Astronomical Surveys
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An astronomical survey is a general map or
image An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensio ...
of a region of the sky (or of the whole sky) that lacks a specific observational target. Alternatively, an astronomical survey may comprise a set of images, spectra, or other observations of objects that share a common type or feature. Surveys are often restricted to one band of the
electromagnetic spectrum The electromagnetic spectrum is the range of frequencies (the spectrum) of electromagnetic radiation and their respective wavelengths and photon energies. The electromagnetic spectrum covers electromagnetic waves with frequencies ranging from ...
due to instrumental limitations, although multiwavelength surveys can be made by using multiple detectors, each sensitive to a different bandwidth. Surveys have generally been performed as part of the production of an astronomical catalog. They may also search for
transient astronomical event The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...
s. They often use wide-field astrographs.


Scientific value

Sky surveys, unlike targeted observation of a specific object, allow astronomers to catalog celestial objects and perform statistical analyses on them without complex corrections for
selection effects Selection bias is the bias introduced by the selection of individuals, groups, or data for analysis in such a way that proper randomization is not achieved, thereby failing to ensure that the sample obtained is representative of the population int ...
. In some cases, an astronomer interested in a particular object will find that survey images are sufficient to make new telescope time entirely unnecessary. Surveys also help astronomers choose targets for closer study using larger, more powerful telescopes. If previous observations support a hypothesis, a telescope scheduling committee is more likely to approve new, more detailed observations to test it. The wide scope of surveys makes them ideal for finding foreground objects that move, such as asteroids and comets. An astronomer can compare existing survey images to current observations to identify changes; this task can even be performed automatically using image analysis software. Besides science, these surveys also detect
potentially hazardous object A potentially hazardous object (PHO) is a near-Earth object – either an asteroid or a comet – with an orbit that can make close approaches to the Earth and is large enough to cause significant regional damage in the event of impact. They ...
s. Similarly, images of the same object taken by different surveys can be compared to detect
transient astronomical event The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...
s such as variable stars.


