| name | type | text |
| Algorithm | Meta | This table provides descriptive text for each of the algorithms used in SDSS
data processing. It is interlinked with the Glossary and Table Descriptions
pages.
|
| Ap7Mag | Photo | The Ap7Mag table contains the r-band aperture magnitudes in bin 7 for all the
 objects. See also the functions
fGetPhotoApMag, fPhotoApMag and fPhotoApMagErr.
|
| Best2Sector | Geometry | This table places the Best photometric objects into sectors, which are used to divide the sky into geometric regions. Each object appears once, and only once, in this table because a given ra and dec belong to a unique sector.
|
| Chunk | Geometry | This table contains some very basic information for each chunk loaded in the database.
|
| Convex | Geometry | |
| CoordType | Meta | This view contains the CoordType enumerated values from DataConstants as integers.
|
| DataConstants | Meta | The table DataConstants contains most of the bit-flags and enumerated quantities relevant to the SDSS. DO NOT confuse this with SDSSConstants, which contains actual constants used in data processing.
|
| DBColumns | Meta | This table contains an extremely brief description of every column in every table in the database. Because some quantities appear in multiple tables with multiple meanings, a quantity is uniquely defined only within a single table.
|
| DBObjectDescription | Meta | This table contains the long descriptions for every table and view in the database.
|
| DBObjects | Meta | This table contains names and descriptions of all the tables and views in the database.
|
| DBViewCols | Meta | This table stores the names and descriptions of all columns in all views in the database. This is used by the auto-documentation.
|
| Dependency | Meta | The Dependency table tracks dependencies between the tables, functions and
stored procedures in the database. It is aid to the schema designers.
|
| Diagnostics | Meta | This table contains the type and number of rows (if applicable) for each
object in the database. The type field can have one of the following values:
| F | Foreign Key |
| FN | Scalar Function |
| I | Index |
| P | Stored Procedure |
| TF | Table-valued Function |
| U | Table |
| V | View |
|
| DR3QuasarCatalog | Spectro | The list of all confirmed quasars found in Data Release 3 of SDSS, along with
their parameters and cross-matches with other major catalogs. The algorithm
used to extract quasars from SDSS data is described in Schneider et al. 2005.
|
| DR5QuasarCatalog | Spectro | The list of all confirmed quasars found in Data Release 5 of SDSS, along with
their parameters and cross-matches with other major catalogs. The algorithm
used to extract quasars from SDSS data is described in Schneider et al. 2007
(AJ). Note that the parameters are somewhat different from the DR3 catalog.
|
| ELRedShift | Spectro | This table contains ALL of the measured emission lines , along with their redshifts and related information, for ALL spectroscopic objects.
|
| Field | Meta | This table contains all the measured parameters of each imaging field, along with relevant summary statistics, and astrometric and photometric information.
|
| FieldMask | Meta | This view contains the FieldMask flag values from DataConstants as binary(4).
|
| FieldProfile | Photo | Need description.
|
| FieldQuality | Meta | This view contains the FieldQuality enumerated values from DataConstants as integers.
|
| FileGroupMap | Meta | The File Group Map describes the database partitioning scheme, and it is
usually empty when the database is not partitioned. It is an internal table
used for schema design.
|
| First | External | This table stores measurements from the FIRST radio survey for those FIRST objects which are matched to SDSS photometric objects. ????
|
| Frame | Photo | This table actually contains false color JPEG images of the fields, and their most relevant parameters, in particular the coefficients of the astrometric transformation, and position info. The images are stored at several zoom levels.
|
| FramesStatus | Meta | This view contains the FramesStatus enumerated values from DataConstants as integers.
|
| Galaxy | Photo | This view contains only those primary photometric objects classified as galaxies. As such, it is a view of PhotoPrimary, which is itself a view of PhotoObjAll.
|
| Glossary | Meta | The Glossary table holds the contents of the Glossary Help page, which is
loaded dynamically with a query to the database.
|
| HalfSpace | Geometry | This table contains constraints on the boundaries of different Regions. See
also the and
tables.
|
| History | Meta | This is a history of changes to the database.
|
| HoleObj | Spectro | This table stores information for non-OBJECT holes on spectroscopic plates, and for OBJECT holes that were not mapped by the fiber mapper.
|
| HoleType | Meta | This view contains the HoleType enumerated values from DataConstants as integers.
