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 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 the discovery of new objects. Supernova imaging observations are being acquired between September 1 and November 30 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.

We present new H i spectral line imaging of the extremely metal-poor, star-forming dwarf irregular galaxy Leo P. Our H i images probe the global neutral gas properties and the local conditions of the interstellar medium (ISM). The H i morphology is slightly elongated along the optical major axis. We do not find obvious signatures of interaction or infalling gas at large spatial scales. The neutral gas disk shows obvious rotation, although the velocity dispersion is comparable to the rotation velocity. The rotation amplitude is estimated to be V c =15 ± 5 km s −1 . Within the H i radius probed by these observations, the mass ratio of gas to stars is roughly 2:1, while the ratio of the total mass to the baryonic mass is 15:1. We use this information to place Leo P on the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation, testing the baryonic content of cosmic structures in a sparsely populated portion of parameter space that has hitherto been occupied primarily by dwarf spheroidal galaxies. We detect the signature of two temperature components in the neutral ISM of Leo P; the cold and warm components have characteristic velocity widths of 4.2 ± 0.9 km s −1 and 10.1 ± 1.2 km s −1 , corresponding to kinetic temperature upper limits of ∼1100 K and ∼6200 K, respectively. The cold H i component is unresolved at a physical resolution of 200 pc. The highest H i surface densities are observed in close physical proximity to the single H ii region. A comparison of the neutral gas properties of Leo P with other extremely metal-deficient (XMD) galaxies reveals that Leo P has the lowest neutral gas mass of any known XMD, and that the dynamical mass of Leo P is more than two orders of magnitude smaller than any known XMD with comparable metallicity.

We present new KAT-7 observations of the neutral hydrogen (H i) spectral line, and polarized radio continuum emission, in the grand design spiral M 83. These observations provide a sensitive probe of the outer disk structure and kinematics, revealing a vast and massive neutral gas distribution that appears to be tightly coupled to the interaction of the galaxy with the environment. We present a new rotation curve extending out to a radius of 50 kpc. Based on our new H i dataset and comparison with multiwavelength data from the literature we consider the impact of mergers on the outer disk and discuss the evolution of M 83. We also study the periphery of the H i distribution and reveal a sharp edge to the gaseous disk that is consistent with photoionization or ram pressure from the intergalactic medium (IGM). The radio continuum emission is not nearly as extended as the H i and is restricted to the main optical disk. Despite the relatively low angular resolution we are able to draw broad conclusions about the large-scale magnetic field topology. We show that the magnetic field of M 83 is similar in form to other nearby star forming galaxies, and suggest that the disk-halo interface may host a large-scale regular magnetic field.

This paper presents spectroscopy of supernovae (SNe) discovered in the first season of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II SN Survey. This program searches for and measures multi-band light curves of SNe in the redshift range z = 0.05-0.4, complementing existing surveys at lower and higher redshifts. Our goal is to better characterize the SN population, with a particular focus on SNe Ia, improving their utility as cosmological distance indicators and as probes of dark energy. Our SN spectroscopy program features rapid-response observations using telescopes of a range of apertures, and provides confirmation of the SN and host-galaxy types as well as precise redshifts. 1766No. 5, 2008 SDSS-II SN SURVEY SPECTROSCOPY 1767We 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.

We present kinematic analyses of the 12 galaxies in the "Survey of H I in Extremely Low-mass Dwarfs" (SHIELD). We use multi-configuration interferometric observations of the H I 21 cm emission line from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) 22 to produce image cubes at a variety of spatial and spectral resolutions. Both two-and three-dimensional fitting techniques are employed in an attempt to derive inclination-corrected rotation curves for each galaxy. In most cases, the comparable magnitudes of velocity dispersion and projected rotation result in degeneracies that prohibit unambiguous circular velocity solutions. We thus make spatially resolved position-velocity cuts, corrected for inclination using the stellar components, to estimate the circular rotation velocities. We find v circ  30 km s −1 for the entire survey population. Baryonic masses are calculated using singledish H I fluxes from Arecibo and stellar masses derived from HST and Spitzer imaging. Comparison is made with total dynamical masses estimated from the position-velocity analysis. The SHIELD galaxies are then placed on the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation. There exists an empirical threshold rotational velocity, Vrot < 15 km s −1 , below which current observations cannot differentiate coherent rotation from pressure support. The SHIELD galaxies are representative of an important population of galaxies whose properties cannot be described by current models of rotationally dominated galaxy dynamics.