List of sky surveys

* Optical **
Hipparchus Hipparchus (; el, Ἵππαρχος, ''Hipparkhos'';  BC) was a Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician. He is considered the founder of trigonometry, but is most famous for his incidental discovery of the precession of the equ ...
- created the first known star catalogue with more than 850 stars. The data was incorporated into the
Almagest The ''Almagest'' is a 2nd-century Greek-language mathematical and astronomical treatise on the apparent motions of the stars and planetary paths, written by Claudius Ptolemy ( ). One of the most influential scientific texts in history, it cano ...
along with the first list of stellar magnitudes and was the primary astronomical reference until modern times, 190-120 BC. **
Bonner Durchmusterung In astronomy, Durchmusterung or Bonner Durchmusterung (BD) is an astrometric star catalogue of the whole sky, compiled by the Bonn Observatory in Germany from 1859 to 1903. The name comes from ('run-through examination'), a German word used for ...
- whole-sky astrometric star catalog, 1859-1903 ** Astrographic Catalogue - international astronomical survey of the entire sky. The survey was performed by 18 observatories using over 22,000 photographic plates. The results have been the basis of comparison for all subsequent surveys, 1887-1975. ** Henry Draper Catalogue - spectral classifications based on photographic plates, 1918-1924, extension 1925-1936 ** Catalina Sky Survey - an astronomical survey to discover comets and asteroids. **
Pan-Andromeda Archaeological Survey Pan-Andromeda Archaeological Survey (PAndAS) is a large-scale astronomical survey using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. The survey is exploring the structure and content of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and its neighbour, the Triangulum Galaxy ( ...
**
National Geographic Society – Palomar Observatory Sky Survey The National Geographic Society – Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (NGS-POSS, or just POSS, also POSS I) was a major astronomical survey, that took almost 2,000 photographic plates of the night sky. It was conducted at Palomar Observatory, Californ ...
(NGS–POSS) – survey of the northern sky on photographic plates, 1948–1958 **
CfA Redshift Survey The Center for Astrophysics (CfA) Redshift Survey was the first attempt to map the large-scale structure of the universe. The first survey began in 1977 with the objective of calculating the velocities of the brighter galaxies in the nearby unive ...
– A program from Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. It began in 1977 to 1982 then from 1985 to 1995. **
Digitized Sky Survey The Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) is a digitized version of several photographic astronomical surveys of the night sky, produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute between 1983 and 2006. Versions and source material The term Digitized S ...
– optical all-sky survey created from digitized photographic plates, 1994 **
2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey In astronomy, the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (Two-degree-Field Galaxy Redshift Survey), 2dF or 2dFGRS is a redshift survey conducted by the Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO) with the 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope between 1997 and 11 ...
(2dfGRS) – redshift survey conducted by the Anglo-Australian Observatory between 1997 and 2002 ** Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) – an optical and spectroscopic survey, 2000–2006 (first pass) **
Photopic Sky Survey Photopic vision is the vision of the eye under well-lit conditions (luminance levels from 10 to 108  cd/m2). In humans and many other animals, photopic vision allows color perception, mediated by cone cells, and a significantly higher visua ...
– a survey with 37,440 individual exposures, 2010–2011. **
DEEP2 Redshift Survey The DEEP2 Survey or DEEP2 was a two-phased Redshift survey of the Redshift z=~1 universe (where z= a measure of speed and by extension, the distance from earth). It used the twin 10 metre Keck telescopes The W. M. Keck Observatory is an astr ...
(DEEP2) – Used
Keck Telescopes The W. M. Keck Observatory is an astronomical observatory with two telescopes at an elevation of 4,145 meters (13,600 ft) near the summit of Mauna Kea in the U.S. state of Hawaii. Both telescopes have aperture primary mirrors, and when c ...
to measure redshift of 50,000 galaxies **
VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey The VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey (VVDS) is a redshift survey carried out by a collaboration between French and Italian astronomical institutes using the VIMOS spectrograph, mounted on the telescope Melipal (UT3) of the Very Large Telescope, located at ...
(VVDS) – Franco-Italian study using the Very Large Telescope at Paranal Observatory **
Palomar Distant Solar System Survey The Palomar Distant Solar System Survey (PDSSS) was a wide-field survey aimed at finding distant trans-Neptunian objects that used the robotic 1.2 m Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory and the QUEST large-area CCD camera. The survey ...
(PDSSS) ** WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey (2006–2011) used the Australian Astronomical Observatory ** Dark Energy Survey (DES) is a survey about one-tenth of the sky to find clues to the characteristics of dark energy.- **
Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area Survey The CALIFA Survey (''Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area Survey'') is an Astronomy, astronomical project to map 600 Galaxy, galaxies with Integral field spectrograph, integral field spectroscopy (IFS), to allow detailed studies of these objects ...
(CALIFA) – a spectroscopic survey of galaxies ** SAGES Legacy Unifying Globulars and GalaxieS (
SAGES Legacy Unifying Globulars and GalaxieS Survey The SLUGGS (SAGES Legacy Unifying Globulars and GalaxieS) survey is an astronomical survey of 25 (and 3 `bonus') nearby early-type ( E and S0) galaxies. This survey uses a combination of imaging from Subaru/Suprime-Cam and spectroscopy from Kec ...
(SLUGGS) survey – a near-infrared spectro-photometric survey of 25 nearby
early-type galaxies An elliptical galaxy is a type of galaxy with an approximately ellipsoidal shape and a smooth, nearly featureless image. They are one of the four main classes of galaxy described by Edwin Hubble in his Hubble sequence and 1936 work ''The Real ...
(2014) ** Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) – an extra-galactic and stellar spectroscopic survey ** IPHAS and VPHAS+ – surveys of the Galactic bulge and inner disk using the Isaac Newton Telescope (north) and VLT Survey Telescope (south) in u, g, r, Hα, and i bands, 2003–present ** Pan-STARRS – a large-field survey system to look for transient and variable sources. 2010-present ** Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) – large-scale variability sky survey (in I and V bands), 1992–present ** DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys (Legacy Surveys) - large imaging survey of the extragalactic sky, in three bands and covering one third of the sky, 2013–present *
GSNST - Global Supernovae Search Team
- an all sky survey launched in August 2018 to look for Astronomical Transients **
Gaia catalogues The ''Gaia'' catalogues are star catalogues created using the results obtained by ''Gaia'' space telescope. The catalogues are released in stages that will contain increasing amounts of information; the early releases also miss some stars, especia ...