|
| ImageMask | Meta | This view contains the ImageMask flag values from DataConstants as binary(2).
|
| IndexMap | Meta | This table drives the creation of database indexes in the database. It
contains the name, table name, type (primary key, foreign key or covering
index) and description of every index in the database.
|
| InsideMask | Meta | This view contains the InsideMask flag values from DataConstants as binary(1).
|
| Inventory | Meta | A detailed inventory of every object in the database tracked my DDL module
(file name).
|
| LoadHistory | Meta | This table contains a record of every data loading step that this database has
experienced. This is helpful in tracking provenance and data errors.
|
| Mask | Geometry | This table contains information about each photometric mask.
|
| MaskedObject | Geometry | This is a list of all masked photometric objects. These objects were detected but are within the boundaries of a masked area (see the Mask table) and thus unreliable. Each object may appear multiple times, if it is masked for multiple reasons.
|
| MaskType | Meta | This view contains the MaskType enumerated values from DataConstants as integers.
|
| Match | Photo | This table contains pairs of photometric objects from different runs (times) that probably are the same object. These must be SDSS primary or secondary objects, of type STAR, GALAXY, and UNKNOWN, within 1 arcsec of one another, and from different runs. The table also holds type, mode and distance information. Also see the MatchHead table.
|
| MatchHead | Photo | When photometric objects from different runs are matched (see the Match table), they form a cluster named by
the minimum objID in the cluster. MatchHead has summary information (mean position, number in cluster) about each of these clusters, keyed by the objID.
|
| Neighbors | Photo | This table contains ALL pairs of photometric objects within 0.5 arcminutes, regardless of their status (primary, secondary, family, outside). This table is very useful for finding objects near each other but care must be taken to select only those objects with the appropriate status.
|
| ObjMask | Photo | This table contains the outlines of each detected photometric object over a 4x4 pixel grid, and the bounding rectangle of the object within the frame.frame This table should not be confused with the similarly named Mask table, which describes regions excluded from the object catalogs. |
| ObjType | Meta | This view contains the ObjType enumerated values from DataConstants as integers.
|
| PhotoAuxAll | Photo | This table contains the extra parameters for all photometric objects that did not make it into the PhotoObjall table. These are added as a separate table because adding columns to the very large PhotoObjAll table is prohibitively expensive unless the table is reloaded from scratch. In a future release, these columns will be added to the PhotoObjAll table. In the meantime, to access these columns, you may join with the PhotoObjAll table on the objid: SELECT p.objid, p.ra, q.raErr, p.dec, q.decErr FROM PhotoObjAll p, PhotoAuxAll q WHERE p.objid = q.objid
Similarly you may join the PhotoObj and PhotoAux views. PhotoAux is the view of this table analogous to PhotoObj for PhotoObjAll.
|
| PhotoFamily | Photo | This view contains objects which are in PhotoObjAll, but neither PhotoPrimary nor PhotoSecondary. These objects are generated if they are neither primary nor secondary survey objects but a composite object that has been deblended or the
part of an object that has been deblended wrongfully (like the spiral arms of a galaxy). These objects are kept to track how the deblender is working.
|
| PhotoFlags | Meta | This view contains the PhotoFlags flag values from DataConstants as binary(8).
|
| PhotoMode | Meta | This view contains the PhotoMode enumerated values from DataConstants as integers.
|
| PhotoObj | Photo | This view contains objects which are in PhotoObjAll, which are either PhotoPrimary or PhotoSecondary. These objects are generated if they are either primary or secondary survey objects.
|
| PhotoObjAll | Photo | This table contains all measured parameters for all photometric objects. Because this table is huge, a variety of Views have been created:
- PhotoPrimary: all photo objects that are primary (the best version of the object)
- Star: Primary objects that are classified as stars.
- Galaxy: Primary objects that are classified as galaxies.
- Sky: Primary objects which are sky samples.
- Unknown: Primary objects which are none of the above
- PhotoSecondary: all photo objects that are secondary (secondary detections).
