The Neverending Survey

The decades-long Sloan Digital Sky Survey project has transformed how astronomers do astronomy.

by Karen Masters

THE TELESCOPE USED MOST across professional astronomy isn't the biggest or the newest, and it isn't in space. It's a modest telescope on a mountain in New Mexico. The images and spectra from this facility, the Sloan Foundation 2.5-metre Telescope at Apache Point Observatory, are so ubiquitous that many astronomers don't even think about where the data come from. But this unassuming telescope and the (so far) five phases of its Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) have revolutionised how astronomers work. The original idea behind the SDSS was to make an enormous map of the universe. To do this, the collaboration developed a huge digital camera, which held the record for being the largest camera in the world for over a decade. Before megapixel smartphones became our pocket cameras, this 126-megapixel…

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Australian Sky & Telescope (Digital) - 1 Issue, March 2023

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