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SDSS-V is the first facility providing multi-epoch optical & IR spectroscopy across the entire sky, as well as offering contiguous integral-field spectroscopic coverage of the Milky Way and Local Volume galaxies. This panoptic spectroscopic survey continues the strong SDSS legacy of innovative data and collaboration infrastructure.
SDSS-V: Pioneering Panoptic Spectroscopy
SDSS-V’s robots turn their eyes to the sky
After twenty-one years of observers loading heavy aluminum plates night after night, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is now seeing the cosmos through robotic eyes. Following more than five years of design, development and construction, survey members worked over the final months of 2021 to install the new robotic Focal Plane System (FPS) on the Sloan Foundation 2.5m Telescope at Apache Point Observatory (APO).
Serving up the Universe on a plate
They may not look like much — just metal disks 80 centimeters (30 inches) across with some etched markings and hundreds of small holes — but round aluminum “plates” like this one from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) have been vital to mapping our universe for more than 20 years.
Next-gen astronomical survey makes its first observations toward a new understanding of the cosmos
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey’s fifth generation collected its very first observations of the cosmos at 1:47 a.m. on October 24, 2020. As the world’s first all-sky time-domain spectroscopic survey, SDSS-V will provide groundbreaking insight into the formation and evolution of galaxies — like our own Milky Way — and of the supermassive black holes that lurk at their centers. También en Español
A time-domain, optical+IR spectroscopic survey of Milky Way stars of all types. Image credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC
Program Head: Jennifer Johnson
(The Ohio State University)
An optical, integral-field spectroscopic survey of the Milky Way and its galactic neighbors. Image credit: NASA, ESA/A. Nota
Program Head: Niv Drory
(University of Texas at Austin)
An optical time-domain spectroscopic survey of quasars and X-ray sources. Image credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
Program Head: Scott Anderson
(University of Washington)
Join us!
SDSS-V, like previous SDSS surveys, remains committed to making its data publicly available in a format that is helpful to a broad range of users, from beginner students to both amateur and professional astronomers. However, without extensive federal or other large-scale funding, this commitment is not possible to fulfill without membership contributions from institutional partners. SDSS-V is actively seeking participation from new membership partners. Our institutional partners benefit from early access to proprietary data, participation in the survey planning process, and involvement of their faculty, postdocs, and students in our global science collaborative network.
Policies for joining SDSS-V at a variety of levels can be found in the Joining Document. The general policies for SDSS-V are defined in its current Principles of Operation.
To encourage new institutions interested in SDSS-V to join the SDSS science collaboration now, we are announcing the following opportunity for SDSS-V institutions to also join SDSS-IV for a small additional price. For SDSS-V institutions, each SDSS-IV “slot” will be priced at $25,000, rather than the original price of $210,000. The cost will scale with the number of slots for larger memberships, in the ordinary fashion defined in the SDSS-IV Principles of Operation. Institutions can take advantage of this incentive to bring their total number of SDSS-IV slots up to but not exceeding their total number of SDSS-V slots. The SDSS-IV portion of the payments will be due upon signing the SDSS-IV MOU, whereas the SDSS-V portion of the payments will be due on a normal schedule or as negotiated with SDSS-V.
A list of current member institutions (as of October 2020) can be found on the SDSS-V Collaboration page.