Extra-galactic Observing Programs

SDSS has conducted a number of extragalactic single-fiber spectroscopic programs (or surveys) over the years, from SDSS-I/II through to SDSS-IV. This page summarises the main features and distinctions between these programs, namely the Legacy Survey, BOSS, SEQUELS and eBOSS (including TDSS and SPIDERS).

Legacy Survey

What is now known as the Legacy Survey refers to the observing programs carried out during SDSS-I/II (2000-2008). The spectroscopic part of the legacy survey targeted galaxies and quasars, over a photometric footprint spanning in excess of 7500 square degrees. The complete spectroscopic samples of the Legacy Survey were released in DR7.

Galaxies

The galaxies in the legacy survey were targeted via two main selections. The Main Galaxy Sample (MGS) (Strauss et al. 2001) is a highly complete spectroscopic sample, essentially magnitude limited by $r_p < 17.77$. The Luminous Red Galaxies (LRG) sample (Eisenstein et al. 2001) is a heavily colour and magnitude selected spectroscopic sample that targets the brightest and reddest galaxies out to a redshift of 0.5 (the LRG sample itself uses two separate cuts to target galaxies at low and high redshift).

Quasars

QSOs targeted during the legacy survey were primarily identified as outliers from the stellar locus. The selection is documented in Richards et al. 2002, and a final quasar catalogue was released in Schneider et al. (2010).

BOSS

BOSS was the only extragalactic survey in SDSS-III (2008-2013), and it targeted both galaxies and quasars. BOSS benefited from a new spectrograph and new optical fibres, featuring a smaller aperture (2 arc-seconds instead of 3 arc-seconds). BOSS data was first released in DR9, and the complete BOSS data was released in DR12.

Galaxies

BOSS galaxy target selection was designed around its main science requirements - a measurement of the angular diameter distance with a precision of 1% at redshifts z = 0.3 and z = 0.55. This required two galaxy target algorithms: LOWZ (0.15 < z 0.45) and CMASS (0.4 < z < 0.7). The LOWZ selection is a simple extension of the Legacy Survey LRG Cut-I selection, extended primarily towards fainter targets in order to increase the spacial number density by approximately a factor of three. The CMASS selection is an extension of the Legacy Survey Cut-II selection, extended both by including fainter and bluer targets in order to increase the spacial number density.

Quasars

BOSS quasar target selection (Ross et al. 2012) was designed to select high-redshift (z > 2.15) objects, as tracers of the large-scale structure via the Ly$\alpha$ forest. As such, it differed substantially from the target selection used in the Legacy Survey.

SEQUELS

SEQUELS is a stand-alone ancillary observing program that spans across SDSS-III and SDSS-IV. It was designed as a pilot program for eBOSS, targeting luminous red galaxies, emission line galaxies (ELGs) and quasars. In total, 117 plates were observed (66 during SDSS-III, released in DR12 and 51 during SDSS-IV, released in DR13).

SEQUELS LRGs

Pushing the targeting of LRGs beyond the redshifts probed by the Legacy LRG and BOSS samples requires the use of photometry redward of the SDSS z-band. SEQUELS trialled two different target algorithms using data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) with the goal of extending the redshift peak of the LRG sample to z~0.7. See Prakash et al (2016) for details on targeting.

SEQUELS QSOs

In addition to Ly-$\alpha$ quasars at z > 2.5, SEQUELS for the first time targets QSO to be used as direct probes of the large-scale structure at 0.5 < z < 2.5. This requires a targeting density of 68.8 per square degree. Quasar targeting for SEQUELS and eBOSS is described in Myers et al. (2015).

SEQUELS ELGs

SEQUELS targets ELGs using SCUSS and SDSS imaging, as detailed in Section 2.5.2 of Comparat et al. (2015).

eBOSS

eBOSS (2014-2020) is an SDSS-IV program, targeting LRGs, ELGs and QSOs (Dawson et al. 2016). eBOSS focuses on measuring the BAO acoustic scale at redshifts left unexplored by BOSS, namely the gap between CMASS (z < 0.7) and the Ly$\alpha$ quasars (z > 2.5). The first eBOSS spectroscopic data release is in DR14, comprising primarily of LRGs and QSOs.

The eBOSS target selection is heavily based on the study of the SEQUELS plates and is now final and fully documented. Although the targeting for all the main classes was slightly modified from SEQUELS to eBOSS, the main difference is in ELG targeting which, for eBOSS, is based on DECaLS imaging. See Raichoor et al (2017) and Comparat et al. (2016).

TDSS

The Time-Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS) is a sub-program of eBOSS, selecting time-variable targets for spectroscopic follow-up - see Green et al. (2015) and Morganson et al. (2015).

SPIDERS

SPIDERS (SPectroscopic IDentifcation of ERosita Sources) is a sub-program of eBOSS, targeting X-ray selected clusters, see Clerc et al. (2016) and AGN Dwelly et al. (2017).

References

Eisenstein et al. 2001
Comparat et al. 2015
Comparat et al. (2016)
Dawson et al. 2016
Green et al. (2015)
Morganson et al. (2015)
Myers et al. (2015).
Prakash et al (2016)
Raichoor et al (2017)
Ross et al. 2012
Schneider et al. (2010)
Strauss et al. 2002