The Eighth SDSS Data Release (DR8)

Following the successful practice established by SDSS-I and SDSS-II, SDSS-III will publicly release its raw and reduced data. The Eighth Data Release (DR8), following the Early Data Release and Data Releases 1-7 of SDSS-I/II is now available as of January 2011. The release contains all of the imaging data taken by the SDSS imaging camera (now totalling over 14,000 square degrees of sky), as well as new spectra taken by the SDSS spectrograph during its last year of operations for the SEGUE-2 project. All of the imaging data have been re-reduced using improved data processing pipelines.

The items in the menubar above contain the following information about DR8:

The Scope of the release provides information on the solid angle of the imaging data; the number of imaging objects in the SDSS-III Catalog Archive Server (CAS), and so on.
The Data Access page explains how to access the data.
The Imaging data page explains exactly what imaging data are released and provides details on the imaging pipeline, the calibration process, the units of the quantities in the catalogs, and so on.
The Spectroscopic data page explains exactly what spectroscopic data are available and provides details on target masks, redshifts, classifications, and so on.
The Software page provides some software documentation and download instructions.
The Algorithms page lists some of the principal SDSS-III data processing algorithms.
The Glossary lists technical terms associated with the SDSS.
The Help page is a starting point for new users. It contains tutorials, FAQ's, and other documentation to help one get started.
The What's new? page explains the differences between DR7 and DR8.

Publications using SDSS data are required to include the official boilerplate to acknowledge the SDSS-III collaboration, including member institutions and funding agencies.

Data from the SDSS-III public archive may not be used for any commercial publication or other commercial purpose except with explicit approval by the Astrophysical Research Consortium (ARC). Requests for such use should be directed to the ARC Corporate Office via ARC's Business Manager as follows: Michael L. Evans, ARC Business Manager, c/o University of Washington, Department of Astronomy, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195, Phone: 206-685-7857, email: evans at astro dot washington dot edu.