The Eleventh and Twelfth Data Releases of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Final Data from SDSS-III
Creators: name: Alam, Shadab
name: Albareti, Franco D.
name: Prieto, Carlos Allende
name: Anders, F.
name: Anderson, Scott F.
name: Andrews, Brett H.
name: Armengaud, Eric
name: Aubourg, Éric
name: Bailey, Stephen
name: Bautista, Julian E.
name: Beaton, Rachael L.
name: Beers, Timothy C.
name: Bender, Chad F.
name: Berlind, Andreas A.
name: Beutler, Florian
name: Bhardwaj, Vaishali
name: Bird, Jonathan C.
name: Bizyaev, Dmitry
name: Blake, Cullen H.
name: Blanton, Michael R.
name: Blomqvist, Michael
name: Bochanski, John J.
name: Bolton, Adam S.
name: Bovy, Jo
name: Bradley, A. Shelden
name: Brandt, W. N.
name: Brauer, D. E.
name: Brinkmann, J.
name: Brown, Peter J.
name: Brownstein, Joel R.
name: Burden, Angela
name: Burtin, Etienne
name: Busca, Nicolás G.
name: Cai, Zheng
name: Capozzi, Diego
name: Rosell, Aurelio Carnero
name: Carrera, Ricardo
name: Chen, Yen-Chi
name: Chiappini, Cristina
name: Chojnowski, S. Drew
name: Chuang, Chia-Hsun
name: Clerc, Nicolas
name: Comparat, Johan
name: Covey, Kevin
name: Croft, Rupert A. C.
name: Cuesta, Antonio J.
name: Cunha, Katia
name: da Costa, Luiz N.
name: Da Rio, Nicola
name: Davenport, James R. A.
name: Dawson, Kyle S.
name: De Lee, Nathan
name: Delubac, Timothée
name: Deshpande, Rohit
name: Dutra-Ferreira, Letícia
name: Dwelly, Tom
name: Ealet, Anne
name: Ebelke, Garrett L.
name: Edmondson, Edward M.
name: Eisenstein, Daniel J.
name: Escoffier, Stephanie
name: Esposito, Massimiliano
name: Fan, Xiaohui
name: Fernández-Alvar, Emma
name: Feuillet, Diane
name: Ak, Nurten Filiz
name: Finley, Hayley
name: Finoguenov, Alexis
name: Flaherty, Kevin
name: Fleming, Scott W.
name: Font-Ribera, Andreu
name: Foster, Jonathan
name: Frinchaboy, Peter M.
name: Galbraith-Frew, J. G.
name: García-Hernández, D. A.
name: Pérez, Ana E. García
name: Gaulme, Patrick
name: Ge, Jian
name: Génova-Santos, R.
name: Ghezzi, Luan
name: Gillespie, Bruce A.
name: Girardi, Léo
name: Goddard, Daniel
name: Gontcho, Satya Gontcho A
name: Hernández, Jonay I. González
name: Grebel, Eva K.
name: Grieb, Jan Niklas
name: Grieves, Nolan
name: Gunn, James E.
name: Guo, Hong
name: Harding, Paul
name: Hasselquist, Sten
name: Hawley, Suzanne L.
name: Hayden, Michael
name: Hearty, Fred R.
name: Ho, Shirley
name: Hogg, David W.
name: Holley-Bockelmann, Kelly
name: Holtzman, Jon A.
name: Honscheid, Klaus
name: Huehnerhoff, Joseph
name: Jiang, Linhua
name: Johnson, Jennifer A.
name: Kinemuchi, Karen
name: Kirkby, David
name: Kitaura, Francisco
name: Klaene, Mark A.
name: Kneib, Jean-Paul
name: Koenig, Xavier P.
name: Lam, Charles R.
name: Lan, Ting-Wen
name: Lang, Dustin
name: Laurent, Pierre
name: Goff, Jean-Marc Le
name: Leauthaud, Alexie
name: Lee, Khee-Gan
name: Lee, Young Sun
name: Licquia, Timothy C.
name: Liu, Jian
name: Long, Daniel C.
name: López-Corredoira, Martín
name: Lorenzo-Oliveira, Diego
name: Lucatello, Sara
name: Lundgren, Britt
name: Lupton, Robert H.
name: Mack, Claude E.
name: Mahadevan, Suvrath
name: Maia, Marcio A. G.
name: Majewski, Steven R.
name: Malanushenko, Elena
name: Malanushenko, Viktor
name: Manchado, A.
name: Manera, Marc
name: Mao, Qingqing
name: Maraston, Claudia
name: Marchwinski, Robert C.
name: Margala, Daniel
name: Martell, Sarah L.
name: Martig, Marie
name: Masters, Karen L.
name: McBride, Cameron K.
name: McGehee, Peregrine M.
name: McGreer, Ian D.
name: McMahon, Richard G.
name: Ménard, Brice
name: Menzel, Marie-Luise
name: Merloni, Andrea
name: Mészáros, Szabolcs
name: Miller, Adam A.
name: Miralda-Escudé, Jordi
name: Miyatake, Hironao
name: Montero-Dorta, Antonio D.
name: More, Surhud
name: Morice-Atkinson, Xan
name: Morrison, Heather L.
name: Muna, Demitri
name: Myers, Adam D.
name: Newman, Jeffrey A.
name: Neyrinck, Mark
name: Nguyen, Duy Cuong
name: Nichol, Robert C.
