpensive devices can properly identify the upward emissions with adequate reliability as long as the clear sky radiance distribution is dominated by a largest ground-based light source. Highly unstable turbidity conditions can also make the parameter F difficult to find or even impossible to retrieve. The measurements at low elevation angles should be avoided due to a potentially parasitic effect of direct light emissions from luminaires surrounding the measuring site.

  8. 2014 Australasian sky guide

    CERN Document Server

    Lomb, Nick

    2013-01-01

    Compact, easy to use and reliable, this popular guide contains everything you need to know about the southern night sky with monthly astronomy maps, viewing tips and highlights, and details of all the year's exciting celestial events. Wherever you are in Australia or New Zealand, easy calculations allow you to estimate local rise and set times for the Sun, Moon and planets. The 2014 Australasian Sky Guide also provides information on the solar system, updated with the latest findings from space probes. Published annually since 1991, the Sky Guide continues to be a favourite with photographers,

  9. Light pollution: Assessment of sky glow on two dark sky regions of Portugal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lima, Raul Cerveira; Pinto da Cunha, José; Peixinho, Nuno

    2016-01-01

    Artificial light at night (ALAN), producing light pollution (LP), is not a matter restricted to astronomy anymore. Light is part of modern societies and, as a consequence, the natural cycle day-night (bright-dark) has been interrupted in a large segment of the global population. There is increasing evidence that exposure to certain types of light at night and beyond threshold levels may produce hazardous effects to humans and the environment. The concept of "dark skies reserves" is a step forward in order to preserve the night sky and a means of enhancing public awareness of the problem of spread of light pollution worldwide. The aim of this study was to assess the skyglow at two sites in Portugal, the Peneda-Gerês National Park (PNPG) and the region now known as Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve. The latter site was classified as a "Starlight Tourism Destination" by the Starlight Foundation (the first in the world to achieve this classification) following a series of night sky measurements in situ described herein. The measurements at PNPG also contributed to the new set of regulations concerning light pollution at this national park. This study presents the first in situ systematic measurements of night sky brightness, showing that at the two sites the skies are mostly in levels 3 to 4 of the Bortle 9-level scale (with level 1 being the best achievable). The results indicate that the sources of light pollution and skyglow can be attributed predominantly to contamination from nearby urban regions.

  10. Statistical imprints of CMB B -type polarization leakage in an incomplete sky survey analysis

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Santos, Larissa; Wang, Kai; Hu, Yangrui; Fang, Wenjuan; Zhao, Wen, E-mail: larissa@ustc.edu.cn, E-mail: ljwk@mail.ustc.edu.cn, E-mail: hyr1996@mail.ustc.edu.cn, E-mail: wenjuan.fang@gmail.com, E-mail: wzhao7@ustc.edu.cn [CAS Key Laboratory for Researches in Galaxies and Cosmology, Department of Astronomy, University of Science and Technology of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, Anhui 230026 (China)

    2017-01-01

    One of the main goals of modern cosmology is to search for primordial gravitational waves by looking on their imprints in the B -type polarization in the cosmic microwave background radiation. However, this signal is contaminated by various sources, including cosmic weak lensing, foreground radiations, instrumental noises, as well as the E -to- B leakage caused by the partial sky surveys, which should be well understood to avoid the misinterpretation of the observed data. In this paper, we adopt the E / B decomposition method suggested by Smith in 2006, and study the imprints of E -to- B leakage residuals in the constructed B -type polarization maps, B( n-circumflex ), by employing various statistical tools. We find that the effects of E -to- B leakage are negligible for the B-mode power spectrum, as well as the skewness and kurtosis analyses of B-maps. However, if employing the morphological statistical tools, including Minkowski functionals and/or Betti numbers, we find the effect of leakage can be detected at very high confidence level, which shows that in the morphological analysis, the leakage can play a significant role as a contaminant for measuring the primordial B -mode signal and must be taken into account for a correct explanation of the data.

  11. An anthropometric survey using digital photogrammetry: a case study in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barros, Bruno; Soares, Marcelo

    2012-01-01

    This study was carried out in a partnership with the Federal University of Pernambuco and the Faculty of Human Motricity of the Technical University in Lisbon (Portugal). The aim of the study was the measurement of human body segments throughout the digital photogramety, comparing and analysing data into Recife sample and to validate the Digital System as anthropometric survey tool. The result of the analysis has introduced: Data from the sample; Data by age; Data by Sex; Data by ethnicity; Data by region of birth; Difference of data from population individually. Besides to prove the true efficiency of the software.

  12. Pilot pulsar surveys with LOFAR

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Coenen, T.

    2013-01-01

    We are performing two complementary pilot pulsar surveys as part of LOFAR commissioning. The LOFAR Pilot Pulsar Survey (LPPS) is a shallow all-sky survey using an incoherent combination of LOFAR stations. The LOFAR Tied-Array Survey (LOTAS) is a deeper pilot survey using 19 simultaneous tied-array

  13. Characterizing unknown systematics in large scale structure surveys

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Agarwal, Nishant; Ho, Shirley; Myers, Adam D.; Seo, Hee-Jong; Ross, Ashley J.; Bahcall, Neta; Brinkmann, Jonathan; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Muna, Demitri; Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie; Yèche, Christophe; Pâris, Isabelle; Petitjean, Patrick; Schneider, Donald P.; Streblyanska, Alina; Weaver, Benjamin A.

    2014-01-01

    Photometric large scale structure (LSS) surveys probe the largest volumes in the Universe, but are inevitably limited by systematic uncertainties. Imperfect photometric calibration leads to biases in our measurements of the density fields of LSS tracers such as galaxies and quasars, and as a result in cosmological parameter estimation. Earlier studies have proposed using cross-correlations between different redshift slices or cross-correlations between different surveys to reduce the effects of such systematics. In this paper we develop a method to characterize unknown systematics. We demonstrate that while we do not have sufficient information to correct for unknown systematics in the data, we can obtain an estimate of their magnitude. We define a parameter to estimate contamination from unknown systematics using cross-correlations between different redshift slices and propose discarding bins in the angular power spectrum that lie outside a certain contamination tolerance level. We show that this method improves estimates of the bias using simulated data and further apply it to photometric luminous red galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey as a case study

  14. Characterizing unknown systematics in large scale structure surveys

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Agarwal, Nishant; Ho, Shirley [McWilliams Center for Cosmology, Department of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (United States); Myers, Adam D. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071 (United States); Seo, Hee-Jong [Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics, LBL and Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States); Ross, Ashley J. [Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, PO1 3FX (United Kingdom); Bahcall, Neta [Princeton University Observatory, Peyton Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States); Brinkmann, Jonathan [Apache Point Observatory, P.O. Box 59, Sunspot, NM 88349 (United States); Eisenstein, Daniel J. [Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Muna, Demitri [Department of Astronomy, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States); Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie; Yèche, Christophe [CEA, Centre de Saclay, Irfu/SPP, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette (France); Pâris, Isabelle [Departamento de Astronomía, Universidad de Chile, Casilla 36-D, Santiago (Chile); Petitjean, Patrick [Université Paris 6 et CNRS, Institut d' Astrophysique de Paris, 98bis blvd. Arago, 75014 Paris (France); Schneider, Donald P. [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States); Streblyanska, Alina [Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC), E-38200 La Laguna, Tenerife (Spain); Weaver, Benjamin A., E-mail: nishanta@andrew.cmu.edu [Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, New York University, New York, NY 10003 (United States)

    2014-04-01

    Photometric large scale structure (LSS) surveys probe the largest volumes in the Universe, but are inevitably limited by systematic uncertainties. Imperfect photometric calibration leads to biases in our measurements of the density fields of LSS tracers such as galaxies and quasars, and as a result in cosmological parameter estimation. Earlier studies have proposed using cross-correlations between different redshift slices or cross-correlations between different surveys to reduce the effects of such systematics. In this paper we develop a method to characterize unknown systematics. We demonstrate that while we do not have sufficient information to correct for unknown systematics in the data, we can obtain an estimate of their magnitude. We define a parameter to estimate contamination from unknown systematics using cross-correlations between different redshift slices and propose discarding bins in the angular power spectrum that lie outside a certain contamination tolerance level. We show that this method improves estimates of the bias using simulated data and further apply it to photometric luminous red galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey as a case study.

  15. Education for Life in the Sky.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roth, Charles E.

    1981-01-01

    The need to educate people about the sky as both a psychological and physical environment is discussed, including a formal curriculum schema (sky as habitat, sky as transport, influence on culture) and informal curriculum, with such topics as recreation, pollution, mythology, and clouds. (DC)

  16. ULTRALUMINOUS INFRARED GALAXIES IN THE WISE AND SDSS SURVEYS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Su, Shanshan; Kong, Xu; Li, Jinrong; Fang, Guanwen

    2013-01-01

    In this paper, we present a large catalog of 419 Ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs), carefully selected from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mid-infrared data and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey eighth data release, and classify them into three subsamples, based on their emission line properties: H II-like ULIRGs, Seyfert 2 ULIRGs, and composite ULIRGs. We apply our new efficient spectral synthesis technique, which is based on mean field approach to Bayesian independent component analysis (MF-ICA) method, to the galaxy integrated spectra. We also analyze the stellar population properties, including percentage contribution, stellar age, and stellar mass, for these three types of ULIRGs, and explore the evolution among them. We find no significant difference between the properties of stellar populations in ULIRGs with or without active galactic nucleus components. Our results suggest that there is no evolutionary link among these three type ULIRGs

  17. H I Clouds in the Lower Halo. I. The Galactic All-Sky Survey Pilot Region

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ford, H. Alyson; McClure-Griffiths, N. M.; Calabretta, M. R.; Lockman, Felix J.; Pisano, D. J.; Bailin, J.; Kalberla, P. M. W.; Murphy, T.

    2008-01-01

    We have detected over 400 H I clouds in the lower halo of the Galaxy within the pilot region of the Galactic All-Sky Survey (GASS), a region of the fourth quadrant that spans 18 deg. in longitude, 40 deg. in latitude, and is centered on the Galactic equator. These clouds have a median peak brightness temperature of 0.6 K, a median velocity width of 12.8 km s -1 , and angular sizes ∼ -1 . A sample of clouds likely to be near tangent points was analyzed in detail. These clouds have radii on the order of 30 pc and a median H I mass of 630 M sun . The population has a vertical scale height of 400 pc and is concentrated in Galactocentric radius, peaking at R = 3.8 kpc. This confined structure suggests that the clouds are linked to spiral features, while morphological evidence that many clouds are aligned with loops and filaments is suggestive of a relationship with star formation. The clouds might result from supernovae and stellar winds in the form of fragmenting shells and gas that has been pushed into the halo rather than from a galactic fountain.

  18. A Survey for Low-Surface-Brightness Galaxies Around M31. I. The Newly Discovered Dwarf Andromeda V

    OpenAIRE

    Armandroff, Taft E.; Davies, James E.; Jacoby, George H.

    1998-01-01

    We present images and a color-magnitude diagram for And V, a new dwarf spheroidal companion to M31 that was found using a digital filtering technique applied to 1550 square degrees of the second Palomar Sky Survey. And V resolves into stars easily in follow-up 4-m V- and I-band images, from which we deduce a distance of 810 +/- 45 kpc using the tip of the red giant branch method. Within the uncertainties, this distance is identical to the Population II distances for M31 and, combined with a p...

  19. Target Selection for the SDSS-III MARVELS Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paegert, Martin; Stassun, Keivan G.; De Lee, Nathan; Pepper, Joshua; Fleming, Scott W.; Sivarani, Thirupathi; Mahadevan, Suvrath; Mack, Claude E., III; Dhital, Saurav; Hebb, Leslie; Ge, Jian

    2015-06-01

    We present the target selection process for the Multi-object APO Radial Velocity Exoplanets Large-area Survey (MARVELS), which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) III. MARVELS is a medium-resolution (R ∼ 11,000) multi-fiber spectrograph capable of obtaining radial velocities for 60 objects at a time in order to find brown dwarfs and giant planets. The survey was configured to target dwarf stars with effective temperatures approximately between 4500 and 6250 K. For the first 2 years MARVELS relied on low-resolution spectroscopic pre-observations to estimate the effective temperature and log (g) for candidate stars and then selected suitable dwarf stars from this pool. Ultimately, the pre-observation spectra proved ineffective at filtering out giant stars; many giants were incorrectly classified as dwarfs, resulting in a giant contamination rate of ∼30% for the first phase of the MARVELS survey. Thereafter, the survey instead applied a reduced proper motion cut to eliminate giants and used the Infrared Flux Method to estimate effective temperatures, using only extant photmetric and proper-motion catalog information. The target selection method introduced here may be useful for other surveys that need to rely on extant catalog data for selection of specific stellar populations.

  20. The variable sky of deep synoptic surveys

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ridgway, Stephen T.; Matheson, Thomas; Mighell, Kenneth J.; Olsen, Knut A. [National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Tucson, AZ 85725 (United States); Howell, Steve B., E-mail: ridgway@noao.edu [NASA Ames Research Center, P.O. Box 1, M/S 244-30, Moffett Field, CA 94035 (United States)

    2014-11-20

    The discovery of variable and transient sources is an essential product of synoptic surveys. The alert stream will require filtering for personalized criteria—a process managed by a functionality commonly described as a Broker. In order to understand quantitatively the magnitude of the alert generation and Broker tasks, we have undertaken an analysis of the most numerous types of variable targets in the sky—Galactic stars, quasi-stellar objects (QSOs), active galactic nuclei (AGNs), and asteroids. It is found that the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will be capable of discovering ∼10{sup 5} high latitude (|b| > 20°) variable stars per night at the beginning of the survey. (The corresponding number for |b| < 20° is orders of magnitude larger, but subject to caveats concerning extinction and crowding.) However, the number of new discoveries may well drop below 100 per night within less than one year. The same analysis applied to GAIA clarifies the complementarity of the GAIA and LSST surveys. Discovery of AGNs and QSOs are each predicted to begin at ∼3000 per night and decrease by 50 times over four years. Supernovae are expected at ∼1100 per night, and after several survey years will dominate the new variable discovery rate. LSST asteroid discoveries will start at >10{sup 5} per night, and if orbital determination has a 50% success rate per epoch, they will drop below 1000 per night within two years.

