The Sloan Digital Sky Survey data acquisition system, and early results

Conference · Tue Jun 29 04:00:00 EDT 1999

OSTI ID:8289

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey will systematically map one- quarter of the sky, producing detailed images in five color bands and determining the positions and absolute bright- nesses of more than 100 million celestial objects. It will also measure the redshifts of a million selected galaxies and of 100,000 quasars, yielding a three-dimensional map of the universe through a volume one hundred times larger than that explored to date. The SDSS collaboration is currently in the process of commissioning the 2.5-meter survey tele- scope. We describe the data acquisition system used to record the survey data. This system consists of twelve sin- gle board computers and their associated interfaces to the camera and spectrograph CCD electronics, to tape drives, and to online video displays, distributed among several VME crates. A central UNIX computer connected to the VME crates via a vertical bus adapter coordinates the sys- tem and provides the interface to telescope operations. We briefly discuss results from the observing runs to date and plans for the archiving and distribution of data.

• Research Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Research (ER)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-76CH03000
• OSTI ID: 8289
• Report Number(s): FERMILAB-Conf-99/178-A; ON: DE00008289
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

66 PHYSICS
Data Acquisition Systems
Data Base Management
Design
Telescopes