of over a billion parallax distances * Infrared ** Infrared Astronomical Satellite did an all sky survey at 12, 25, 60, and 100 μm, 1983 ** The 2-micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS), a ground-based all sky survey at J, H, and Ks bands (1.25, 1.65, and 2.17 μm) 1997–2001 ** Akari (Astro-F) a Japanese mid and far infrared all-sky survey satellite, 2006–2008 **
Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE, observatory code C51, Explorer 92 and SMEX-6) is a NASA infrared astronomy space telescope in the Explorers Program. It was launched in December 2009, and placed in hibernation mode in February 2 ...
(WISE) was launched in December 2009 to begin a survey of 99% of the sky at wavelengths of 3.3, 4.7, 12, and 23 μm. The telescope is over a thousand times as sensitive as previous infrared surveys. The initial survey, consisting of each sky position imaged at least eight times, was completed by July 2010. ** UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) – a collection of ground based northern hemisphere surveys (GPS, GCS, LAS, DXS, UDS) using the WFCAM camera on UKIRT, some wide and some very deep, in Z, Y, J, H, & K bands 2005– ** VISTA public surveys – a collection of ground based southern hemisphere surveys ( VVV, VMC, VHS, VIKING, VIDEO, UltraVISTA), of various areas and depths, in Z, Y, J, H, & Ks bands, 2009–present ** SCUBA-2 All Sky Survey * Radio ** Third Cambridge Catalogue of Radio Sources ("3C") - Survey at 159 and 178 MHz published in 1959 **
HIPASS The H I Parkes All Sky Survey (HIPASS) is a large survey for neutral atomic hydrogen (H I). Most of the data was taken between 1997 and 2002 using CSIRO's 64 m Parkes Telescope. HIPASS covered 71% of the sky and identified more t ...
– Radio survey, the first blind HI survey to cover the entire southern sky. 1997–2002 ** Ohio Sky Survey – Over 19,000 radio sources at 1415 MHz. 1965–1973. ** NVSS – Survey at 1.4 GHz mapping the sky north of −40 deg ** FIRST – Survey to look for faint radio sources at twenty cms. ** SUMSS - Survey at 843 MHz, mapping the sky south of -30 deg with similar sensitivity and resolution to the northern NVSS **
PALFA Survey PALFA is a large-scale survey for radio pulsars at 1.4 GHz using the Arecibo 305-meter telescope and the ALFA multibeam receivers. It is the largest and most sensitive survey of the Galactic plane to date. Introduction Most of the advances in pu ...
– On-going 1.4 GHz survey for radio
pulsar A pulsar (from ''pulsating radio source'') is a highly magnetized rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles. This radiation can be observed only when a beam of emission is pointing toward E ...
s using the
Arecibo Observatory The Arecibo Observatory, also known as the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) and formerly known as the Arecibo Ionosphere Observatory, is an observatory in Barrio Esperanza, Arecibo, Puerto Rico owned by the US National Science ...
. **
GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey (GASS) is a large targeted survey at Arecibo Observatory that has been underway since 2008 to measure the neutral hydrogen content of a representative sample of approximately 1000 massive galaxies selected using the S ...
GASS designed to measure the neutral hydrogen content of a representative sample of ~1000 massive, galaxies ** C-BASS – On-going 5 GHz all sky survey to aid in the subtraction of galactic foregrounds from maps of the
Cosmic Microwave Background In Big Bang cosmology the cosmic microwave background (CMB, CMBR) is electromagnetic radiation that is a remnant from an early stage of the universe, also known as "relic radiation". The CMB is faint cosmic background radiation filling all spac ...
**
EMU The emu () (''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is the second-tallest living bird after its ratite relative the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the genus '' Dromaius''. The ...
– A large radio continuum survey covering 3/4 of the sky, expected to discover about 70 million galaxies **
GMRT The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), located near Pune, Junnar, near Narayangaon at khodad in India, is an array of thirty fully steerable parabolic radio telescopes of 45 metre diameter, observing at metre wavelengths. It is operated by t ...
- The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope's TGSS ADR mapped the sky at 150 MHz. ** HTRU – A pulsar and radio transients survey of the northern and southern sky using the Parkes Radio Telescope and the Effelsberg telescope. * Gamma-ray ** Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, formerly referred to as the "Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST)." 2008–present; the goal for the telescope's lifetime is 10 years. * Multi-wavelength surveys ** GAMA – the Galaxy And Mass Assembly survey combines data from a number of ground- and space-based observatories together with a large redshift survey, performed at the Anglo-Australian Telescope. The resulting dataset aims to be a comprehensive resource for studying the physics of the galaxy population and underlying mass structures in the recent universe. **
GOODS In economics, goods are items that satisfy human wants and provide utility, for example, to a consumer making a purchase of a satisfying product. A common distinction is made between goods which are transferable, and services, which are not ...
– The Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey. ** COSMOS – The Cosmic Evolution Survey ** CANDELS - The Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey ** (The latter three surveys are joining together observations obtained from space with the
Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ver ...
, the Spitzer Space Telescope, the
Chandra X-ray Observatory The Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO), previously known as the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), is a Flagship-class space telescope launched aboard the during STS-93 by NASA on July 23, 1999. Chandra is sensitive to X-ray sources ...
and the XMM-Newton satellite, with a large set of observations obtained with ground-based telescopes). **
Atlas 3d Survey ATLAS3D is an astronomical survey that considers every galaxy in the deep sky within the local (42  Mpc) volume (1.16×105 Mpc3). This project uses multi-wavelength filters of a sample of 260 early-type galaxies. The survey use of numer ...
– sample of 260 galaxies for the Astrophysics project. * Planned ** Vera C. Rubin Observatory – a proposed very large telescope designed to repeatedly survey the whole sky that is visible from its location **
Widefield ASKAP L-Band Legacy All-Sky Blind Survey The Widefield ASKAP L-band Legacy All-sky Blind surveY (WALLABY) is a next-generation survey of the 21 cm radio emission from neutral hydrogen (HI) in the Local Universe. It is hosted by the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) ...
(WALLABY)


Surveys of the Magellanic Clouds

* Catalogues of H-α emission stars and nebulae in the Magellanic Clouds - published 1956 (Astrophys. J. Suppl., 2, 315) * MCELS (Magellanic Cloud Emission-line Survey) * The Magellanic Clouds Photometric Survey – UBVI (optical) * Deep Near Infrared Survey (DENIS) – near-IR


See also

* See astronomical catalogue for a more detailed description of astronomical surveys and the production of astronomical catalogues * Redshift surveys are astronomical surveys devoted to mapping the cosmos in three dimensions * :astronomical catalogues—List of astronomical catalogues on Wikipedia * Astrograph for a type of instrument used in Astronomical surveys. * Timeline of astronomical maps, catalogs, and surveys


References

{{Authority control Astronomical imaging Observational astronomy Survey