SDSS Data Releases

The SDSS publishes its data in batches, called Data Releases, about once every year and a half.

Each data release is cumulative, meaning it contains data for all objects included in all prior data releases. This means that for most purposes, the best data release to use is always the most recent. However, some projects require access to prior releases, and scientific reproducibility requires that data and methods from prior studies should remain available. For these reasons, we make all prior SDSS data releases available online.

The table below gives information about each data release. Click on the name of the data release in the first column to go to that data release’s documentation website.