  1. The variable sky of deep synoptic surveys

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ridgway, Stephen T.; Matheson, Thomas; Mighell, Kenneth J.; Olsen, Knut A.; Howell, Steve B.

    2014-01-01

    The discovery of variable and transient sources is an essential product of synoptic surveys. The alert stream will require filtering for personalized criteria—a process managed by a functionality commonly described as a Broker. In order to understand quantitatively the magnitude of the alert generation and Broker tasks, we have undertaken an analysis of the most numerous types of variable targets in the sky—Galactic stars, quasi-stellar objects (QSOs), active galactic nuclei (AGNs), and asteroids. It is found that the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will be capable of discovering ∼10 5 high latitude (|b| > 20°) variable stars per night at the beginning of the survey. (The corresponding number for |b| < 20° is orders of magnitude larger, but subject to caveats concerning extinction and crowding.) However, the number of new discoveries may well drop below 100 per night within less than one year. The same analysis applied to GAIA clarifies the complementarity of the GAIA and LSST surveys. Discovery of AGNs and QSOs are each predicted to begin at ∼3000 per night and decrease by 50 times over four years. Supernovae are expected at ∼1100 per night, and after several survey years will dominate the new variable discovery rate. LSST asteroid discoveries will start at >10 5 per night, and if orbital determination has a 50% success rate per epoch, they will drop below 1000 per night within two years.

  2. Can We Build an Open-Science Model to Fund Young, Risky, Blue-Sky Research? First Insights into Funding Geoscientists Via Thinkable.Org

    Science.gov (United States)

    McNeil, B.

    2014-12-01

    Some of the biggest discoveries and advances in geoscience research have come from purely curiosity-driven, blue-sky research. Marine biologist Osamu Shimomura's discovery of Green-Fluorecent Protein (GFP) in the 1960s during his postdoc is just one example, which came about through his interest and pursuit of how certain jellyfish bioluminescence. His discovery would eventually revolutionise medicine, culminating in a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008. Despite the known importance of "blue-sky" research that doesn't have immediate commercial or social applications, it continues to struggle for funding from both government and industry. Success rates for young scientists also continue to decline within the government competitive granting models due to the importance of track records, yet history tells us that young scientists tend to come up with science's greatest discoveries. The digital age however, gives us a new opportunity to create an alternative and sustainable funding model for young, risky, blue-sky science that tends not to be supported by governments and industry anymore. Here I will discuss how new digital platforms empower researchers and organisations to showcase their research using video, allowing wider community engagment and funding that can be used to directly support young, risky, blue-sky research that is so important to the future of science. I will then talk about recent experience with this model from some ocean researchers who used a new platform called thinkable.org to showcase and raise funding via the public.

  3. NASA Science Engagement Through "Sky Art"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bethea, K. L.; Damadeo, K.

    2013-12-01

    Sky Art is a NASA-funded online community where the public can share in the beauty of nature and the science behind it. At the center of Sky Art is a gallery of amateur sky photos submitted by users that are related to NASA Earth science mission research areas. Through their submissions, amateur photographers from around the world are engaged in the process of making observations, or taking pictures, of the sky just like many NASA science instruments. By submitting their pictures and engaging in the online community discussions and interactions with NASA scientists, users make the connection between the beauty of nature and atmospheric science. Sky Art is a gateway for interaction and information aimed at drawing excitement and interest in atmospheric phenomena including sunrises, sunsets, moonrises, moonsets, and aerosols, each of which correlates to a NASA science mission. Educating the public on atmospheric science topics in an informal way is a central goal of Sky Art. NASA science is included in the community through interaction from scientists, NASA images, and blog posts on science concepts derived from the images. Additionally, the website connects educators through the formal education pathway where science concepts are taught through activities and lessons that align with national learning standards. Sky Art was conceived as part of the Education and Public Outreach program of the SAGE III on ISS mission. There are currently three other NASA mission involved with Sky Art: CALIPSO, GPM, and CLARREO. This paper will discuss the process of developing the Sky Art online website, the challenges of growing a community of users, as well as the use of social media and mobile applications in science outreach and education.

  4. Sky cover from MFRSR observations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    E. Kassianov

    2011-07-01

    Full Text Available The diffuse all-sky surface irradiances measured at two nearby wavelengths in the visible spectral range and their modeled clear-sky counterparts are the main components of a new method for estimating the fractional sky cover of different cloud types, including cumuli. The performance of this method is illustrated using 1-min resolution data from a ground-based Multi-Filter Rotating Shadowband Radiometer (MFRSR. The MFRSR data are collected at the US Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM Climate Research Facility (ACRF Southern Great Plains (SGP site during the summer of 2007 and represent 13 days with cumuli. Good agreement is obtained between estimated values of the fractional sky cover and those provided by a well-established independent method based on broadband observations.

  5. BGS·SIGMA - Digital mapping at the British Geological Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, Nichola; Lawrie, Ken

    2017-04-01

    Geological mapping methods have evolved significantly over recent decades and this has included the transition to digital field data capture. BGS has been developing methodologies and technologies for this since 2001, and has now reached a stage where our custom built data capture and map compilation system (BGS·SIGMAv2015) is the default toolkit, within BGS, for bedrock and superficial mapping across the UK and overseas. In addition, BGS scientists also use the system for other data acquisition projects, such as landslide assessment, geodiversity audits and building stone studies. BGS·SIGMAv2015 is an integrated toolkit which enables assembly, interrogation and visualisation of existing geological information; capture of, and integration with, new data and geological interpretations; and delivery of digital products and services. From its early days as a system which used PocketGIS run on Husky Fex21 hardware, to the present day system, developed using ESRI's ArcGIS built on top of a bespoke relational data model, running on ruggedized tablet PCs with integrated GPS units, the system has evolved into a comprehensive system for digital geological data capture, mapping and compilation. The benefits, for BGS, of digital data capture are huge. Not only are the data being gathered in a standardised format, with the use of dictionaries to ensure consistency, but project teams can start building their digital geological map in the field by merging data collected by colleagues, building line-work and polygons, and subsequently identifying areas for further investigation. This digital data can then be easily incorporated into corporate databases and used in 3D modelling and visualisation software once back in the office. BGS is now at a stage where the free external release of our digital mapping system is in demand across the world, with 3000 licences being issued to date, and is successfully being used by other geological surveys, universities and exploration companies

  6. Mass Functions of the Active Black Holes in Distant Quasars from the Large Bright Quasar Survey, the Bright Quasar Survey, and the Color-Selected Sample of the SDSS Fall Equatorial Stripe

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Vestergaard, Marianne; Osmer, Patrick S.

    2009-01-01

    We present mass functions of distant actively accreting supermassive black holes residing in luminous quasars discovered in the Large Bright Quasar Survey, the Bright Quasar Survey, and the Fall Equatorial Stripe of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The quasars cover a wide range of redshifts (0...... functions at similar redshifts based on the SDSS Data Release 3 quasar catalog presented by Vestergaard et al. We see clear evidence of cosmic downsizing in the comoving space density distribution of active black holes in the LBQS sample alone. In forthcoming papers, further analysis, comparison......, and discussion of these mass functions will be made with other existing black hole mass functions, notably that based on the SDSS DR3 quasar catalog. We present the relationships used to estimate the black hole mass based on the MgII emission line; the relations are calibrated to the Hbeta and CIV relations...

  7. CONSTRUCTION OF A CALIBRATED PROBABILISTIC CLASSIFICATION CATALOG: APPLICATION TO 50k VARIABLE SOURCES IN THE ALL-SKY AUTOMATED SURVEY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Richards, Joseph W.; Starr, Dan L.; Miller, Adam A.; Bloom, Joshua S.; Brink, Henrik; Crellin-Quick, Arien; Butler, Nathaniel R.

    2012-01-01

    With growing data volumes from synoptic surveys, astronomers necessarily must become more abstracted from the discovery and introspection processes. Given the scarcity of follow-up resources, there is a particularly sharp onus on the frameworks that replace these human roles to provide accurate and well-calibrated probabilistic classification catalogs. Such catalogs inform the subsequent follow-up, allowing consumers to optimize the selection of specific sources for further study and permitting rigorous treatment of classification purities and efficiencies for population studies. Here, we describe a process to produce a probabilistic classification catalog of variability with machine learning from a multi-epoch photometric survey. In addition to producing accurate classifications, we show how to estimate calibrated class probabilities and motivate the importance of probability calibration. We also introduce a methodology for feature-based anomaly detection, which allows discovery of objects in the survey that do not fit within the predefined class taxonomy. Finally, we apply these methods to sources observed by the All-Sky Automated Survey (ASAS), and release the Machine-learned ASAS Classification Catalog (MACC), a 28 class probabilistic classification catalog of 50,124 ASAS sources in the ASAS Catalog of Variable Stars. We estimate that MACC achieves a sub-20% classification error rate and demonstrate that the class posterior probabilities are reasonably calibrated. MACC classifications compare favorably to the classifications of several previous domain-specific ASAS papers and to the ASAS Catalog of Variable Stars, which had classified only 24% of those sources into one of 12 science classes.

  8. CONSTRUCTION OF A CALIBRATED PROBABILISTIC CLASSIFICATION CATALOG: APPLICATION TO 50k VARIABLE SOURCES IN THE ALL-SKY AUTOMATED SURVEY

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Richards, Joseph W.; Starr, Dan L.; Miller, Adam A.; Bloom, Joshua S.; Brink, Henrik; Crellin-Quick, Arien [Astronomy Department, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3411 (United States); Butler, Nathaniel R., E-mail: jwrichar@stat.berkeley.edu [School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287 (United States)

    2012-12-15

    With growing data volumes from synoptic surveys, astronomers necessarily must become more abstracted from the discovery and introspection processes. Given the scarcity of follow-up resources, there is a particularly sharp onus on the frameworks that replace these human roles to provide accurate and well-calibrated probabilistic classification catalogs. Such catalogs inform the subsequent follow-up, allowing consumers to optimize the selection of specific sources for further study and permitting rigorous treatment of classification purities and efficiencies for population studies. Here, we describe a process to produce a probabilistic classification catalog of variability with machine learning from a multi-epoch photometric survey. In addition to producing accurate classifications, we show how to estimate calibrated class probabilities and motivate the importance of probability calibration. We also introduce a methodology for feature-based anomaly detection, which allows discovery of objects in the survey that do not fit within the predefined class taxonomy. Finally, we apply these methods to sources observed by the All-Sky Automated Survey (ASAS), and release the Machine-learned ASAS Classification Catalog (MACC), a 28 class probabilistic classification catalog of 50,124 ASAS sources in the ASAS Catalog of Variable Stars. We estimate that MACC achieves a sub-20% classification error rate and demonstrate that the class posterior probabilities are reasonably calibrated. MACC classifications compare favorably to the classifications of several previous domain-specific ASAS papers and to the ASAS Catalog of Variable Stars, which had classified only 24% of those sources into one of 12 science classes.

  9. CLUSTER LENSING PROFILES DERIVED FROM A REDSHIFT ENHANCEMENT OF MAGNIFIED BOSS-SURVEY GALAXIES

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Coupon, Jean; Umetsu, Keiichi; Broadhurst, Tom

    2013-01-01

    We report the first detection of a redshift-depth enhancement of background galaxies magnified by foreground clusters. Using 300,000 BOSS survey galaxies with accurate spectroscopic redshifts, we measure their mean redshift depth behind four large samples of optically selected clusters from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) surveys, totaling 5000-15,000 clusters. A clear trend of increasing mean redshift toward the cluster centers is found, averaged over each of the four cluster samples. In addition, we find similar but noisier behavior for an independent X-ray sample of 158 clusters lying in the foreground of the current BOSS sky area. By adopting the mass-richness relationships appropriate for each survey, we compare our results with theoretical predictions for each of the four SDSS cluster catalogs. The radial form of this redshift enhancement is well fitted by a richness-to-mass weighted composite Navarro-Frenk-White profile with an effective mass ranging between M 200 ∼ 1.4-1.8 × 10 14 M ☉ for the optically detected cluster samples, and M 200 ∼ 5.0 × 10 14 M ☉ for the X-ray sample. This lensing detection helps to establish the credibility of these SDSS cluster surveys, and provides a normalization for their respective mass-richness relations. In the context of the upcoming bigBOSS, Subaru Prime Focus Spectrograph, and EUCLID-NISP spectroscopic surveys, this method represents an independent means of deriving the masses of cluster samples for examining the cosmological evolution, and provides a relatively clean consistency check of weak-lensing measurements, free from the systematic limitations of shear calibration

  10. DURAND NEIGHBOURHOOD HERITAGE INVENTORY: TOWARD A DIGITAL CITYWIDE SURVEY APPROACH TO HERITAGE PLANNING IN HAMILTON

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    V. Angel

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available In the face of changing economies and patterns of development, the definition of heritage is diversifying, and the role of inventories in local heritage planning is coming to the fore. The Durand neighbourhood is a layered and complex area located in inner-city Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and the second subject area in a set of pilot inventory studies to develop a new city-wide inventory strategy for the City of Hamilton,. This paper presents an innovative digital workflow developed to undertake the Durand Built Heritage Inventory project. An online database was developed to be at the centre of all processes, including digital documentation, record management, analysis and variable outputs. Digital tools were employed for survey work in the field and analytical work in the office, resulting in a GIS-based dataset that can be integrated into Hamilton’s larger municipal planning system. Together with digital mapping and digitized historical resources, the Durand database has been leveraged to produce both digital and static outputs to shape recommendations for the protection of Hamilton’s heritage resources.

