http://arxiv.org/abs/1812.02759
Twenty years have passed since first light for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Here, we release data taken by the fourth phase of SDSS (SDSS-IV) across its first three years of operation (July 2014-July 2017). This is the third data release for SDSS-IV, and the fifteenth from SDSS (Data Release Fifteen; DR15). New data come from MaNGA – we release 4824 datacubes, as well as the first stellar spectra in the MaNGA Stellar Library (MaStar), the first set of survey-supported analysis products (e.g. stellar and gas kinematics, emission line, and other maps) from the MaNGA Data Analysis Pipeline (DAP), and a new data visualisation and access tool we call “Marvin”. The next data release, DR16, will include new data from both APOGEE-2 and eBOSS; those surveys release no new data here, but we document updates and corrections to their data processing pipelines. The release is cumulative; it also includes the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since first light. In this paper we describe the location and format of the data and tools and cite technical references describing how it was obtained and processed. The SDSS website (www.sdss.org) has also been updated, providing links to data downloads, tutorials and examples of data use. While SDSS-IV will continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be followed by SDSS-V (2020-2025), we end this paper by describing plans to ensure the sustainability of the SDSS data archive for many years beyond the collection of data.
D. Aguado, R. Ahumada, A. Almeida, et. al.
Mon, 10 Dec 18
21/57
Comments: Paper to accompany DR15, 10th December 2018. 25 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJSS. The two papers on the MaNGA Data Analysis Pipeline (DAP, Westfall et al. and Belfiore et al.) referenced in Section 4.1.2, and the paper on Marvin (Cherinka et al.) referenced in Section 4.2 have been submitted for SDSS-IV collaboration review and will be posted to arXiv in due course