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Sloan Survey Second Data Release

Posted by timothy on from the tax-sink dept.

TMB writes "The Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a large survey for distant galaxies and quasars that will cover 1/4 of the sky, just celebrated Data Release 2. The imaging data covers 3324 square degrees, with 88 million objects, plus spectra of 367,360 objects (mostly galaxies)."

2 of 14 comments (clear)

  1. *3283* square degrees per steradian by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    (180/Pi)^2 = 3282.8063500117437947816946079953

  2. Re:mindboggling indeed by TMB · · Score: 2, Informative

    Just to clarify... in the imaging data, the stars outnumber galaxies by a lot. They purposely target likely galaxies for spectroscopy, which is why there are more galaxies than anything else in the spectroscopic data.

    That's in contrast with the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, where almost every object is a galaxy, because they purposely chose a patch of sky with very few stars.

    But, yes, there are an incredible number of stars in the observable universe. :)

    [TMB]