  11. Durand Neighbourhood Heritage Inventory: Toward a Digital Citywide Survey Approach to Heritage Planning in Hamilton

    Science.gov (United States)

    Angel, V.; Garvey, A.; Sydor, M.

    2017-08-01

    In the face of changing economies and patterns of development, the definition of heritage is diversifying, and the role of inventories in local heritage planning is coming to the fore. The Durand neighbourhood is a layered and complex area located in inner-city Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and the second subject area in a set of pilot inventory studies to develop a new city-wide inventory strategy for the City of Hamilton,. This paper presents an innovative digital workflow developed to undertake the Durand Built Heritage Inventory project. An online database was developed to be at the centre of all processes, including digital documentation, record management, analysis and variable outputs. Digital tools were employed for survey work in the field and analytical work in the office, resulting in a GIS-based dataset that can be integrated into Hamilton's larger municipal planning system. Together with digital mapping and digitized historical resources, the Durand database has been leveraged to produce both digital and static outputs to shape recommendations for the protection of Hamilton's heritage resources.

  12. Fireballs in the Sky

    Science.gov (United States)

    Day, B. H.; Bland, P.

    2016-12-01

    Fireballs in the Sky is an innovative Australian citizen science program that connects the public with the research of the Desert Fireball Network (DFN). This research aims to understand the early workings of the solar system, and Fireballs in the Sky invites people around the world to learn about this science, contributing fireball sightings via a user-friendly app. To date, more than 23,000 people have downloaded the app world-wide and participated in planetary science. The Fireballs in the Sky app allows users to get involved with the Desert Fireball Network research, supplementing DFN observations and providing enhanced coverage by reporting their own meteor sightings to DFN scientists. Fireballs in the Sky reports are used to track the trajectories of meteors - from their orbit in space to where they might have landed on Earth. Led by Phil Bland at Curtin University in Australia, the Desert Fireball Network (DFN) uses automated observatories across Australia to triangulate trajectories of meteorites entering the atmosphere, determine pre-entry orbits, and pinpoint their fall positions. Each observatory is an autonomous intelligent imaging system, taking 1000×36Megapixel all-sky images throughout the night, using neural network algorithms to recognize events. They are capable of operating for 12 months in a harsh environment, and store all imagery collected. We developed a completely automated software pipeline for data reduction, and built a supercomputer database for storage, allowing us to process our entire archive. The DFN currently stands at 50 stations distributed across the Australian continent, covering an area of 2.5 million km^2. Working with DFN's partners at NASA's Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute, the team is expanding the network beyond Australia to locations around the world. Fireballs in the Sky allows a growing public base to learn about and participate in this exciting research.

  13. THE DATA REDUCTION PIPELINE FOR THE SDSS-IV MaNGA IFU GALAXY SURVEY

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Law, David R. [Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Cherinka, Brian [Center for Astrophysical Sciences, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Yan, Renbin [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kentucky, 505 Rose Street, Lexington, KY 40506-0055 (United States); Andrews, Brett H. [Department of Physics and Astronomy and PITT PACC, University of Pittsburgh, 3941 O’Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 (United States); Bershady, Matthew A. [Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 475 N. Charter Street, Madison, WI 53706 (United States); Bizyaev, Dmitry [Apache Point Observatory, P.O. Box 59, Sunspot, NM 88349 (United States); Blanc, Guillermo A. [Departamento de Astronomía, Universidad de Chile, Camino del Observatorio 1515, Las Condes, Santiago (Chile); Blanton, Michael R. [Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, Department of Physics, New York University, 4 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003 (United States); Bolton, Adam S.; Brownstein, Joel R. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, 115 S 1400 E, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States); Bundy, Kevin [Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the universe, Todai Institutes for Advanced Study, the University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, 277-8583 (Kavli IPMU, WPI) (Japan); Chen, Yanmei [School of Astronomy and Space Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093 (China); Drory, Niv [McDonald Observatory, Department of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, Austin, TX 78712-0259 (United States); D’Souza, Richard; Jones, Amy; Kauffmann, Guinevere [Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 1, D-85748 Garching (Germany); Fu, Hai, E-mail: dlaw@stsci.edu [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242 (United States); and others

    2016-10-01

    Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) is an optical fiber-bundle integral-field unit (IFU) spectroscopic survey that is one of three core programs in the fourth-generation Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV). With a spectral coverage of 3622–10354 Å and an average footprint of ∼500 arcsec{sup 2} per IFU the scientific data products derived from MaNGA will permit exploration of the internal structure of a statistically large sample of 10,000 low-redshift galaxies in unprecedented detail. Comprising 174 individually pluggable science and calibration IFUs with a near-constant data stream, MaNGA is expected to obtain ∼100 million raw-frame spectra and ∼10 million reduced galaxy spectra over the six-year lifetime of the survey. In this contribution, we describe the MaNGA Data Reduction Pipeline algorithms and centralized metadata framework that produce sky-subtracted spectrophotometrically calibrated spectra and rectified three-dimensional data cubes that combine individual dithered observations. For the 1390 galaxy data cubes released in Summer 2016 as part of SDSS-IV Data Release 13, we demonstrate that the MaNGA data have nearly Poisson-limited sky subtraction shortward of ∼8500 Å and reach a typical 10 σ limiting continuum surface brightness μ  = 23.5 AB arcsec{sup −2} in a five-arcsecond-diameter aperture in the g -band. The wavelength calibration of the MaNGA data is accurate to 5 km s{sup −1} rms, with a median spatial resolution of 2.54 arcsec FWHM (1.8 kpc at the median redshift of 0.037) and a median spectral resolution of σ  = 72 km s{sup −1}.

  14. Self-rated health assessed by web versus mail modes in a mixed mode survey: the digital divide effect and the genuine survey mode effect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shim, Jae-Mahn; Shin, Eunjung; Johnson, Timothy P

    2013-09-01

    To investigate differences in self-rated health (SRH) between web and mail questionnaires in a mixed mode survey and to provide a model that explains those differences. A total of 15,200 mail respondents and 17,829 web respondents from the 2008 US National Health Survey conducted by the Gallup Panel. Respondents were recruited using random digit dialing and assigned to one of the two survey modes (web or mail). Respondents with household Internet connection and frequent Internet usage were invited to complete the survey through the web mode. Respondents who had no Internet connection or who used the Internet infrequently were invited to the mail mode. Thus, respondents with better Internet access used the web mode. Respondents completed a questionnaire that asked about SRH status, objective health conditions, health behaviors, and other socioeconomic variables. Statistical associations were analyzed with ordered Logit and negative binomial models. Web respondents reported better SRH than mail respondents. This difference is in part reflective of variability in objective health status between these two groups, and in part attributable to the effects of survey mode. These results maintained with age controlled. The alignment between survey mode selection, Internet access, and health disparities, as well as genuine survey mode characteristics, leads to web-mail differences in SRH. Unless the digital divide and its influences on survey mode selection are resolved and differential genuine mode effects are fully comprehended, we recommend that both modes be simultaneously used on a complementary basis.

  15. Surveys of radio sources at 5 GHz

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pauliny-Toth, I.I.K.

    1977-01-01

    A number of surveys have been carried out at a frequency of 5 GHz at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and at the Max-Planck-Institut fuer Radioastronomy (MPIFR) with the aim of determining the number-flux density relation for the sources detected and also of obtaining their radio spectra and optical identifications. The surveys fall into two categories: first, the strong source (S) surveys which are intended in due course to cover the whole northern sky and to be complete above a flux density of about 0.6 Jy; second, surveys of limited areas of sky down to lower levels of the flux density. (Auth.)

  16. Using VizieR to Measure Neglected Double Stars

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harshaw, Richard

    2013-01-01

    The VizierR service of the Centres de Donnes Astronomiques de Strasbourg (France) offers amateur astronomers a treasure trove of resources, including access to the most current version of the Washington Double Star Catalog (WDS) and links to tens of thousands of digitized sky survey plates. These plates allow the amateur to make accurate measurements of position angle and separation for many neglected pairs that fall within reasonable tolerances for the use of Aladin, the digitized sky survey add-in called by VizieR. This paper presents 221 measurements of 102 neglected pairs from the WDS.

  17. Night sky a falcon field guide

    CERN Document Server

    Nigro, Nicholas

    2012-01-01

    Night Sky: A Falcon Field Guide covers both summer and winter constellations, planets, and stars found in the northern hemisphere. Conveniently sized to fit in a pocket and featuring detailed photographs, this informative guide makes it easy to identify objects in the night sky even from one's own backyard. From information on optimal weather conditions, preferred viewing locations, and how to use key tools of the trade, this handbook will help you adeptly navigate to and fro the vast and dynamic nighttime skies, and you'll fast recognize that the night sky's the limit.

  18. A Gemini snapshot survey for double degenerates

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kilic, Mukremin; Brown, Warren R.; Gianninas, A.; Curd, Brandon; Bell, Keaton J.; Allende Prieto, Carlos

    2017-11-01

    We present the results from a Gemini snapshot radial-velocity survey of 44 low-mass white-dwarf candidates selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) spectroscopy. To find sub-hour orbital period binary systems, our time-series spectroscopy had cadences of 2-8 min over a period of 20-30 min. Through follow-up observations at Gemini and the MMT, we identify four double-degenerate binary systems with periods ranging from 53 min to 7 h. The shortest period system, SDSS J123549.88+154319.3, was recently identified as a sub-hour period detached binary by Breedt and collaborators. Here, we refine the orbital and physical parameters of this system. High-speed and time-domain survey photometry observations do not reveal eclipses or other photometric effects in any of our targets. We compare the period distribution of these four systems with the orbital period distribution of known double white dwarfs; the median period decreases from 0.64 to 0.24 d for M = 0.3-0.5 M⊙ to M < 0.3 M⊙ white dwarfs. However, we do not find a statistically significant correlation between the orbital period and white-dwarf mass.

  19. Promoting Dark Sky Protection in Chile: the Gabriel Mistral IDA Dark Sky Sanctuary and Other AURA Initiatives

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, R. Chris; Smith, Malcolm; Pompea, Stephen; Sanhueza, Pedro; AURA-Chile EPO Team

    2018-01-01

    For over 20 years, AURA has been leading efforts promoting the protection of dark skies in northern Chile. Efforts began in the early 1990s at AURA's Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), working in collaboration with other international observatories in Chile including Las Campanas Observatory (LCO) and the European Southern Observatory (ESO). CTIO also partnered with local communities, for example supporting Vicuña's effort to establish the first municipal observatory in Chile. Today we have developed a multifaceted effort of dark sky protection, including proactive government relations at national and local levels, a strong educational and public outreach program, and a program of highlighting international recognition of the dark skies through the IDA Dark Sky Places program. Work on international recognition has included the declaration of the Gabriel Mistral IDA Dark Sky Sanctuary, the first such IDA sanctuary in the world.

  20. A Chinese sky trust?

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Brenner, Mark [Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts, Amherst (United States)]. E-mail: brenner@econs.umass.edu; Riddle, Matthew [Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst (United States)]. E-mail: mriddle@econs.umass.edu; Boyce, James K. [Political Economy Research Institute and Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst (United States)]. E-mail: boyce@econs.umass.edu

    2007-03-15

    The introduction of carbon charges on the use of fossil fuels in China would have a progressive impact on income distribution. This outcome, which contrasts to the regressive distributional impact found in most studies of carbon charges in industrialized countries, is driven primarily by differences between urban and rural expenditure patterns. If carbon revenues were recycled on an equal per capita basis via a 'sky trust,' the progressive impact would be further enhanced: low-income (mainly rural) households would receive more in sky-trust dividends than they pay in carbon charges, and high-income (mainly urban) households would pay more than they receive in dividends. Thus a Chinese sky trust would contribute to both lower fossil fuel consumption and greater income equality.

  1. A Chinese sky trust?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Brenner, Mark; Riddle, Matthew; Boyce, James K.

    2007-01-01

    The introduction of carbon charges on the use of fossil fuels in China would have a progressive impact on income distribution. This outcome, which contrasts to the regressive distributional impact found in most studies of carbon charges in industrialized countries, is driven primarily by differences between urban and rural expenditure patterns. If carbon revenues were recycled on an equal per capita basis via a 'sky trust,' the progressive impact would be further enhanced: low-income (mainly rural) households would receive more in sky-trust dividends than they pay in carbon charges, and high-income (mainly urban) households would pay more than they receive in dividends. Thus a Chinese sky trust would contribute to both lower fossil fuel consumption and greater income equality

  2. New Variable Stars in the KP2001 Catalog from the Data Base of the Northern Sky Variability Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Petrosyan, G. V.

    2018-03-01

    The optical variability of stars in the KP2001 catalog is studied. Monitor data from the automatic Northern Sky Variability Survey (NSVS) are used for this purpose. Of the 257 objects that were studied, 5 are Mira Ceti variables (mirids), 33 are semiregular (SR), and 108 are irregular variables (Ir). The light curves of the other objects show no noticeable signs of variability. For the first time, 11 stars are assigned to the semiregular and 105 stars to the irregular variables. Of the irregular variables, the light curves of two, No. 8 and No. 194, are distinct and are similar to the curves for eclipsing variables. The periods and amplitudes of the mirids and semiregular variables are determined using the "VStar" program package from AAVSO. The absolute stellar magnitudes M K and distances are also estimated, along with the mass loss for the mirids. The behavior of stars from KP2001 in 2MASS and WISE color diagrams is examined.