- PhotoFamily:: all photo objects which are neither primary nor secondary. These are the parents of deblended objects.
|
| PhotoPrimary | Photo | This view contains objects from PhotoObjAll which are primary. As such, this view is itself a view of PhotoObj.
|
| PhotoProfile | Photo | This table contains the radial profiles for each photometric object, as the mean flux in each annulus. The radii of the annuli are given in the ProfileDefs table.
|
| PhotoSecondary | Photo | This view contains objects from PhotoObjAll which are secondary. As such, this view is itself a view of PhotoObj.
|
| PhotoStatus | Meta | This view contains the PhotoStatus flag values from DataConstants as binary(4).
|
| PhotoTag | Photo | This table contains a subset of the parameters for all of the photometric objects. It has all of the objects that are in the PhotoObjAll table, but only the most popular parameters for each.
|
| PhotoType | Meta | This view contains the PhotoMode enumerated values from DataConstants as integers.
|
| Photoz | Photo | The Photoz table contains a set of photometric redshifts that has been
obtained with the template fitting method .
|
| Photoz2 | Photo | The photometric redshifts in the Photoz2 table are a second set of
photometric redshifts for galaxy objects, calculated using a Neural Network
method.
|
| PlateX | Spectro | This table contains overview data for each plate used for spectroscopic observations.
|
| PrimTarget | Meta | This view contains the PrimTarget flag values from DataConstants as binary(4).
|
| ProfileDefs | Photo | This table provides the definitions of the radii used in computing the radial profiles for photometric objects, which are stored in the PhotoProfile table.
|
| ProgramType | Meta | This view contains the ProgramType enumerated values from DataConstants as integers.
|
| PspStatus | Meta | This view contains the PspStatus enumerated values from DataConstants as integers.
|
| QsoBest | QsoBest | Contains a record describing the attributes of each QSO Base object and also
best Surrogates to fill in the QsoConcordanceAll view.
|
| QsoBunch | QsoBunch | Describes each bunch of matching QSO candidate objects from Target, Spec, and
Best databases using a search radius of 1.5 arcseconds.
|
| QsoCatalogAll | QsoCatalogAll | A catalog of all objects that "smell like a "QSO" - this is the source table
of candidates for the QuasarCatalog table, which contains the list of
confirmed quasars.
|
| QsoConcordanceAll | QsoConcordanceAll | A concordance of all the objects from Spectro, Best, or Target that "smell"
like a QSO.
|
| QsoSpec | QsoSpec | Contains a record describing the attributes of each QSO Spec object and also
Spectroscopic Surrogates to fill in the QsoConcordanceAll view.
|
| QsoTarget | QsoTarget | Contains a record describing the attributes of each QSO Target object and also
Target Surrogates to fill in the QsoConcordanceAll view.
|
| QuasarCatalog | Spectro | This is a table containing all the quasars identified in the SDSS
data. It is a derived table that is usually published after the
main SDSS data is released. The paper describing the contents of
this table is usually found in the Expert Background page of the
SkyServer SDSS section.
|
| RC3 | RC3 | This table contains objects from the RC3 catalog. The objid is just a unique
number for the RC3 object in the table (not a match to SDSS photoobj objid).
|
| Region | Geometry | This table stores the descriptions of regions which describe various
boundaries in the survey. These are represented by equations of 3D planes,
intersecting the unit sphere, describing great and small circles,
respectively.
|
| RegionConvex | Geometry | This table defines the attributes of a given convex of a given region
Regions are the union of convex hulls and are defined in the Region table.
Convexes are the intersection of halfspaces defined by the HalfSpace table.
Each convex has a string representation and has some geometry properties.
See also the and
tables.
|
| Rmatrix | Geometry | Contains various rotation matrices between spherical coordinate systems.
|
| Rosat | External | This table contains objects from the publicly available ROSAT catalogs which
match an SDSS object inside the data release boundary. The matching radius used is 60 arcseconds.
|
| RunQA | Photo | The RunQA table provides information relevant to the average data quality
for the objects in each field. This table may be
joined to the rest of your query to sub-select only fields of the very highest
quality, for instance, with seeing below a certain threshold, if that is
desired. If you want just one number that describes the overall quality of a
field, your best bet is the fieldQall number (0=bad, 1=acceptable, 2=good,
3=excellent). This overall quality determination is based on the
(dereddened) principal colors of all the stars in the field vs. the
Galactic value of this quantity, the PSF quality, the difference between
Aperture and PSF magnitudes for the same stars
in the field, and the seeing.
|
| RunShift | Geometry | In early runs the telescope was sometimes not tracking correctly. The boundaries of some of the runs had thus to be shifted by a small
amount, determined by hand. This table contains these manual corrections. These should be applied to the nu values derived for these runs.
