The Fourth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Creators: name: Adelman-McCarthy, Jennifer K.
name: Agüeros, Marcel Andre
name: Allam, Sahar S.
name: Anderson, Kurt S. J.
name: Anderson, Scott F.
name: Annis, James
name: Bahcall, Neta A.
name: Baldry, Ivan K.
name: Barentine, J. C.
name: Berlind, Andreas
name: Bernardi, Mariangela
name: Blanton, Michael R.
name: Boroski, William N.
name: Brewington, Howard J.
name: Brinchmann, Jarle
name: Brinkmann, J.
name: Brunner, Robert J.
name: Budavári, Tamás
name: Carey, Larry N.
name: Carr, Michael A.
name: Castander, Francisco J.
name: Connolly, A. J.
name: Csabai, István
name: Czarapata, Paul C.
name: Dalcanton, Julianne J.
name: Doi, Mamoru
name: Dong, Feng
name: Eisenstein, Daniel J.
name: Evans, Michael L.
name: Fan, Xiaohui
name: Finkbeiner, Douglas P.
name: Friedman, Scott D.
name: Frieman, Joshua A.
name: Fukugita, Masataka
name: Gillespie, Bruce
name: Glazebrook, Karl
name: Gray, Jim
name: Grebel, Eva K.
name: Gunn, James E.
name: Gurbani, Vijay K.
name: De Haas, Ernst
name: Hall, Patrick B.
name: Harris, Frederick H.
name: Harvanek, Michael
name: Hawley, Suzanne L.
name: Hayes, Jeffrey
name: Hendry, John S.
name: Hennessy, Gregory S.
name: Hindsley, Robert B.
name: Hirata, Christopher M.
name: Hogan, Craig J.
name: Hogg, David W.
name: Holmgren, Donald J.
name: Holtzman, Jon A.
name: Ichikawa, Shin-Ichi
name: Ivezić, Željko
name: Jester, Sebastian
name: Johnston, David E.
name: Jorgensen, Anders M.
name: Jurić, Mario
name: Kent, Stephen M.
name: Kleinman, S. J.
name: Knapp, G. R.
name: Kniazev, Alexei Yu.
name: Kron, Richard G.
name: Krzesiński, Jurek
name: Kuropatkin, Nikolay
name: Lamb, Donald Q.
name: Lampeitl, Hubert
name: Lee, Brian C.
name: Leger, R. French
name: Lin, Huan
name: Long, Daniel C.
name: Loveday, Jon
name: Lupton, Robert H.
name: Margon, Bruce
name: Martínez-Delgado, David
name: Mandelbaum, Rachel
name: Matsubara, Takahiko
name: McGehee, Peregrine M.
name: McKay, Timothy A.
name: Meiksin, Avery
name: Munn, Jeffrey A.
name: Nakajima, Reiko
name: Nash, Thomas
name: Neilsen, Eric H.
name: Newberg, Heidi Jo
name: Newman, Peter R.
name: Nichol, Robert C.
name: Nicinski, Tom
name: Nieto-Santisteban, Maria
name: Nitta, Atsuko
name: O'Mullane, William
name: Okamura, Sadanori
name: Owen, Russell
name: Padmanabhan, Nikhil
name: Pauls, George
name: Peoples, John
name: Pier, Jeffrey R.
name: Pope, Adrian C.
name: Pourbaix, Dimitri
name: Quinn, Thomas R.
name: Richards, Gordon T.
name: Richmond, Michael W.
name: Rockosi, Constance M.
name: Schlegel, David J.
name: Schneider, Donald P.
name: Schroeder, Joshua
name: Scranton, Ryan
name: Seljak, Uroš
name: Sheldon, Erin
name: Shimasaku, Kazu
name: Smith, J. Allyn
name: Smolčić, Vernesa
name: Snedden, Stephanie A.
name: Stoughton, Chris
name: Strauss, Michael A.
name: SubbaRao, Mark
name: Szalay, Alexander S.
name: Szapudi, István
name: Szkody, Paula
name: Tegmark, Max
name: Thakar, Aniruddha R.
name: Tucker, Douglas L.
name: Uomoto, Alan
name: Vanden Berk, Daniel E.
name: Vandenberg, Jan
name: Vogeley, Michael S.
name: Voges, Wolfgang
name: Vogt, Nicole P.
name: Walkowicz, Lucianne M.
name: Weinberg, David H.
name: West, Andrew A.
name: White, Simon D. M.
name: Xu, Yongzhong
name: Yanny, Brian
name: Yocum, D. R.
name: York, Donald G.
name: Zehavi, Idit
name: Zibetti, Stefano
name: Zucker, Daniel B.
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2006
Subjects: Astrophysics
Stars--Observations
Imaging systems in astronomy
Astronomy

description: This paper describes the Fourth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), including all survey-quality data taken through 2004 June. The data release includes five-band photometric data for 180 million objects selected over 6670 deg² and 673,280 spectra of galaxies, quasars, and stars selected from 4783 deg² of those imaging data using the standard SDSS target selection algorithms. These numbers represent a roughly 27% increment over those of the Third Data Release; all the data from previous data releases are included in the present release. The Fourth Data Release also includes an additional 131,840 spectra of objects selected using a variety of alternative algorithms, to address scientific issues ranging from the kinematics of stars in the Milky Way thick disk to populations of faint galaxies and quasars.