  3. Digital pathology access and usage in the UK: results from a national survey on behalf of the National Cancer Research Institute’s CM-Path initiative

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williams, Bethany Jill; Lee, Jessica; Oien, Karin A; Treanor, Darren

    2018-01-01

    Aim To canvass the UK pathology community to ascertain current levels of digital pathology usage in clinical and academic histopathology departments, and prevalent attitudes to digital pathology. Methods A 15-item survey was circulated to National Health Service and academic pathology departments across the UK using the SurveyMonkey online survey tool. Responses were sought at a departmental or institutional level. Where possible, departmental heads were approached and asked to complete the survey, or forward it to the most relevant individual in their department. Data were collected over a 6-month period from February to July 2017. Results 41 institutes from across the UK responded to the survey. 60% (23/39) of institutions had access to a digital pathology scanner, and 60% (24/40) had access to a digital pathology workstation. The most popular applications of digital pathology in current use were undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, research and quality assurance. Investigating the deployment of digital pathology in their department was identified as a high or highest priority by 58.5% of institutions, with improvements in efficiency, turnaround times, reporting times and collaboration in their institution anticipated by the respondents. Access to funding for initial hardware, software and staff outlay, pathologist training and guidance from the Royal College of Pathologists were identified as factors that could enable respondent institutions to increase their digital pathology usage. Conclusion Interest in digital pathology adoption in the UK is high, with usage likely to increase in the coming years. In light of this, pathologists are seeking more guidance on safe usage. PMID:29317516

  4. Exploring the Digital Universe with Europe's Astrophysical Virtual Observatory

    Science.gov (United States)

    2001-12-01

    N° 73-2001 - Paris, 5 December 2001 The aim of AVO is to give astronomers instant access to the vast databanks now being built up by the world's observatories and forming what is in effect a "digital sky". Using AVO astronomers will be able, for example, to retrieve the elusive traces of the passage of an asteroid as it passes the Earth and so predict its future path and perhaps warn of a possible impact. When a giant star comes to the end of its life in a cataclysmic explosion called a supernova, they will be able to access the digital sky and pinpoint the star shortly before it exploded, adding invaluable data to the study of the evolution of stars. Modern observatories observe the sky continuously and data accumulates remorselessly in the digital archives. The growth rate is impressive and many hundreds of terabytes of data -corresponding to many thousands of billions of pixels - are already available to scientists. The real sky is being digitally reconstructed in the databanks. The volume and complexity of data and information available to astronomers are overwhelming. Hence the problem of how astronomers can possibly manage, distribute and analyse this great wealth of data. The Astrophysical Virtual Observatory will enable them to meet the challenge and "put the Universe online". AVO is a three-year project, funded by the European Commission under its Research and Technological Development (RTD) scheme, to design and implement a virtual observatory for the European astronomical community. The Commission has awarded a contract valued at EUR 4m for the project, starting on 15 November. AVO will provide software tools to enable astronomers to access the multi-wavelength data archives over the Internet and so give them the capability to resolve fundamental questions about the Universe by probing the digital sky. Equivalent searches of the "real" sky would, in comparison, both be prohibitively costly and take far too long. Towards a Global Virtual Observatory The

  5. Exploratory survey of image quality on CR digital mammography imaging systems in Mexico

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gaona, E.; Rivera, T.; Arreola, M.; Franco, J.; Molina, N.; Alvarez, B.; Azorín, C.G.; Casian, G.

    2014-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to assess the current status of image quality and dose in computed radiographic digital mammography (CRDM) systems. Studies included CRDM systems of various models and manufacturers which dose and image quality comparisons were performed. Due to the recent rise in the use of digital radiographic systems in Mexico, CRDM systems are rapidly replacing conventional film-screen systems without any regard to quality control or image quality standards. Study was conducted in 65 mammography facilities which use CRDM systems in the Mexico City and surrounding States. The systems were tested as used clinically. This means that the dose and beam qualities were selected using the automatic beam selection and photo-timed features. All systems surveyed generate laser film hardcopies for the radiologist to read on a scope or mammographic high luminance light box. It was found that 51 of CRDM systems presented a variety of image artefacts and non-uniformities arising from inadequate acquisition and processing, as well as from the laser printer itself. Undisciplined alteration of image processing settings by the technologist was found to be a serious prevalent problem in 42 facilities. Only four of them showed an image QC program which is periodically monitored by a medical physicist. The Average Glandular Dose (AGD) in the surveyed systems was estimated to have a mean value of 2.4 mGy. To improve image quality in mammography and make more efficient screening mammographic in early detection of breast cancer is required new legislation. - Highlights: • Radiation dose in CR digital mammography (CRDM) systems was determined. • Image quality related with dose in CR digital mammography (CRDM) systems was analysed. • Image processing artefacts were observed and correlated with dose. • Measured entrance dose by TL phosphors could be good parameter for radiation protection optimization in patient

  6. SkyNet: Modular nuclear reaction network library

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lippuner, Jonas; Roberts, Luke F.

    2017-10-01

    The general-purpose nuclear reaction network SkyNet evolves the abundances of nuclear species under the influence of nuclear reactions. SkyNet can be used to compute the nucleosynthesis evolution in all astrophysical scenarios where nucleosynthesis occurs. Any list of isotopes can be evolved and SkyNet supports various different types of nuclear reactions. SkyNet is modular, permitting new or existing physics, such as nuclear reactions or equations of state, to be easily added or modified.

  7. THE ALLEN TELESCOPE ARRAY Pi GHz SKY SURVEY. III. THE ELAIS-N1, COMA, AND LOCKMAN HOLE FIELDS

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Croft, Steve; Bower, Geoffrey C.; Whysong, David [Astronomy Department, University of California, Berkeley, B-20 Hearst Field Annex 3411, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States)

    2013-01-10

    We present results from a total of 459 repeated 3.1 GHz radio continuum observations (of which 379 were used in a search for transient sources) of the ELAIS-N1, Coma, Lockman Hole, and NOAO Deep Wide Field Survey fields as part of the Pi GHz Sky Survey. The observations were taken approximately once per day between 2009 May and 2011 April. Each image covers 11.8 square degrees and has 100'' FWHM resolution. Deep images for each of the four fields have rms noise between 180 and 310 {mu}Jy, and the corresponding catalogs contain {approx}200 sources in each field. Typically 40-50 of these sources are detected in each single-epoch image. This represents one of the shortest cadence, largest area, multi-epoch surveys undertaken at these frequencies. We compare the catalogs generated from the combined images to those from individual epochs, and from monthly averages, as well as to legacy surveys. We undertake a search for transients, with particular emphasis on excluding false positive sources. We find no confirmed transients, defined here as sources that can be shown to have varied by at least a factor of 10. However, we find one source that brightened in a single-epoch image to at least six times the upper limit from the corresponding deep image. We also find a source associated with a z = 0.6 quasar which appears to have brightened by a factor {approx}3 in one of our deep images, when compared to catalogs from legacy surveys. We place new upper limits on the number of transients brighter than 10 mJy: fewer than 0.08 transients deg{sup -2} with characteristic timescales of months to years; fewer than 0.02 deg{sup -2} with timescales of months; and fewer than 0.009 deg{sup -2} with timescales of days. We also plot upper limits as a function of flux density for transients on the same timescales.

  8. Design of a multiband near-infrared sky brightness monitor using an InSb detector.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dong, Shu-Cheng; Wang, Jian; Tang, Qi-Jie; Jiang, Feng-Xin; Chen, Jin-Ting; Zhang, Yi-Hao; Wang, Zhi-Yue; Chen, Jie; Zhang, Hong-Fei; Jiang, Hai-Jiao; Zhu, Qing-Feng; Jiang, Peng; Ji, Tuo

    2018-02-01

    Infrared sky background level is an important parameter of infrared astronomy observations from the ground, particularly for a candidate site of an infrared capable observatory since low background level is required for such a site. The Chinese astronomical community is looking for a suitable site for a future 12 m telescope, which is designed for working in both optical and infrared wavelengths. However, none of the proposed sites has been tested for infrared observations. Nevertheless, infrared sky background measurements are also important during the design of infrared observing instruments. Based on the requirement, in order to supplement the current site survey data and guide the design of future infrared instruments, a multiband near-infrared sky brightness monitor (MNISBM) based on an InSb sensor is designed in this paper. The MNISBM consists of an optical system, mechanical structure and control system, detector and cooler, high gain readout electronics, and operational software. It is completed and tested in the laboratory. The results show that the sensitivity of the MNISBM meets the requirements of the measurement of near-infrared sky background level of several well-known astronomical infrared observing sites.

  9. Design of a multiband near-infrared sky brightness monitor using an InSb detector

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dong, Shu-cheng; Wang, Jian; Tang, Qi-jie; Jiang, Feng-xin; Chen, Jin-ting; Zhang, Yi-hao; Wang, Zhi-yue; Chen, Jie; Zhang, Hong-fei; Jiang, Hai-jiao; Zhu, Qing-feng; Jiang, Peng; Ji, Tuo

    2018-02-01

    Infrared sky background level is an important parameter of infrared astronomy observations from the ground, particularly for a candidate site of an infrared capable observatory since low background level is required for such a site. The Chinese astronomical community is looking for a suitable site for a future 12 m telescope, which is designed for working in both optical and infrared wavelengths. However, none of the proposed sites has been tested for infrared observations. Nevertheless, infrared sky background measurements are also important during the design of infrared observing instruments. Based on the requirement, in order to supplement the current site survey data and guide the design of future infrared instruments, a multiband near-infrared sky brightness monitor (MNISBM) based on an InSb sensor is designed in this paper. The MNISBM consists of an optical system, mechanical structure and control system, detector and cooler, high gain readout electronics, and operational software. It is completed and tested in the laboratory. The results show that the sensitivity of the MNISBM meets the requirements of the measurement of near-infrared sky background level of several well-known astronomical infrared observing sites.

  10. Digital pathology access and usage in the UK: results from a national survey on behalf of the National Cancer Research Institute's CM-Path initiative.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williams, Bethany Jill; Lee, Jessica; Oien, Karin A; Treanor, Darren

    2018-05-01

    To canvass the UK pathology community to ascertain current levels of digital pathology usage in clinical and academic histopathology departments, and prevalent attitudes to digital pathology. A 15-item survey was circulated to National Health Service and academic pathology departments across the UK using the SurveyMonkey online survey tool. Responses were sought at a departmental or institutional level. Where possible, departmental heads were approached and asked to complete the survey, or forward it to the most relevant individual in their department. Data were collected over a 6-month period from February to July 2017. 41 institutes from across the UK responded to the survey. 60% (23/39) of institutions had access to a digital pathology scanner, and 60% (24/40) had access to a digital pathology workstation. The most popular applications of digital pathology in current use were undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, research and quality assurance. Investigating the deployment of digital pathology in their department was identified as a high or highest priority by 58.5% of institutions, with improvements in efficiency, turnaround times, reporting times and collaboration in their institution anticipated by the respondents. Access to funding for initial hardware, software and staff outlay, pathologist training and guidance from the Royal College of Pathologists were identified as factors that could enable respondent institutions to increase their digital pathology usage. Interest in digital pathology adoption in the UK is high, with usage likely to increase in the coming years. In light of this, pathologists are seeking more guidance on safe usage. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

  11. The role of the eROSITA all-sky survey in searches for sterile neutrino dark matter

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zandanel, Fabio; Weniger, Christoph; Ando, Shin' ichiro, E-mail: f.zandanel@uva.nl, E-mail: c.weniger@uva.nl, E-mail: s.ando@uva.nl [GRAPPA Institute, University of Amsterdam, 1098 XH Amsterdam (Netherlands)

    2015-09-01

    We investigate for the first time the potential of angular auto- and cross-correlation power spectra in identifying sterile neutrino dark matter in the cosmic X-ray background. We take as reference the performance of the soon-to-be-launched eROSITA satellite. The main astrophysical background sources against sterile neutrino decays are active galactic nuclei, galaxies powered by X-ray binaries, and clusters of galaxies. While sterile neutrino decays are always subdominant in the auto-correlation power spectra, they can be efficiently enhanced when cross-correlating with tracers of the dark matter distribution such as galaxies in the 2MASS catalogues. We show that the planned four-years eROSITA all-sky survey will provide a large enough photon statistics to potentially yield very stringent constraints on the decay lifetime, enabling to firmly test the recently claimed 3.56-keV X-ray line found towards several clusters and galaxies and its decaying dark matter interpretation. However, we also show that in order to fully exploit the potential of eROSITA for dark matter searches, it is vital to overcome the shot-noise limitations inherent to galaxy catalogues as tracers for the dark matter distribution.

  12. Dose surveys in two digital mammography units using DICOM headers

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tsalafoutas, I.; Michalaki, C.; Papagiannopoulou, C.; Efstathopoulos, E.

    2012-01-01

    Background and objective: Digital mammography units store images in DICOM format. Thus, data regarding the acquisition parameters are available within DICOM headers, including among others, the anode/filter combination, tube potential and tube current exposure time product, compressed breast thickness, entrance surface air kerma (ESAK) and mean glandular dose (MGD). However, manual extraction of these data for the verification of the displayed values' accuracy and for dose survey purposes is time consuming. Our objective was to develop a method that enables the automation of such procedures. Materials and methods: Two hundred mammographic examinations (800 mammograms) performed in two digital units (GE, Essential) were recorded on CD-roms. Using appropriate software (DICOM Info Extractor) all dose related DICOM headers were extracted into a Microsoft Excel based spreadsheet, containing embedded algorithms for the calculation of ESAK and MGD according to Dance et al (Phys. Med. Biol. 45, 2000) methodology. Results: The ESAK and MGD values stored in the DICOM headers were compared with those calculated and in most cases were within ±10%. The basic difference among the two mammographic units is that, the older one calculates MGD assuming a breast composition 50% glandular-50% adipose tissue, while the newer one calculates the actual breast glandularity and stores this value in a DICOM header. The average MGD values were 1.21 mGy and 1.38 mGy, respectively. Conclusion: For the units studied, the ESAK and MGD values stored in DICOM headers are reliable. Utilizing tools for their automatic extraction provides an easy way to perform dose surveys. (authors)

  13. The Einstein All-Sky Slew Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elvis, Martin S.

    1992-01-01

    The First Einstein IPC Slew Survey produced a list of 819 x-ray sources, with f(sub x) approximately 10(exp -12) - 10(exp -10) erg/sq cm s and positional accuracy of approximately 1.2 feet (90 percent radius). The aim of this program was to identify these x-ray sources.