Only those runs for which such a correction needs to be applied are in this table.
|
| SDSSConstants | Meta | This table contains most relevant survey constants and their physical units. DO NOT confuse this with the table DataConstants, which contains most of the bit-flags and enumerated quantities relevant to the SDSS.
|
| SecTarget | Meta | This view contains the SecTarget flag values from DataConstants as binary(4).
|
| Sector | Geometry | This table stores the information about set of unique tile overlaps, produced
as part of the tiling algorithm.
|
| Sector2Tile | Geometry | This table matches tiles to sectors, and vice versa. It is table is designed to be queried in either direction - one can get all the tiles associated with a sector, or one can find all the sectors to
which a tile belongs.
|
| Segment | Geometry | This table contains the basic parameters associated with a Segment
|
| Sky | Photo | This view contains only those primary photometric objects which are sky samples used for background measurement. As such, it is a view of PhotoPrimary, which is itself a view of PhotoObjAll.
|
| SpecClass | Meta | This view contains the SpecClass enumerated values from DataConstants as integers.
|
| SpecLine | Spectro | This view contains all actually measured spectroscopic lines from SpecLineAll. The view excludes those SpecLineAll objects which have category=1, and thus have not been measured. This is the view you should use to access the SpecLine data.
|
| SpecLineAll | Spectro | This table contains the measured parameters for every detected spectral line in every spectroscopic object.
|
| SpecLineIndex | Spectro | This table contains pre-computed spectral line
indices. These are combinations of
spectral line intensities used to determine various properties of galaxies,
like age or metallicity. Note: The D4000 index is called "4000Abreak" in this
table.
|
| SpecLineNames | Meta | This view contains the SpecLineNames enumerated values from DataConstants as integers.
|
| SpecObj | Spectro | This view includes only those objects from SpecObjAll that have clean spectra. The view excludes QA and Sky and duplicates. Use this as the main way to access the spectroscopic objects.
|
| SpecObjAll | Spectro | This table contains ALL the spectroscopic information for all spectroscopic objects, including a lot of duplicate and bad data. Most users will want to use the SpecObj view, which contains only objects we denote sciencePrimary.
|
| SpecPhoto | Spectro | A view of joined Spectro and Photo objects that have clean spectra and photometry. The view includes only those pairs where the SpecObjSpecObj is a sciencePrimaryscienceprimary, and the BESTbest PhotoObjPhotoObj is a PRIMARYprimary. (mode=1). |
| SpecPhotoAll | Spectro | This is a pre-computed join between the PhotoObjAll and SpecObjAll tables. There are several criteria used for the join between these two tables, including some tiling and targeting information. Please see the FAQ entry for SpecPhotAll for more information. The photo attributes included are similar to those in PhotoTag.
The table also includes certain attributes from Tiles. Many users will want to query the SpecPhoto view, which contains only those objects which are spectroscopically sciencePrimary and photometrically Primary.
|
| SpecZStatus | Meta | This view contains the SpecZStatus enumerated values from DataConstants as integers.
|
| SpecZWarning | Meta | This view contains the SpecZWarning flag values from DataConstants as binary(4).
|
| sppLines | Spectro | This table contains line indices for a wide range of common features at the
radial velocity of the star for over 250,000 Galactic stars as computed by the
Spectro Parameter Pipeline (spp). See the sppLines entry in Algorithms
and the Sample
Queries for how to use this table.
|
| sppParams | Spectro | Standard stellar atmospheric parameters such as [Fe/H], log g and Teff
for over 250,000 Galactic stars (by a variety of methods) as computed by the
Spectro Parameter Pipeline (spp). See the sppParams entry in Algorithms
and the Sample Queries for how to use this
table.
|
| Star | Photo | This view contains only those primary photometric objects classified as stars. As such, it is a view of PhotoPrimary, which is itself a view of PhotoObjAll.
|
| Stetson | Stetson | This table contains objects from the Stetson dataset. The objid column
contains matches to SDSS photoobj objids as applicable (the value is
NULL if no SDSS match is found).
|
| StripeDefs | Geometry | This table gives the definitions of the stripes in the survey layout as originally planned.