name: Nidever, David L.
name: Noterdaeme, Pasquier
name: Nuza, Sebastián E.
name: O'Connell, Julia E.
name: O'Connell, Robert W.
name: O'Connell, Ross
name: Ogando, Ricardo L. C.
name: Olmstead, Matthew D.
name: Oravetz, Audrey E.
name: Oravetz, Daniel J.
name: Osumi, Keisuke
name: Owen, Russell
name: Padgett, Deborah L.
name: Padmanabhan, Nikhil
name: Paegert, Martin
name: Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie
name: Pan, Kaike
name: Parejko, John K.
name: Park, Changbom
name: Pâris, Isabelle
name: Pattarakijwanich, Petchara
name: Pellejero-Ibanez, M.
name: Pepper, Joshua
name: Percival, Will J.
name: Pérez-Fournon, Ismael
name: Pérez-Ràfols, Ignasi
name: Petitjean, Patrick
name: Pieri, Matthew M.
name: Pinsonneault, Marc H.
name: de Mello, Gustavo F. Porto
name: Prada, Francisco
name: Prakash, Abhishek
name: Price-Whelan, Adrian M.
name: Raddick, M. Jordan
name: Rahman, Mubdi
name: Reid, Beth A.
name: Rich, James
name: Rix, Hans-Walter
name: Robin, Annie C.
name: Rockosi, Constance M.
name: Rodrigues, Thaíse S.
name: Rodríguez-Rottes, Sergio
name: Roe, Natalie A.
name: Ross, Ashley J.
name: Ross, Nicholas P.
name: Rossi, Graziano
name: Ruan, John J.
name: Rubiño-Martín, J. A.
name: Rykoff, Eli S.
name: Salazar-Albornoz, Salvador
name: Salvato, Mara
name: Samushia, Lado
name: Sánchez, Ariel G.
name: Santiago, Basílio
name: Sayres, Conor
name: Schiavon, Ricardo P.
name: Schlegel, David J.
name: Schmidt, Sarah J.
name: Schneider, Donald P.
name: Schultheis, Mathias
name: Schwope, Axel D.
name: Scóccola, C. G.
name: Sellgren, Kris
name: Seo, Hee-Jong
name: Shane, Neville
name: Shen, Yue
name: Shetrone, Matthew
name: Shu, Yiping
name: Sivarani, Thirupathi
name: Skrutskie, M. F.
name: Slosar, Anže
name: Smith, Verne V.
name: Sobreira, Flávia
name: Stassun, Keivan G.
name: Steinmetz, Matthias
name: Strauss, Michael A.
name: Streblyanska, Alina
name: Swanson, Molly E. C.
name: Tan, Jonathan C.
name: Tayar, Jamie
name: Terrien, Ryan C.
name: Thakar, Aniruddha R.
name: Thomas, Daniel
name: Thompson, Benjamin A.
name: Tinker, Jeremy L.
name: Tojeiro, Rita
name: Troup, Nicholas W.
name: Vargas-Magaña, Mariana
name: Vazquez, Jose A.
name: Verde, Licia
name: Viel, Matteo
name: Vogt, Nicole P.
name: Wake, David A.
name: Wang, Ji
name: Weaver, Benjamin A.
name: Weinberg, David H.
name: Weiner, Benjamin J.
name: White, Martin
name: Wilson, John C.
name: Wisniewski, John P.
name: Wood-Vasey, W. M.
name: Yèche, Christophe
name: York, Donald G.
name: Zakamska, Nadia L.
name: Zamora, O.
name: Zasowski, Gail
name: Zehavi, Idit
name: Zhao, Gong-Bo
name: Zheng, Zheng
name: Zhou, Xu
name: Zhou, Zhimin
name: Zhu, Guangtun
name: Zou, Hu
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
subject: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
subject: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The third generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) took data from 2008 to 2014 using the original SDSS wide-field imager, the original and an upgraded multi-object fiber-fed optical spectrograph, a new near-infrared high-resolution spectrograph, and a novel optical interferometer. All the data from SDSS-III are now made public. In particular, this paper describes Data Release 11 (DR11) including all data acquired through 2013 July, and Data Release 12 (DR12) adding data acquired through 2014 July (including all data included in previous data releases), marking the end of SDSS-III observing. Relative to our previous public release (DR10), DR12 adds one million new spectra of galaxies and quasars from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) over an additional 3000 sq. deg of sky, more than triples the number of H-band spectra of stars as part of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE), and includes repeated accurate radial velocity measurements of 5500 stars from the Multi-Object APO Radial Velocity Exoplanet Large-area Survey (MARVELS). The APOGEE outputs now include measured abundances of 15 different elements for each star. In total, SDSS-III added 2350 sq. deg of ugriz imaging; 155,520 spectra of 138,099 stars as part of the Sloan Exploration of Galactic Understanding and Evolution 2 (SEGUE-2) survey; 2,497,484 BOSS spectra of 1,372,737 galaxies, 294,512 quasars, and 247,216 stars over 9376 sq. deg; 618,080 APOGEE spectra of 156,593 stars; and 197,040 MARVELS spectra of 5,513 stars. Since its first light in 1998, SDSS has imaged over 1/3 of the Celestial sphere in five bands and obtained over five million astronomical spectra.
description: DR12 data are available at http://www.sdss3.org/dr12. 30 pages. 11 figures. Accepted to ApJS