  14. THE ELM SURVEY. II. TWELVE BINARY WHITE DWARF MERGER SYSTEMS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kilic, Mukremin; Brown, Warren R.; Kenyon, S. J.; Prieto, Carlos Allende; Agueeros, M. A.; Heinke, Craig

    2011-01-01

    We describe new radial velocity and X-ray observations of extremely low-mass white dwarfs (ELM WDs, ∼0.2 M sun ) in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4 and the MMT Hypervelocity Star survey. We identify four new short period binaries, including two merger systems. These observations bring the total number of short period binary systems identified in our survey to 20. No main-sequence or neutron star companions are visible in the available optical photometry, radio, and X-ray data. Thus, the companions are most likely WDs. Twelve of these systems will merge within a Hubble time due to gravitational wave radiation. We have now tripled the number of known merging WD systems. We discuss the characteristics of this merger sample and potential links to underluminous supernovae, extreme helium stars, AM CVn systems, and other merger products. We provide new observational tests of the WD mass-period distribution and cooling models for ELM WDs. We also find evidence for a new formation channel for single low-mass WDs through binary mergers of two lower mass objects.

  15. Model for the angular distribution of sky radiance

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hooper, F C; Brunger, A P

    1979-08-01

    A flexible mathematical model is introduced which describes the radiance of the dome of the sky under various conditions. This three-component continuous distribution (TCCD) model is compounded by the superposition of three separate terms, the isotropic, circumsolar and horizon brightening terms, each representing the contribution of a particular sky characteristic. In use a particular sky condition is characterized by the values of the coefficients of each of these three terms, defining the distribution of the total diffuse component. The TCCD model has been demonstrated to fit both the normalized clear sky data and the normalized overcast sky data with an RMS error of about ten percent of the man overall sky radiance. By extension the model could describe variable or partly clouded sky conditions. The model can aid in improving the prediction of solar collector performance.

  16. The LAMOST survey of background quasars in the vicinity of the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies. II. Results from the commissioning observations and the pilot surveys

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Huo, Zhi-Ying; Bai, Zhong-Rui; Chen, Jian-Jun; Chen, Xiao-Yan; Du, Bing; Jia, Lei; Lei, Ya-Juan; Liu, Xiao-Wei; Yuan, Hai-Bo; Xiang, Mao-Sheng; Huang, Yang; Zhang, Hui-Hua; Yan, Lin; Chu, Jia-Ru; Chu, Yao-Quan; Hu, Hong-Zhuan; Cui, Xiang-Qun; Hou, Yong-Hui; Hu, Zhong-Wen; Jiang, Fang-Hua

    2013-01-01

    We present new quasars discovered in the vicinity of the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies with the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope, also named the Guoshoujing Telescope, during the 2010 and 2011 observational seasons. Quasar candidates are selected based on the available Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Kitt Peak National Observatory 4 m telescope, Xuyi Schmidt Telescope Photometric Survey optical, and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer near-infrared photometric data. We present 509 new quasars discovered in a stripe of ∼135 deg 2 from M31 to M33 along the Giant Stellar Stream in the 2011 pilot survey data sets, and also 17 new quasars discovered in an area of ∼100 deg 2 that covers the central region and the southeastern halo of M31 in the 2010 commissioning data sets. These 526 new quasars have i magnitudes ranging from 15.5 to 20.0, redshifts from 0.1 to 3.2. They represent a significant increase of the number of identified quasars in the vicinity of M31 and M33. There are now 26, 62, and 139 known quasars in this region of the sky with i magnitudes brighter than 17.0, 17.5, and 18.0, respectively, of which 5, 20, and 75 are newly discovered. These bright quasars provide an invaluable collection with which to probe the kinematics and chemistry of the interstellar/intergalactic medium in the Local Group of galaxies. A total of 93 quasars are now known with locations within 2.°5 of M31, of which 73 are newly discovered. Tens of quasars are now known to be located behind the Giant Stellar Stream, and hundreds are behind the extended halo and its associated substructures of M31. The much enlarged sample of known quasars in the vicinity of M31 and M33 can potentially be utilized to construct a perfect astrometric reference frame to measure the minute proper motions (PMs) of M31 and M33, along with the PMs of substructures associated with the Local Group of galaxies. Those PMs are some of the most fundamental properties of the Local Group.

  17. Mapping Tropical Rainforest Canopy Disturbances in 3D by COSMO-SkyMed Spotlight InSAR-Stereo Data to Detect Areas of Forest Degradation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Manuela Hirschmugl

    2013-02-01

    Full Text Available Assessment of forest degradation has been emphasized as an important issue for emission calculations, but remote sensing based detecting of forest degradation is still in an early phase of development. The use of optical imagery for degradation assessment in the tropics is limited due to frequent cloud cover. Recent studies based on radar data often focus on classification approaches of 2D backscatter. In this study, we describe a method to detect areas affected by forest degradation from digital surface models derived from COSMO-SkyMed X-band Spotlight InSAR-Stereo Data. Two test sites with recent logging activities were chosen in Cameroon and in the Republic of Congo. Using the full resolution COSMO-SkyMed digital surface model and a 90-m resolution Shuttle Radar Topography Mission model or a mean filtered digital surface model we calculate difference models to detect canopy disturbances. The extracted disturbance gaps are aggregated to potential degradation areas and then evaluated with respect to reference areas extracted from RapidEye and Quickbird optical imagery. Results show overall accuracies above 75% for assessing degradation areas with the presented methods.

  18. Latest Results of the SETHI Survey at Arecibo

    Science.gov (United States)

    Korpela, E. J.; Demorest, P.; Heien, E.; Heiles, C.; Werthimer, D.

    2004-10-01

    SETH i is a survey of the distribution of galactic neutral hydrogen being performed comensally at the NAIC Arecibo Observatory. At the same time that observers use receivers in the Gregorian dome, SETHi is recording a 2.5MHz band centered at 1420 MHz from a flat feed on Carriage House 1. During normal astronomical observations, the SETH i feed scans across the sky at twice the sidereal rate. During 4 years of observations, we have accumulated over 15,000 hours of data covering most of the sky accessible to Arecibo. This survey has higher angular resolution than existing single dish surveys and higher sensitivity than existing or planned interferometric surveys.

  19. Daytime Water Detection Based on Sky Reflections

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rankin, Arturo; Matthies, Larry; Bellutta, Paolo

    2011-01-01

    A water body s surface can be modeled as a horizontal mirror. Water detection based on sky reflections and color variation are complementary. A reflection coefficient model suggests sky reflections dominate the color of water at ranges > 12 meters. Water detection based on sky reflections: (1) geometrically locates the pixel in the sky that is reflecting on a candidate water pixel on the ground (2) predicts if the ground pixel is water based on color similarity and local terrain features. Water detection has been integrated on XUVs.

  20. Survey Strategy Optimization for the Atacama Cosmology Telescope

    Science.gov (United States)

    De Bernardis, F.; Stevens, J. R.; Hasselfield, M.; Alonso, D.; Bond, J. R.; Calabrese, E.; Choi, S. K.; Crowley, K. T.; Devlin, M.; Wollack, E. J.

    2016-01-01

    In recent years there have been significant improvements in the sensitivity and the angular resolution of the instruments dedicated to the observation of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). ACTPol is the first polarization receiver for the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) and is observing the CMB sky with arcmin resolution over approximately 2000 square degrees. Its upgrade, Advanced ACTPol (AdvACT), will observe the CMB in five frequency bands and over a larger area of the sky. We describe the optimization and implementation of the ACTPol and AdvACT surveys. The selection of the observed fields is driven mainly by the science goals, that is, small angular scale CMB measurements, B-mode measurements and cross-correlation studies. For the ACTPol survey we have observed patches of the southern galactic sky with low galactic foreground emissions which were also chosen to maximize the overlap with several galaxy surveys to allow unique cross-correlation studies. A wider field in the northern galactic cap ensured significant additional overlap with the BOSS spectroscopic survey. The exact shapes and footprints of the fields were optimized to achieve uniform coverage and to obtain cross-linked maps by observing the fields with different scan directions. We have maximized the efficiency of the survey by implementing a close to 24-hour observing strategy, switching between daytime and nighttime observing plans and minimizing the telescope idle time. We describe the challenges represented by the survey optimization for the significantly wider area observed by AdvACT, which will observe roughly half of the low-foreground sky. The survey strategies described here may prove useful for planning future ground-based CMB surveys, such as the Simons Observatory and CMB Stage IV surveys.

  1. Structural Validity of the Professional Development Profile of the LoTi Digital-Age Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mehta, Vandhana; Hull, Darrell M.

    2013-01-01

    The present study was used to examine the structural construct validity of the Professional Development Profile of the LoTi Digital-Age Survey, a measure of teacher instructional practices with technology in the classroom. Teacher responses ("N" = 2,840) from across the United States were used to assess factor structure of the instrument…

  2. SDSS-IV MaNGA IFS GALAXY SURVEY—SURVEY DESIGN, EXECUTION, AND INITIAL DATA QUALITY

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yan, Renbin; Zhang, Kai; Bundy, Kevin; Law, David R.; Bershady, Matthew A.; Diamond-Stanic, Aleksandar M.; Andrews, Brett; Cherinka, Brian; Drory, Niv; MacDonald, Nicholas; Sánchez-Gallego, José R.; Thomas, Daniel; Westfall, Kyle B.; Wake, David A.; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Aragón-Salamanca, Alfonso; Belfiore, Francesco

    2016-01-01

    The MaNGA Survey (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory) is one of three core programs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV. It is obtaining integral field spectroscopy for 10,000 nearby galaxies at a spectral resolution of R  ∼ 2000 from 3622 to 10354 Å. The design of the survey is driven by a set of science requirements on the precision of estimates of the following properties: star formation rate surface density, gas metallicity, stellar population age, metallicity, and abundance ratio, and their gradients; stellar and gas kinematics; and enclosed gravitational mass as a function of radius. We describe how these science requirements set the depth of the observations and dictate sample selection. The majority of targeted galaxies are selected to ensure uniform spatial coverage in units of effective radius (R e ) while maximizing spatial resolution. About two-thirds of the sample is covered out to 1.5 R e (Primary sample), and one-third of the sample is covered to 2.5 R e (Secondary sample). We describe the survey execution with details that would be useful in the design of similar future surveys. We also present statistics on the achieved data quality, specifically the point-spread function, sampling uniformity, spectral resolution, sky subtraction, and flux calibration. For our Primary sample, the median r -band signal-to-noise ratio is ∼70 per 1.4 Å pixel for spectra stacked between 1 R e and 1.5 R e . Measurements of various galaxy properties from the first-year data show that we are meeting or exceeding the defined requirements for the majority of our science goals.

  3. SDSS-IV MaNGA IFS Galaxy Survey—Survey Design, Execution, and Initial Data Quality

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yan, Renbin; Bundy, Kevin; Law, David R.; Bershady, Matthew A.; Andrews, Brett; Cherinka, Brian; Diamond-Stanic, Aleksandar M.; Drory, Niv; MacDonald, Nicholas; Sánchez-Gallego, José R.; Thomas, Daniel; Wake, David A.; Weijmans, Anne-Marie; Westfall, Kyle B.; Zhang, Kai; Aragón-Salamanca, Alfonso; Belfiore, Francesco; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Blanc, Guillermo A.; Blanton, Michael R.; Brownstein, Joel; Cappellari, Michele; D'Souza, Richard; Emsellem, Eric; Fu, Hai; Gaulme, Patrick; Graham, Mark T.; Goddard, Daniel; Gunn, James E.; Harding, Paul; Jones, Amy; Kinemuchi, Karen; Li, Cheng; Li, Hongyu; Maiolino, Roberto; Mao, Shude; Maraston, Claudia; Masters, Karen; Merrifield, Michael R.; Oravetz, Daniel; Pan, Kaike; Parejko, John K.; Sanchez, Sebastian F.; Schlegel, David; Simmons, Audrey; Thanjavur, Karun; Tinker, Jeremy; Tremonti, Christy; van den Bosch, Remco; Zheng, Zheng

    2016-12-01

    The MaNGA Survey (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory) is one of three core programs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV. It is obtaining integral field spectroscopy for 10,000 nearby galaxies at a spectral resolution of R ˜ 2000 from 3622 to 10354 Å. The design of the survey is driven by a set of science requirements on the precision of estimates of the following properties: star formation rate surface density, gas metallicity, stellar population age, metallicity, and abundance ratio, and their gradients; stellar and gas kinematics; and enclosed gravitational mass as a function of radius. We describe how these science requirements set the depth of the observations and dictate sample selection. The majority of targeted galaxies are selected to ensure uniform spatial coverage in units of effective radius (R e ) while maximizing spatial resolution. About two-thirds of the sample is covered out to 1.5R e (Primary sample), and one-third of the sample is covered to 2.5R e (Secondary sample). We describe the survey execution with details that would be useful in the design of similar future surveys. We also present statistics on the achieved data quality, specifically the point-spread function, sampling uniformity, spectral resolution, sky subtraction, and flux calibration. For our Primary sample, the median r-band signal-to-noise ratio is ˜70 per 1.4 Å pixel for spectra stacked between 1R e and 1.5R e . Measurements of various galaxy properties from the first-year data show that we are meeting or exceeding the defined requirements for the majority of our science goals.

