The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) will provide the data to support detailed investigations of the distribution of luminous and non- luminous matter in the Universe: a photometrically and astrometrically calibrated digital imaging survey of pi steradians above about Galactic latitude 30 degrees in five broad optical bands to a depth of g' about 23 magnitudes, and a spectroscopic survey of the approximately one million brightest galaxies and 10^5 brightest quasars found in the photometric object catalog produced by the imaging survey. This paper summarizes the observational parameters and data products of the SDSS, and serves as an introduction to extensive technical on-line documentation.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, AAS Latex. To appear in AJ, Sept 200

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We measure cosmological parameters using the three-dimensional power spectrum P (k) from over 200,000 galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in combination with WMAP and other data. Our results are consistent with a "vanilla" flat adiabatic ΛCDM model without tilt (ns = 1), running tilt, tensor modes or massive neutrinos. Adding SDSS information more than halves the WMAP-only error bars on some parameters, tightening 1σ constraints on the Hubble parameter from h ≈ 0.74−0.03 , on the matter density from Ωm ≈ 0.25 ± 0.10 to Ωm ≈ 0.30 ± 0.04 (1σ) and on neutrino masses from < 11 eV to < 0.6 eV (95%). SDSS helps even more when dropping prior assumptions about curvature, neutrinos, tensor modes and the equation of state. Our results are in substantial agreement with the joint analysis of WMAP and the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, which is an impressive consistency check with independent redshift survey data and analysis techniques. In this paper, we place particular emphasis on clarifying the physical origin of the constraints, i.e., what we do and do not know when using different data sets and prior assumptions. For instance, dropping the assumption that space is perfectly flat, the WMAP-only constraint on the measured age of the Universe tightens from t0 ≈ 16.3 +2.3 −1.8 Gyr to t0 ≈ 14.1Gyr by adding SDSS and SN Ia data. Including tensors, running tilt, neutrino mass and equation of state in the list of free parameters, many constraints are still quite weak, but future cosmological measurements from SDSS and other sources should allow these to be substantially tightened.

Using a catalog of 147,986 galaxy redshifts and fluxes from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), we measure the galaxy luminosity density at z ¼ 0:1 in five optical bandpasses corresponding to the SDSS bandpasses shifted to match their rest-frame shape at z ¼ 0:1. We denote the bands 0.1 u, 0.1 g, 0.1 r, 0.1 i, 0.1 z with eff ¼ ð3216; 4240; 5595; 6792; 8111 GÞ, respectively. To estimate the luminosity function, we use a maximum likelihood method that allows for a general form for the shape of the luminosity function, fits for simple luminosity and number evolution, incorporates the flux uncertainties, and accounts for the flux limits of the survey. We find luminosity densities at z ¼ 0:1 expressed in absolute AB magnitudes in a Mpc 3 to be (À14:10 AE 0:15, À15:18 AE 0:03, À15:90 AE 0:03, À16:24 AE 0:03, À16:56 AE 0:02) in ( 0.1 u, 0.1 g, 0.1 r, 0.1 i, 0.1 z), respectively, for a cosmological model with 0 ¼ 0:3, à ¼ 0:7, and h ¼ 1 and using SDSS Petrosian magnitudes. Similar results are obtained using Sérsic model magnitudes, suggesting that flux from outside the Petrosian apertures is not a major correction. In the 0.1 r band, the best-fit Schechter function to our results has à ¼ ð1:49 AE 0:04Þ Â 10 À2 h 3 Mpc À3 , M à À 5 log 10 h ¼ À20:44 AE 0:01, and ¼ À1:05 AE 0:01. In solar luminosities, the luminosity density in 0.1 r is ð1:84 AE 0:04Þ Â 10 8 h L 0:1 r; Mpc À3 . Our results in the 0.1 g band are consistent with other estimates of the luminosity density, from the Two-Degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey and the Millennium Galaxy Catalog. They represent a substantial change ($0.5 mag) from earlier SDSS luminosity density results based on commissioning data, almost entirely because of the inclusion of evolution in the luminosity function model.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is an imaging and spectroscopic survey that will eventually cover approximately one-quarter of the celestial sphere and collect spectra of %10 6 galaxies, 100,000 quasars, 30,000 stars, and 30,000 serendipity targets. In 2001 June, the SDSS released to the general astronomical community its early data release, roughly 462 deg 2 of imaging data including almost 14 million detected objects and 54,008 follow-up spectra. The imaging data were collected in drift-scan mode in five bandpasses (u, g, r, i, and z); our 95% completeness limits for stars are 22.0, 22.2, 22.2, 21.3, and 20.5, respectively. The photometric calibration is reproducible to 5%, 3%, 3%, 3%, and 5%, respectively. The spectra are flux-and wavelength-calibrated, with 4096 pixels from 3800 to 9200 Å at R % 1800. We present the means by which these data are distributed to the astronomical community, descriptions of the hardware used to obtain the data, the software used for processing the data, the measured quantities for each observed object, and an overview of the properties of this data set.