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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Using cyanotype, a 19th-century technique developed by astronomer John Herschel, the SDSS plates were set over light-sensitive paper. As sunlight passed through the holes, intricate star patterns and tracks were captured in white and blue.

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Check out the newest art exhibit featuring SDSS! “Firmament,” an exhibition at the University of Virginia created by artist William Wylie and astronomer Nitya Kallivayalil, turns retired SDSS plug plates into striking white and blue prints.

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

This film is the first of a four-part series, arriving on the heels of SDSS-V's newest public data release (DR20). Stay tuned for films about each of our Mappers!

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

New planetarium film! SDSS-V: Mapping the Hidden Universe is produced in collaboration with @fiskeplanet.bsky.social. The film takes you from Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico to Las Campanas Observatory in Chile to see how SDSS astronomers are mapping the cosmos www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiXU...

youtube.com

SDSS-V: Mapping the Hidden Universe (English)

YouTube video by Sloan Digital Sky Surveys

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Want to see our DR20 highlights? Have a look at our DR20 news item on our website: www.sdss.org/sdss-launche... #DR20

This image highlights the three mappers that make up SDSS-V. On the right we see a nebula in the Milky Way, observed by Local Volume Mapper. In the middle we see a map of all the galaxies and quasars observed by Black Hole Mapper, while on the right we see a map of all the stars observed by Milky Way Mapper.

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Want to see our DR20 data? Go to our Splash Page, which lists all the different ways that you can interact with SDSS data: dr20.sdss.org #DR20

dr20.sdss.org

SDSS Splashpage

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

There will be even more in our future data releases...

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Reposted by Sloan Digital Sky Surveys

Jennifer Johnson @jajohnson.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Really excited for #DR20 today from @sdssurveys.bsky.social. Over 50,000 white dwarf spectra, with many new ones from the Southern Hemisphere!

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Reposted by Sloan Digital Sky Surveys

SDSS-V Local Volume Mapper @localvolumemapper.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

✨ Our fantastic release elves are putting the finishing touches on SDSS DR20! While they work their magic, take a sneak peek at what the LVM part of DR20 has in store. #Astronomy#Astrophysics#SDSS#DataRelease#LVM#MilkyWay

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Last day! Come by the SDSS booth for our logo M&Ms #aas248

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Come visit our friendly booth at #aas248 - and there are 3 plates left to win in the axe-throwing competition.

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

At AAS in Pasadena? Come find us at booth #248! Throw an axe for a chance to win an SDSS plate!

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

This work was been led by SDSS astronomers at York University and University of Washington at Bothell, including some amazing graduate and undergraduate students!

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Britt Lundgren @brittlundgren.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Incredibly proud to see the Sloan Digital Sky Survey's transformative approaches to data-sharing and public outreach highlighted in the Sloan Foundation's 2025 report. 🔭 🫶 @sdssurveys.bsky.social sloan.org/storage/app/...

The SDSS telescope at Apache Point Observatory is pictured as it takes calibration observations under the night sky.

The associated article's title reads: "Share Tactics -- How the Sloan Digital Sky Suvey's two-decade commitment to open data is revolutionizing astronomy"

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

Thank you to AAS Nova for highlighting the recent SDSS-V overview paper! Check out their article (and the overview paper!) to learn how SDSS is expanding our view of the universe through panoptic, spectroscopic mapping of the night sky. 🌌

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Karen Masters @karenlmasters.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

Exhibition of paintings inspired by @sdssurveys.bsky.social plug plates happening at UW in Seattle next month: uwplanetariumarts.myportfolio.com/constelacion... 👩‍🔬🔭

uwplanetariumarts.myportfolio.com

UW Planetarium Arts - Constelaciones y Supernovas 2026

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

DocuCharm is almost done and we are a bit tired. Much was done, still have a long to-do list

A group of people looking very exhausted in front of their laptops

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

Overheard as we document our Data Release 20 at DocuCharm : "I was trying to be artistic"

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

And of course, had to go say hi to Mr. Trash Wheel before heading out for a seafood dinner and home

A group of smiling people in front of a paddle boat with a large, green-lit mouth, and googly eyes.

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

then we walked around the Inner Harbor, stopping to admire the dragon paddleboats...