  4. Digital Authenticity and Integrity: Digital Cultural Heritage Documents as Research Resources

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bradley; Rachael

    2005-01-01

    This article presents the results of a survey addressing methods of securing digital content and ensuring the content's authenticity and integrity, as well as the perceived importance of authenticity and integrity. The survey was sent to 40 digital repositories in the United States and Canada between June 30 and July 19, 2003. Twenty-two…

  5. Educating for the Preservation of Dark Skies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Preston, Sandra Lee; Cianciolo, Frank; Wetzel, Marc; Finkelstein, Keely; Wren, William; Nance, Craig

    2015-08-01

    The stars at night really are big and bright deep in the heart of Texas at the McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis, Texas. Each year 80,000 visitors from all over the world make the pilgrimage to the Observatory to attend one of the three-times-a-week star parties. Many experience, for the first time, the humbling, splendor of a truly dark night sky. Over the last several years, the Observatory has experienced dramatic increases in visitation demonstrating the public’s appetite for science education, in general, and interest in the night sky, in particular. This increasing interest in astronomy is, ironically, occurring at a time when most of humanity’s skies are becoming increasingly light-polluted frustrating this natural interest. Dark skies and knowledgeable education and outreach staff are an important resource in maintaining the public’s interest in astronomy, support for astronomical research, and local tourism.This year Observatory educators were inspired by the observance of the International Year of Light to promote healthy outdoor lighting through its popular Astronomy Day distance learning program. This program reaches tens of thousands of K-12 students in Texas and other states with a message of how they can take action to preserve dark skies. As well, more than a thousand Boy Scouts visiting during the summer months receive a special program, which includes activities focusing on good lighting practices, thereby earning them credits toward an astronomy badge.The Observatory also offers a half-a-dozen K-12 teacher professional development workshops onsite each year, which provide about 90 teachers with dark skies information, best-practice lighting demonstrations, and red flashlights. Multi-year workshops for National Park and State of Texas Parks personnel are offered on dark sky preservation and sky interpretation at McDonald and a Dark Skies fund for retrofitting lights in the surrounding area has been established. The Observatory also uses

  6. The Extremely Luminous Quasar Survey (ELQS) in SDSS and the high-z bright-end Quasar Luminosity Function

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schindler, Jan-Torge; Fan, Xiaohui; McGreer, Ian

    2018-01-01

    Studies of the most luminous quasars at high redshift directly probe the evolution of the most massive black holes in the early Universe and their connection to massive galaxy formation. Unfortunately, extremely luminous quasars at high redshift are very rare objects. Only wide area surveys have a chance to constrain their population. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) nd the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) have so far provided the most widely adopted measurements of the type I quasar luminosity function (QLF) at z>3. However, a careful re-examination of the SDSS quasar sample revealed that the SDSS quasar selection is in fact missing a significant fraction of $z~3$ quasars at the brightest end.We have identified the purely optical color selection of SDSS, where quasars at these redshifts are strongly contaminated by late-type dwarfs, and the spectroscopic incompleteness of the SDSS footprint as the main reasons. Therefore we have designed the Extremely Luminous Quasar Survey (ELQS), based on a novel near-infrared JKW2 color cut using WISE AllWISE and 2MASS all-sky photometry, to yield high completeness for very bright (i < 18.0) quasars in the redshift range of 2.8<= z<=5.0. It effectively uses Random Forest machine-learning algorithms on SDSS and WISE photometry for quasar-star classification and photometric redshift estimation.The ELQS is spectroscopically following up ~230 new quasar candidates in an area of ~12000 deg2 in the SDSS footprint, to obtain a well-defined and complete quasar sample for an accurate measurement of the bright-end quasar luminosity function (QLF) at 2.8<= z<=5.0. So far the ELQS has identified 75 bright new quasars in this redshift range and observations of the fall sky will continue until the end of the year. At the AAS winter meeting we will present the full spectroscopic results of the survey, including a re-estimation and extension of the high-z QLF toward higher luminosities.

  7. THE GREAT OBSERVATORIES ALL-SKY LIRG SURVEY: COMPARISON OF ULTRAVIOLET AND FAR-INFRARED PROPERTIES

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Howell, Justin H.; Armus, Lee; Surace, Jason A.; Petric, Andreea; Bridge, Carrie; Haan, Sebastian; Inami, Hanae; Mazzarella, Joseph M.; Chan, Ben H. P.; Madore, Barry F.; Evans, Aaron S.; Kim, Dong-Chan; Sanders, David B.; Appleton, Phil; Frayer, David T.; Lord, Steven; Schulz, Bernhard; Bothun, Greg; Charmandaris, Vassilis; Melbourne, Jason

    2010-01-01

    The Great Observatories All-sky LIRG Survey (GOALS) consists of a complete sample of 202 luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs) selected from the IRAS Revised Bright Galaxy Sample (RBGS). The galaxies span the full range of interaction stages, from isolated galaxies to interacting pairs to late stage mergers. We present a comparison of the UV and infrared properties of 135 galaxies in GOALS observed by GALEX and Spitzer. For interacting galaxies with separations greater than the resolution of GALEX and Spitzer (∼2''-6''), we assess the UV and IR properties of each galaxy individually. The contribution of the FUV to the measured star formation rate (SFR) ranges from 0.2% to 17.9%, with a median of 2.8% and a mean of 4.0% ± 0.4%. The specific star formation rate (SSFR) of the GOALS sample is extremely high, with a median value (3.9 x 10 -10 yr -1 ) that is comparable to the highest SSFRs seen in the Spitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxies Survey sample. We examine the position of each galaxy on the IR excess-UV slope (IRX-β) diagram as a function of galaxy properties, including IR luminosity and interaction stage. The LIRGs on average have greater IR excesses than would be expected based on their UV colors if they obeyed the same relations as starbursts with L IR 11 L sun or normal late-type galaxies. The ratio of L IR to the value one would estimate from the IRX-β relation published for lower luminosity starburst galaxies ranges from 0.2 to 68, with a median value of 2.7. A minimum of 19% of the total IR luminosity in the RBGS is produced in LIRGs and ultraluminous infrared galaxies with red UV colors (β>0). Among resolved interacting systems, 32% contain one galaxy which dominates the IR emission while the companion dominates the UV emission. Only 21% of the resolved systems contain a single galaxy which dominates both wavelengths.

  8. Extinction, seeing and sky transparency monitoring at the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre for J-PAS and J-PLUS calibration and scheduling

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vázquez Ramió, H.; Díaz-Martín, M. C.; Varela, J.; Ederoclite, A.; Maícas, N. Lamadrid, J. L.; Abril, J.; Iglesias-Marzoa, R.; Rodríguez, S.; Tilve, V.; Cenarro, A. J.; Antón Bravo, J. L.; Bello Ferrer, R.; Cristóbal-Hornillos, D.; Guillén Civera, L.; Hernández-Fuertes, J.; Jiménez Mejías, D.; Lasso-Cabrera, N. M.; López Alegre, G.; López Sainz, A.; Luis-Simoes, R. M.; Marín-Franch, A.; Moles, M.; Rueda-Teruel, F.; Rueda-Teruel, S.; Suárez López, O.; Yanes-Díaz, A.

    2015-05-01

    The Javalambre-Physics of the Accelerating Universe Astrophysical Survey (J-PAS; see Benítez et al. 2014) and the Javalambre-Photometric Local Universe Survey (J-PLUS) will be conducted at the brand-new Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre (OAJ) in Teruel, Spain. J-PLUS is planned to start by the first half of 2015 while J-PAS first light is expected to happen along 2015. Besides the two main telescopes (with 2.5 m and 80 cm apertures), several smaller-sized facilities are present at the OAJ devoted to site characterization and supporting measurements to be used to calibrate the J-PAS and J-PLUS photometry and to feed up the OAJ's Sequencer with the integrated seeing and the sky transparency. These instruments are: i) an extinction monitor, an 11 " telescope estimating the atmospheric extinction to finally obtain the OAJ extinction curve, which is the initial step to J-PAS overall photometric calibration procedure; ii) an 8 " telescope implementing the Differential Image Motion Monitor (DIMM) technique to obtain the integrated seeing; and iii) an All-Sky Transmission MONitor (ASTMON), a roughly all-sky instrument providing the sky transparency as well as sky brightness and the atmospheric extinction too.

  9. The ASAS-SN Catalog of Variable Stars I: The Serendipitous Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jayasinghe, T.; Kochanek, C. S.; Stanek, K. Z.; Shappee, B. J.; Holoien, T. W.-S.; Thompson, Todd A.; Prieto, J. L.; Dong, Subo; Pawlak, M.; Shields, J. V.; Pojmanski, G.; Otero, S.; Britt, C. A.; Will, D.

    2018-04-01

    The All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) is the first optical survey to routinely monitor the whole sky with a cadence of ˜2 - 3 days down to V≲ 17 mag. ASAS-SN has monitored the whole sky since 2014, collecting ˜100 - 500 epochs of observations per field. The V-band light curves for candidate variables identified during the search for supernovae are classified using a random forest classifier and visually verified. We present a catalog of 66,533 bright, new variable stars discovered during our search for supernovae, including 27,753 periodic variables and 38,780 irregular variables. V-band light curves for the ASAS-SN variables are available through the ASAS-SN variable stars database (https://asas-sn.osu.edu/variables). The database will begin to include the light curves of known variable stars in the near future along with the results for a systematic, all-sky variability survey.

  10. Conducting a Southern Pine Beetle Survey Using Digital Aerial Sketchmapping (DASM) - An Overview

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chris A. Steiner

    2011-01-01

    This is an overview on conducting a southern pine beetle (SPB) survey using Digital Aerial Sketchmapping (DASM); for a detailed treatment of DASM visit the following Web site: http://www.fs.fed.us/foresthealth/ technology/dasm.shtml. Sketchmapping – “A remote sensing technique of observing forest change events from an aircraft and documenting them manually on a map” (...

  11. Address-based versus random-digit-dial surveys: comparison of key health and risk indicators.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Link, Michael W; Battaglia, Michael P; Frankel, Martin R; Osborn, Larry; Mokdad, Ali H

    2006-11-15

    Use of random-digit dialing (RDD) for conducting health surveys is increasingly problematic because of declining participation rates and eroding frame coverage. Alternative survey modes and sampling frames may improve response rates and increase the validity of survey estimates. In a 2005 pilot study conducted in six states as part of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the authors administered a mail survey to selected household members sampled from addresses in a US Postal Service database. The authors compared estimates based on data from the completed mail surveys (n = 3,010) with those from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System telephone surveys (n = 18,780). The mail survey data appeared reasonably complete, and estimates based on data from the two survey modes were largely equivalent. Differences found, such as differences in the estimated prevalences of binge drinking (mail = 20.3%, telephone = 13.1%) or behaviors linked to human immunodeficiency virus transmission (mail = 7.1%, telephone = 4.2%), were consistent with previous research showing that, for questions about sensitive behaviors, self-administered surveys generally produce higher estimates than interviewer-administered surveys. The mail survey also provided access to cell-phone-only households and households without telephones, which cannot be reached by means of standard RDD surveys.

  12. Searching for millisecond pulsars: surveys, techniques and prospects

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Stovall, K; Lorimer, D R; Lynch, R S

    2013-01-01

    Searches for millisecond pulsars (which we here loosely define as those with periods < 20 ms) in the galactic field have undergone a renaissance in the past five years. New or recently refurbished radio telescopes utilizing cooled receivers and state-of-the art digital data acquisition systems are carrying out surveys of the entire sky at a variety of radio frequencies. Targeted searches for millisecond pulsars in point sources identified by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have proved phenomenally successful, with over 50 discoveries in the past five years. The current sample of millisecond pulsars now numbers almost 200 and, for the first time in 25 years, now outnumbers their counterparts in galactic globular clusters. While many of these searches are motivated to find pulsars which form part of pulsar timing arrays, a wide variety of interesting systems are now being found. Following a brief overview of the millisecond pulsar phenomenon, we describe these searches and present some of the highlights of the new discoveries in the past decade. We conclude with predictions and prospects for ongoing and future surveys. (paper)

  13. SkyProbeBV: dual-color absolute sky transparency monitor to optimize science operations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cuillandre, Jean-Charles; Magnier, Eugene; Sabin, Dan; Mahoney, Billy

    2008-07-01

    Mauna Kea (4200 m elevation, Hawaii) is known for its pristine seeing conditions, but sky transparency can be an issue for science operations: 25% of the nights are not photometric, a cloud coverage mostly due to high-altitude thin cirrus. The Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) is upgrading its real-time sky transparency monitor in the optical domain (V-band) into a dual-color system by adding a B-band channel and redesigning the entire optical and mechanical assembly. Since 2000, the original single-channel SkyProbe has gathered one exposure every minute during each observing night using a small CCD camera with a very wide field of view (35 sq. deg.) encompassing the region pointed by the telescope for science operations, and exposures long enough (30 seconds) to capture at least 100 stars of Hipparcos' Tychos catalog at high galactic latitudes (and up to 600 stars at low galactic latitudes). A key advantage of SkyProbe over direct thermal infrared imaging detection of clouds, is that it allows an accurate absolute measurement, within 5%, of the true atmospheric absorption by clouds affecting the data being gathered by the telescope's main science instrument. This system has proven crucial for decision making in the CFHT queued service observing (QSO), representing today 95% of the telescope time: science exposures taken in non-photometric conditions are automatically registered for being re-observed later on (at 1/10th of the original exposure time per pointing in the observed filters) to ensure a proper final absolute photometric calibration. If the absorption is too high, exposures can be repeated, or the observing can be done for a lower ranked science program. The new dual color system (simultaneous B & V bands) will allow a better characterization of the sky properties above Mauna Kea and should enable a better detection of the thinner cirrus (absorption down to 0.02 mag., i.e. 2%). SkyProbe is operated within the Elixir pipeline, a collection of tools

  14. Using routine meteorological data to derive sky conditions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    D. Pagès

    2003-03-01

    Full Text Available Sky condition is a matter of interest for public and weather predictors as part of weather analyses. In this study, we apply a method that uses total solar radiation and other meteorological data recorded by an automatic station for deriving an estimation of the sky condition. The impetus of this work is the intention of the Catalan Meteorological Service (SMC to provide the public with real-time information about the sky condition. The methodology for deriving sky conditions from meteorological records is based on a supervised classification technique called maximum likelihood method. In this technique we first need to define features which are derived from measured variables. Second, we must decide which sky conditions are intended to be distinguished. Some analyses have led us to use four sky conditions: (a cloudless or almost cloudless sky, (b scattered clouds, (c mostly cloudy – high clouds, (d overcast – low clouds. An additional case, which may be treated separately, corresponds to precipitation (rain or snow. The main features for estimating sky conditions are, as expected, solar radiation and its temporal variability. The accuracy of this method of guessing sky conditions compared with human observations is around 70% when applied to four sites in Catalonia (NE Iberian Peninsula. The agreement increases if we take into account the uncertainty both in the automatic classifier and in visual observations.Key words. Meteorological and atmospheric dynamics (instruments and techniques; radiative processes – Atmospheric composition and structure (cloud physics and chemistry

  15. The Python Sky Model: software for simulating the Galactic microwave sky

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thorne, B.; Dunkley, J.; Alonso, D.; Næss, S.