The lower and upper limits of the actual observed stripes may differ from these values. The actual numbers are found in the Segment and Chunk tables.
|
| Target | Spectro | This table keeps keeps track of objects chosen by target selection, and which therefore will be fed to the tiling algorithm. Objects are added whenever target selection is run on a new chunk. Objects are also added when southern target selection is run. In the case
where an object (meaning run,rerun,camcol,field,id) is targeted more than once, there will be only one row in Target for that object, but there
will be multiple entries for that Target in the TargetInfo table.
|
| TargetInfo | Spectro | This table contains unique information for an object every time it is targeted. If an object is targeted more than once, there
will be multiple entries for that Target in this table.
|
| TargetParam | Spectro | This table contains the parameters used for a version of the target selection code.
|
| TargRunQA | Photo | The TargRunQA table provides information relevant to the average data quality
for the objects in each field for the TARGET
skyVersion (see the RunQA table for the BEST skyVersion). This table may be
joined to the rest of your query to sub-select only fields of the very highest
quality, for instance, with seeing below a certain threshold, if that is
desired. If you want just one number that describes the overall quality of a
field, your best bet is the fieldQall number (0=bad, 1=acceptable, 2=good,
3=excellent). This overall quality determination is based on the
(dereddened) principal colors of all the stars in the field vs. the
Galactic value of this quantity, the PSF quality, the difference between
Aperture and PSF magnitudes for the same stars
in the field, and the seeing.
|
| Tile | Geometry | This view of TileAll excludes those Tiles that have been untiled. Thus, it contains those tiles useful for determining spectroscopic survey completeness and geometry.
|
| TileAll | Spectro | This table contains information about an individual tile on the sky. Every tile ever created is in this table. The view Tile contains only the main science tiles for the northern survey.
|
| TiledTarget | Spectro | This view of TiledTargetAll excludes those targets that are on tiles which have been untiled.
|
| TiledTargetAll | Spectro | This table Keeps track of why a Target was assigned to a Tile.
This table is designed to be searched both ways - one can find the Targets assigned to a Tile or one can find all the Tiles a Target has been
assigned to (objects can be assigned to more than one tile if they are QA objects). Information comes from plPlugMapP files, but only
OBJECT hole info is stored. HoleObj can be used to find other holetypes that made it to a Plate.
|
| TilingBoundary | Geometry | A view of TilingGeometry objects that have isMask = 0
The view excludes those TilingGeometry objects that have isMask = 1. See also TilingMask.
|
| TilingGeometry | Spectro | This table contains geometric information about TilingRegions, including
both tiling boundary and generic information. |
| TilingInfo | Spectro | Contain info on what happened to a TargetObj in a run of tilingtiling software. |
| TilingMask | Geometry | A view of TilingGeometry objects that have isMask = 1
The view excludes those TilingGeometry objects that have isMask = 0. See also TilingBoundary.
|
| TilingNote | Spectro | Contains human readable notes for a run of tiling. This includes information on why specific tiles may be empty or problems with a given tile.
|
| TilingRun | Spectro | Contains basic information for a run of tiling.
|
| TiMask | Meta | This view contains the TiMask flag values from DataConstants as binary(4).
|
| UberCal | Photo | The uber-calibration corrections and corrected magnitudes for PhotoObjAll.
Please see the UberCalibration entry in
Algorithms for more information
about the uber-calibration corrections, and also see the Sample Queries for how to use the table.
|
| Unknown | Photo | This view contains only those primary photometric objects classified as unknown (not a star,galaxy,or sky). As such, it is a view of PhotoPrimary, which is itself a view of PhotoObjAll.
|
| USNO | External | This table contains all of the objects in the USNO-B catalog which
match an SDSS object inside the data release boundary. However, because this
matching was originally done with USNO-A, many new fields from the newer
USNO-B are NOT in this table (such as the POSS-II matches), see the USNOB table.
|
| USNOB | External | This table contains all of the objects in the newer USNO-B catalog which
match an SDSS object inside the data release boundary.
|
| XCRedshift | Spectro | This table contains the cross-correlation redshifts for all spectroscopic objects.
|
| Zone | Geometry | This table is mostly for internal database mechanics. In order to speed up all-sky cross-correlations, this table organizes the PhotoObjs into 0.5 arcmin declination zones, indexed by the zone number and ra.
|