A group of smiling people in front of a harbor. There are some paddle boats in the shape of cute dragons behind them.

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

And then we explored Charm City, aka Baltimore! We started at the American Visionary Art Museum

A group of smiling people standing outside of a museum. There is a whirligig structure in the background.

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

Yesterday, we thought deeply at DocuCharm

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

DocuCharm is going well. We are documenting the local brews

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

Can you email helpdesk@sdss.org with specifics?

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

We are devastated to learn that Patrick Gaulme ((@patrickgaulme.bsky.social) has passed away. He had an illustrious career in planetary and red giant seismology and was an Astronomer for SDSS-IV. He was awarded Architect status in SDSS-IV for all of his work on observations.

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Niall Deacon @nialldeacon.com · 11/07/2025

With the release of DR19 of @sdssurveys.bsky.social we published a suite of tutorials to help astronomers use the data. I’d like to highlight two tutorials that are a little different and are targeted at introductory astronomy undergrad classes. 1/4

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

DR19 also includes nine brand-new Value Added Catalogs (VACs). These catalogs are based on SDSS-V spectra and data products, and produced by SDSS-V collaboration members. Find these 9, and the 67 VACs from earlier data releases all here: www.sdss.org/dr19/data_ac... #DR19

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

In DR19, Local Volume Mapper are releasing a tile of the Helix Nebula as a preview into future data releases. They also have a tutorial to guide you through using the data: www.sdss.org/dr19/lvm/tut... #DR19

This image shows the Local Volume Mapper data of the Helix Nebula. The round fibers are arranged into a hexagon, and are coloured by combining emission lines of sulphur (red), hydrogen (green) and oxygen (blue). Image credit: Aida Wofford, and you can find this image and others on the SDSS-V image gallery: https://www.sdss.org/science/image-gallery/. Make a version of this image yourself with the tutorial on https://www.sdss.org/dr19/lvm/tutorials/

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

@localvolumemapper.bsky.social is an integral-field spectroscopic survey of the Milky Way, the Magellanic Clouds, and other Local Volume Galaxies. Read more about what they are doing here: www.sdss.org/dr19/lvm/abo... #DR19

This image shows the Orion Nebula as observed by Local Volume Mapper, and published in Kreckel et al. 2024 (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2024A%26A...689A.352K/abstract). Different emission lines (hydrogen, silicon and oxygen) are represented with different colour, tracing the ionisation structure of the nebula, carving a bubble in the surrounding dense gas shown by WISE 12micrometer imaging. The ionized gas emission traces wispy, filamentary structures and dusty eroding clouds and clumps. Figure taken from https://www.sdss.org/dr19/lvm/about/.

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

All @blackholemapper.bsky.social science programs are available here, www.sdss.org/dr19/bhm/pro..., and they include time domain programs such AQMES (All-Quasar Multi-Epoch Spectroscopy and reverberation mapping, X-ray follow-up programs.

This image shows at the bottom a cartoon of an Active Galactic Nucleus, with X-rays produced by the central hot corona, and then the accretion disc and broad line region clouds further out. The top shows three images highlighting the science that Black Hole Mapper is focusing on, with X-ray follow-up in the centre, and reverberation mapping and multi-epoch spectroscopy located above the broad line regions on either side. Figure taken from https://www.sdss.org/dr19/bhm/about/

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

@blackholemapper.bsky.social had already released a few spectra in DR18, but they are going all out for DR19, with lots of galaxy and quasar spectra #DR19

This image shows the location of Black Hole Mapper targets on the sky, with each purple point depicting an object. All fields are in the North taken with the Sloan Telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, US. Fields in the South by the du Pont Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory will be part of the next data release, DR20. There is a pink blob around right ascension = 9 hours, which are the eFEDS fields (eROSITA Full Equatorial Depth Survey) released in DR18. Figure taken from https://www.sdss.org/dr19/bhm/

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Sloan Digital Sky Surveys @sdssurveys.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

Also, check out his amazing video visualising the @milkywaymapper.bsky.social survey on our YouTube Channel, by Szabolcs Mészáros of the MWM Survey Calibration working group: www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5w2...

youtube.com

Mapping the chemistry of our Galaxy with SDSS

YouTube video by Sloan Digital Sky Surveys

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