    2017-08-01

    We present a numerical code to simulate maps of Galactic emission in intensity and polarization at microwave frequencies, aiding in the design of cosmic microwave background experiments. This python code builds on existing efforts to simulate the sky by providing an easy-to-use interface and is based on publicly available data from the WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) and Planck satellite missions. We simulate synchrotron, thermal dust, free-free and anomalous microwave emission over the whole sky, in addition to the cosmic microwave background, and include a set of alternative prescriptions for the frequency dependence of each component, for example, polarized dust with multiple temperatures and a decorrelation of the signals with frequency, which introduce complexity that is consistent with current data. We also present a new prescription for adding small-scale realizations of these components at resolutions greater than current all-sky measurements. The usefulness of the code is demonstrated by forecasting the impact of varying foreground complexity on the recovered tensor-to-scalar ratio for the LiteBIRD satellite. The code is available at: https://github.com/bthorne93/PySM_public.

  16. Dark Skies: Local Success, Global Challenge

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lockwood, G. W.

    2009-01-01

    The Flagstaff, Arizona 1987 lighting code reduced the growth rate of man-made sky glow by a third. Components of the code include requirements for full cutoff lighting, lumens per acre limits in radial zones around observatories, and use of low-pressure sodium monochromatic lighting for roadways and parking lots. Broad public acceptance of Flagstaff's lighting code demonstrates that dark sky preservation has significant appeal and few visibility or public safety negatives. An inventory by C. Luginbuhl et al. of the light output and shielding of a sampling of various zoning categories (municipal, commercial, apartments, single-family residences, roadways, sports facilities, industrial, etc.), extrapolated over the entire city, yields a total output of 139 million lumens. Commercial and industrial sources account for 62% of the total. Outdoor sports lighting increases the total by 24% on summer evenings. Flagstaff's per capita lumen output is 2.5 times greater than the nominal 1,000 lumens per capita assumed by R. Garstang in his early sky glow modeling work. We resolved the discrepancy with respect to Flagstaff's measured sky glow using an improved model that includes substantial near ground attenuation by foliage and structures. A 2008 university study shows that astronomy contributes $250M annually to Arizona's economy. Another study showed that the application of lighting codes throughout Arizona could reduce energy consumption significantly. An ongoing effort led by observatory directors statewide will encourage lighting controls in currently unregulated metropolitan areas whose growing sky glow threatens observatory facilities more than 100 miles away. The national press (New York Times, the New Yorker, the Economist, USA Today, etc.) have publicized dark sky issues but frequent repetition of the essential message and vigorous action will be required to steer society toward darker skies and less egregious waste.

  17. A guide for the use of digital elevation model data for making soil surveys

    Science.gov (United States)

    Klingebiel, A.A.; Horvath, Emil H.; Reybold, William U.; Moore, D.G.; Fosnight, E.A.; Loveland, Thomas R.

    1988-01-01

    The intent of this publication is twofold: (1) to serve as a user guide for soil scientists and others interested in learning about the value and use of digital elevation model (DEM) data in making soil surveys and (2) to provide documentation of the Soil Landscape Analysis Project (SLAP). This publication provides a step-by-step guide on how digital slope-class maps are adjusted to topographic maps and orthophotoquads to obtain accurate slope-class maps, and how these derivative maps can be used as a base for soil survey premaps. In addition, guidance is given on the use of aspect-class maps and other resource data in making pre-maps. The value and use of tabular summaries are discussed. Examples of the use of DEM products by the authors and by selected field soil scientists are also given. Additional information on SLAP procedures may be obtained from USDA, Soil Conservation Service, Soil Survey Division, P.O. Box 2890, Washington, D.C. 20013, and from references (Horvath and others, 1987; Horvath and others, 1983; Klingebiel and others, 1987; and Young, 1987) listed in this publication. The slope and aspect products and the procedures for using these products have evolved during 5 years of cooperative research with the USDA, Soil Conservation Service and Forest Service, and the USDI, Bureau of Land Management.

  18. Spectral and Spatial UV Sky Radiance Measurements at a Seaside Resort Under Clear Sky and Slightly Overcast Conditions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sandmann, Henner; Stick, Carsten

    2014-01-01

    Spatial measurements of the diffusely scattered sky radiance at a seaside resort under clear sky and slightly overcast conditions have been used to calculate the sky radiance distribution across the upper hemisphere. The measurements were done in the summer season when solar UV radiation is highest. The selected wavelengths were 307, 350 and 550 nm representing the UVB, UVA and VIS band. Absolute values of radiance differ considerably between the wavelengths. Normalizing the measured values by use of direct solar radiance made the spatial distributions of unequal sky radiance comparable. The results convey a spatial impression of the different distributions of the radiance at the three wavelengths. Relative scattered radiance intensity is one order of magnitude greater in UVB than in VIS, whereas in UVA lies roughly in between. Under slightly overcast conditions scattered radiance is increased at all three wavelengths by about one order of magnitude. These measurements taken at the seaside underline the importance of diffuse scattered radiance. The effect of shading parts of the sky can be estimated from the distribution of sky radiance. This knowledge might be useful for sun seekers and in the treatment of people staying at the seaside for therapeutic purposes. © 2013 The American Society of Photobiology.

  19. The use of digital imaging, video conferencing, and telepathology in histopathology: a national survey.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dennis, T; Start, R D; Cross, S S

    2005-03-01

    To undertake a large scale survey of histopathologists in the UK to determine the current infrastructure, training, and attitudes to digital pathology. A postal questionnaire was sent to 500 consultant histopathologists randomly selected from the membership of the Royal College of Pathologists in the UK. There was a response rate of 47%. Sixty four per cent of respondents had a digital camera mounted on their microscope, but only 12% had any sort of telepathology equipment. Thirty per cent used digital images in electronic presentations at meetings at least once a year and only 24% had ever used telepathology in a diagnostic situation. Fifty nine per cent had received no training in digital imaging. Fifty eight per cent felt that the medicolegal implications of duty of care were a barrier to its use. A large proportion of pathologists (69%) were interested in using video conferencing for remote attendance at multidisciplinary team meetings. There is a reasonable level of equipment and communications infrastructure among histopathologists in the UK but a very low level of training. There is resistance to the use of telepathology in the diagnostic context but enthusiasm for the use of video conferencing in multidisciplinary team meetings.

  20. Wildlife survey and monitoring in the Sky Island Region with an emphasis on neotropical felids

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sergio Avila-Villegas; Jessica Lamberton-Moreno

    2013-01-01

    The Sky Island region of southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico consists of isolated mountain ranges separated by deserts and grasslands. It mixes elements from five major ecosystems: the Rocky Mountains, Sierra Madre Occidental, the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts and the Neotropics. Here some Neotropical species reach their northern ranges, such as jaguars...

  1. The Southern Argentina Agile Meteor Radar Orbital System (SAAMER-OS): An Initial Sporadic Meteoroid Orbital Survey in the Southern Sky

    Science.gov (United States)

    Janches, D.; Close, S.; Hormaechea, J. L.; Swarnalingam, N.; Murphy, A.; O'Connor, D.; Vandepeer, B.; Fuller, B.; Fritts, D. C.; Brunini, C.

    2015-01-01

    We present an initial survey in the southern sky of the sporadic meteoroid orbital environment obtained with the Southern Argentina Agile MEteor Radar (SAAMER) Orbital System (OS), in which over three-quarters of a million orbits of dust particles were determined from 2012 January through 2015 April. SAAMER-OS is located at the southernmost tip of Argentina and is currently the only operational radar with orbit determination capability providing continuous observations of the southern hemisphere. Distributions of the observed meteoroid speed, radiant, and heliocentric orbital parameters are presented, as well as those corrected by the observational biases associated with the SAAMER-OS operating parameters. The results are compared with those reported by three previous surveys performed with the Harvard Radio Meteor Project, the Advanced Meteor Orbit Radar, and the Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar, and they are in agreement with these previous studies. Weighted distributions for meteoroids above the thresholds for meteor trail electron line density, meteoroid mass, and meteoroid kinetic energy are also considered. Finally, the minimum line density and kinetic energy weighting factors are found to be very suitable for meteoroid applications. The outcomes of this work show that, given SAAMERs location, the system is ideal for providing crucial data to continuously study the South Toroidal and South Apex sporadic meteoroid apparent sources.

  2. Exploring the Variable Sky with Linear. 1. Photometric Recalibration with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-12-01

    encoded as a 64-bit integer number theta_2massd Distance in arcsec from the 2MASS source J 2MASS J-band magnitude JErr 2MASS J-band magnitude error H... 2MASS H-band magnitude HErr 2MASS H-band magnitude error K 2MASS K-band magnitude KErr 2MASS K-band magnitude error jh 2MASS J−H color (corrected for...extinction, j − h = (J − 0.327rExt) − (H − 0.209rExt)) hk 2MASS H−K color (corrected for extinction, h− k = (H − 0.209rExt) − (K − 0.133rExt)) jk

  3. Using routine meteorological data to derive sky conditions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    D. Pagès

    Full Text Available Sky condition is a matter of interest for public and weather predictors as part of weather analyses. In this study, we apply a method that uses total solar radiation and other meteorological data recorded by an automatic station for deriving an estimation of the sky condition. The impetus of this work is the intention of the Catalan Meteorological Service (SMC to provide the public with real-time information about the sky condition. The methodology for deriving sky conditions from meteorological records is based on a supervised classification technique called maximum likelihood method. In this technique we first need to define features which are derived from measured variables. Second, we must decide which sky conditions are intended to be distinguished. Some analyses have led us to use four sky conditions: (a cloudless or almost cloudless sky, (b scattered clouds, (c mostly cloudy – high clouds, (d overcast – low clouds. An additional case, which may be treated separately, corresponds to precipitation (rain or snow. The main features for estimating sky conditions are, as expected, solar radiation and its temporal variability. The accuracy of this method of guessing sky conditions compared with human observations is around 70% when applied to four sites in Catalonia (NE Iberian Peninsula. The agreement increases if we take into account the uncertainty both in the automatic classifier and in visual observations.

    Key words. Meteorological and atmospheric dynamics (instruments and techniques; radiative processes – Atmospheric composition and structure (cloud physics and chemistry

  4. SkyDiscovery: Humans and Machines Working Together

    Science.gov (United States)

    Donalek, Ciro; Fang, K.; Drake, A. J.; Djorgovski, S. G.; Graham, M. J.; Mahabal, A.; Williams, R.

    2011-01-01

    Synoptic sky surveys are now discovering tens to hundreds of transient events every clear night, and that data rate is expected to increase dramatically as we move towards the LSST. A key problem is classification of transients, which determines their scientific interest and possible follow-up. Some of the relevant information is contextual, and easily recognizable by humans looking at images, but it is very hard to encode in the data pipelines. Crowdsourcing (aka Citizen Science) provides one possible way to gather such information. SkyDiscovery.org is a website that allows experts and citizen science enthusiasts to work together and share information in a collaborative scientific discovery environment. Currently there are two projects running on the website. In the Event Classification project users help finding candidate transients through a series of questions related to the images shown. Event classification depends very much form the contextual information and humans are remarkably effective at recognizing noise in incomplete heterogeneous data and figuring out which contextual information is important. In the SNHunt project users are requested to look for new objects appearing on images of galaxies taken by the Catalina Real-time Transient Survey, in order to find all the supernovae occurring in nearby bright galaxies. Images are served alongside with other tools that can help the discovery. A multi level approach allows the complexity of the interface to be tailored to the expertise level of the user. An entry level user can just review images and validate events as being real, while a more advanced user would be able to interact with the data associated to an event. The data gathered will not be only analyzed and used directly for some specific science project, but also to train well-defined algorithms to be used in automating such data analysis in the future.

  5. The Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    2009-05-18

    Research Center for the Early Universe, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo , Bunkyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan 59 Obserwatorium...Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo , Bunkyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan 73 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA 74 Korea

  6. The Sixth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    2008-04-01

    of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo , Bunkyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan. 63 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 94720. 64 Korea...of Physics and Research Center for the Early Universe, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo , Bunkyo, Tokyo 113-0033

  7. The Fifth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    2007-10-01

    5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637. 20 Department of Physics of Complex Systems , Eötvös Loránd University, Pf. 32, H-1518 Budapest...stellar targets to study the structure , chemical evolution, and stellar content of theMilkyWay. Future SDSS data releases will include data from all... outrigger ’’ stripes, centered roughly at ¼ þ15 and 10, respectively (these are visible on the right-hand side of the panels of Fig. 1). We have

  8. The Third Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    2005-03-01

    11,12 Michael R. Blanton,10 John J. Bochanski, Jr.,3 William N. Boroski,2 Howard J. Brewington,4 John W. Briggs ,13 J. Brinkmann,4 Robert J. Brunner,14...Maki Sekiguchi,54 Erin Sheldon,8,9 Kazu Shimasaku,47 Nicole M. Silvestri,3 J. Allyn Smith,34,55 Vernesa Smolčić,56 Stephanie A. Snedden,4 Albert

  9. The Second Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    2004-07-01

    Bernardi,11 Michael R. Blanton,10 John J. Bochanski, Jr.,3 William N. Boroski,2 John W. Briggs ,8 J. Brinkmann,5 Robert J. Brunner,12 Tamás Budavári,7...Walter A. Siegmund,49 Nicole M. Silvestri,3 J. Allyn Smith,29, 50 Vernesa Smolčić,48 Stephanie A. Snedden,5 Albert Stebbins,2 Chris Stoughton,2

  10. THE ELM SURVEY. IV. 24 WHITE DWARF MERGER SYSTEMS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kilic, Mukremin; Brown, Warren R.; Kenyon, S. J.; Allende Prieto, Carlos; Heinke, Craig O.; Agüeros, M. A.; Kleinman, S. J.

    2012-01-01

    We present new radial velocity and X-ray observations of extremely low mass (ELM, ∼0.2 M ☉ ) white dwarf (WD) candidates in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 area. We identify seven new binary systems with 1-18 hr orbital periods. Five of the systems will merge due to gravitational wave radiation within 10 Gyr, bringing the total number of merger systems found in the ELM Survey to 24. The ELM Survey has now quintupled the known merger WD population. It has also discovered the eight shortest period detached binary WD systems currently known. We discuss the characteristics of the merger and non-merger systems observed in the ELM Survey, including their future evolution. About half of the systems have extreme mass ratios. These are the progenitors of the AM Canum Venaticorum systems and Type Ia supernovae. The remaining targets will lead to the formation of extreme helium stars, subdwarfs, or massive WDs. We identify three targets that are excellent gravitational wave sources. These should be detected by the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna like missions within the first year of operation. The remaining targets are important indicators of what the Galactic foreground may look like for gravitational wave observatories.

  11. THE ELM SURVEY. IV. 24 WHITE DWARF MERGER SYSTEMS

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kilic, Mukremin [Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Oklahoma, 440 West Brooks Street, Norman, OK 73019 (United States); Brown, Warren R.; Kenyon, S. J. [Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Allende Prieto, Carlos [Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, E-38205 La Laguna, Tenerife (Spain); Heinke, Craig O. [Department of Physics, CCIS 4-183, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2E1 (Canada); Agueeros, M. A. [Department of Astronomy, Columbia University, 550 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027 (United States); Kleinman, S. J., E-mail: kilic@ou.edu [Gemini Observatory, 670 North A' ohoku Place, Hilo, HI 96720 (United States)

    2012-06-01

    We present new radial velocity and X-ray observations of extremely low mass (ELM, {approx}0.2 M{sub Sun }) white dwarf (WD) candidates in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 area. We identify seven new binary systems with 1-18 hr orbital periods. Five of the systems will merge due to gravitational wave radiation within 10 Gyr, bringing the total number of merger systems found in the ELM Survey to 24. The ELM Survey has now quintupled the known merger WD population. It has also discovered the eight shortest period detached binary WD systems currently known. We discuss the characteristics of the merger and non-merger systems observed in the ELM Survey, including their future evolution. About half of the systems have extreme mass ratios. These are the progenitors of the AM Canum Venaticorum systems and Type Ia supernovae. The remaining targets will lead to the formation of extreme helium stars, subdwarfs, or massive WDs. We identify three targets that are excellent gravitational wave sources. These should be detected by the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna like missions within the first year of operation. The remaining targets are important indicators of what the Galactic foreground may look like for gravitational wave observatories.

  12. Recalculating the quasar luminosity function of the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Caditz, David M.

    2017-12-01

    Aims: The extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey provides a uniform sample of over 13 000 variability selected quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) in the redshift range 0.68 based on this survey may be in error because the k-correction has apparently been misapplied, which results in underestimating the intrinsic brightness of roughly half of the eBOSS sources. This work provides new estimates of the QLF based on a corrected eBOSS dataset. Methods: Intrinsic luminosities were recalculated using the appropriate g-band k-correction function. The QLF was determined for the corrected dataset using a model-weighted estimator, and parametric models were refit to the corrected luminosity function. Projected number counts based on the corrected models are also provided. Results: At redshifts higher than the "pivot" redshift, zp = 2.2, the original and recalculated results differ significantly; in particular, the new results show stronger high-redshift evolution in the best-fit models than the original eBOSS analysis. A new seven-parameter QLF model is provided that fits the corrected eBOSS dataset.

  13. Evaluation of Clear Sky Models for Satellite-Based Irradiance Estimates

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Sengupta, Manajit [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Gotseff, Peter [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

    2013-12-01

    This report describes an intercomparison of three popular broadband clear sky solar irradiance model results with measured data, as well as satellite-based model clear sky results compared to measured clear sky data. The authors conclude that one of the popular clear sky models (the Bird clear sky model developed by Richard Bird and Roland Hulstrom) could serve as a more accurate replacement for current satellite-model clear sky estimations. Additionally, the analysis of the model results with respect to model input parameters indicates that rather than climatological, annual, or monthly mean input data, higher-time-resolution input parameters improve the general clear sky model performance.

  14. Planck early results. XXIII. The first all-sky survey of Galactic cold clumps

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Poutanen, T.; Natoli, P.; Polenta, G.

    2011-01-01

    We present the statistical properties of the Cold Clump Catalogue of Planck Objects (C3PO), the first all-sky catalogue of cold objects, in terms of their spatial distribution, dust temperature, distance, mass, and morphology. We have combined Planck and IRAS data to extract 10342 cold sources...... dark clouds where the latter have been catalogued. These cold clumps are not isolated but clustered in groups. Dust temperature and emissivity spectral index values are derived from their spectral energy distributions using both Planck and IRAS data. The temperatures range from 7K to 19K...

  15. A Precision Photometric Comparison between SDSS-II and CSP Type Ia Supernova Data

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mosher, J.; Sako, M.; Corlies, L.

    2012-01-01

    Consistency between Carnegie Supernova Project (CSP) and SDSS-II Supernova Survey ugri measurements has been evaluated by comparing Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and CSP photometry for nine spectroscopically confirmed Type Ia supernova observed contemporaneously by both programs. The CSP data...

  16. SDSS-IV MaNGA IFS GALAXY SURVEY—SURVEY DESIGN, EXECUTION, AND INITIAL DATA QUALITY

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yan, Renbin; Zhang, Kai [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kentucky, 505 Rose Street, Lexington, KY 40506-0057 (United States); Bundy, Kevin [Kavli IPMU (WPI), UTIAS, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8583 (Japan); Law, David R. [Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Bershady, Matthew A.; Diamond-Stanic, Aleksandar M. [Department of Astronomy, University of Winsconsin-Madison, 475 N. Charter Street, Madison, WI 53706-1582 (United States); Andrews, Brett [Department of Physics and Astronomy and Pittsburgh Particle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology Center (PITT PACC), University of Pittsburgh, 3941 OHara Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 (United States); Cherinka, Brian [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg Center, 3400 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States); Drory, Niv [McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, Austin, TX 78712-0259 (United States); MacDonald, Nicholas; Sánchez-Gallego, José R. [Department of Astronomy, Box 351580, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States); Thomas, Daniel; Westfall, Kyle B. [Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth (United Kingdom); Wake, David A. [Department of Physical Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA (United Kingdom); Weijmans, Anne-Marie [School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews, North Haugh, St Andrews KY16 9SS (United Kingdom); Aragón-Salamanca, Alfonso [School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD (United Kingdom); Belfiore, Francesco, E-mail: yanrenbin@uky.edu [Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, 19 J. J. Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0HE (United Kingdom); and others

    2016-12-01

    The MaNGA Survey (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory) is one of three core programs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV. It is obtaining integral field spectroscopy for 10,000 nearby galaxies at a spectral resolution of R  ∼ 2000 from 3622 to 10354 Å. The design of the survey is driven by a set of science requirements on the precision of estimates of the following properties: star formation rate surface density, gas metallicity, stellar population age, metallicity, and abundance ratio, and their gradients; stellar and gas kinematics; and enclosed gravitational mass as a function of radius. We describe how these science requirements set the depth of the observations and dictate sample selection. The majority of targeted galaxies are selected to ensure uniform spatial coverage in units of effective radius (R{sub e}) while maximizing spatial resolution. About two-thirds of the sample is covered out to 1.5 R{sub e} (Primary sample), and one-third of the sample is covered to 2.5 R{sub e} (Secondary sample). We describe the survey execution with details that would be useful in the design of similar future surveys. We also present statistics on the achieved data quality, specifically the point-spread function, sampling uniformity, spectral resolution, sky subtraction, and flux calibration. For our Primary sample, the median r -band signal-to-noise ratio is ∼70 per 1.4 Å pixel for spectra stacked between 1 R{sub e} and 1.5 R{sub e}. Measurements of various galaxy properties from the first-year data show that we are meeting or exceeding the defined requirements for the majority of our science goals.

  17. A survey of digital radiography practice in four South African teaching hospitals: an illuminative study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nyathi, T; Chirwa, Tf; van der Merwe, Dg

    2010-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to assess radiographer familiarity and preferences with digital radiography in four teaching hospitals and thereafter make recommendations in line with the migration from screen film to digital radiography. A questionnaire was designed to collect data from either qualified or student radiographers from four teaching hospitals. From the four teaching hospitals, there were a total of 205 potential respondents. Among other things, responses regarding experiences and preferences with digital radiography, quality control procedures, patient dose, advantages and disadvantages of digital radiography were sought. The information collected was based on self-reporting by the participants. The study is exploratory in nature and descriptive statistics were generated from the collected data using Microsoft Excel 2007 and StatsDirect software. Sixty-three out of 205 (31%) radiographers from all the four radiology centers responded to the circulated questionnaire. Only 15% (8) of the qualified radiographers had 4 or more years of experience with digital radiography compared to 68% (36) for the same amount of experience with screen-film radiography. Sixty-one percent (38) of the participants had been exposed to digital radiography during their lectures while at university. A small proportion, 16% (10) of the respondents underwent formal training in quality control procedures on the digital X-ray units they were using. Slightly more than half (55%) of the participants felt it was easier for them to retake an image in digital radiography than in screen film radiography. The results of this survey showed that the participants are familiar with digital radiography and have embraced this relatively new technology as shown by the fact that they can identify both its advantages and disadvantages as applied to clinical practice. However, there are minimal quality control procedures specific to digital radiography being undertaken as such there is need for

  18. DETECTION OF A NEARBY HALO DEBRIS STREAM IN THE WISE AND 2MASS SURVEYS

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Grillmair, Carl J. [Spitzer Science Center, 1200 E. California Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States); Cutri, Roc; Masci, Frank J.; Conrow, Tim [Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States); Sesar, Branimir [Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States); Eisenhardt, Peter R. M. [Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, MS 169-327, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 (United States); Wright, Edward L., E-mail: carl@ipac.caltech.edu, E-mail: roc@ipac.caltech.edu, E-mail: fmasci@ipac.caltech.edu, E-mail: tim@ipac.caltech.edu, E-mail: bsesar@astro.caltech.edu, E-mail: peter.r.eisenhardt@jpl.nasa.gov, E-mail: wright@astro.ucla.edu [Department of Physics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095 (United States)

    2013-06-01

    Combining the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer All-Sky Release with the Two Micron All Sky Survey Point Source Catalog, we detect a nearby, moderately metal-poor stellar debris stream spanning 24° across the southern sky. The stream, which we designate Alpheus, is at an estimated distance of ∼1.9 kpc. Its position, orientation, width, estimated metallicity, and, to some extent, its distance, are in approximate agreement with what one might expect of the leading tidal tail of the southern globular cluster NGC 288.

  19. Spectroscopic Determination of the Low Redshift Type Ia Supernova Rate from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Krughoff, K.Simon; Connolly, Andrew J.; Frieman, Joshua; SubbaRao, Mark; Kilper, Gary; Schneider, Donald P.

    2011-04-10

    Supernova rates are directly coupled to high mass stellar birth and evolution. As such, they are one of the few direct measures of the history of cosmic stellar evolution. In this paper we describe an probabilistic technique for identifying supernovae within spectroscopic samples of galaxies. We present a study of 52 type Ia supernovae ranging in age from -14 days to +40 days extracted from a parent sample of \\simeq 50,000 spectra from the SDSS DR5. We find a Supernova Rate (SNR) of 0.472^{+0.048}_{-0.039}(Systematic)^{+0.081}_{-0.071}(Statistical)SNu at a redshift of = 0.1. This value is higher than other values at low redshift at the 1{\\sigma}, but is consistent at the 3{\\sigma} level. The 52 supernova candidates used in this study comprise the third largest sample of supernovae used in a type Ia rate determination to date. In this paper we demonstrate the potential for the described approach for detecting supernovae in future spectroscopic surveys.

  20. The Sky at Night

    CERN Document Server

    Moore, Patrick

    2010-01-01

    For more than 50 years now Sir Patrick Moore has presented the BBC Television series Sky at Night; not a month has been missed – a record for any television series, and a record which may never be broken. Every three years or so a book is published covering the main events in both astronomy and space research. This is the 13th volume, not only a record of the programmes but also of the great advances and discoveries during the period covered - eclipses, comets, and the strange chemical lakes of Titan, for instance, but also anniversaries such as the fifteenth “birthday” of the Hubble Space Telescope, and not forgetting the programme celebrating the Sky at Night’s 50th year, attended by astronaut Piers Sellars and many others who appeared on the programme over the years. All the chapters are self-contained, and fully illustrated. In this new Sky at Night book you will find much to entertain you. It will appeal to amateurs and professionals alike.