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R.M. Cutri (IPAC/Caltech), M.F. Skrutskie (U. Massachussetts)
The Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) began routine operations from its northern facility on Mt. Hopkins, AZ in June of 1997, and from its southern facility on Cerro Tololo, Chile in March of 1998. At each site, highly automated 1.3m telescopes equipped with identical 3-channel cameras, are systematically imaging the sky in three near infrared wavelength bands, J (1.25\mum), H (1.65\mum) and Ks (2.17\mum). To date, over 20,000 deg2 of sky have been observed. Ongoing processing and calibration of the survey image data produces three data products: 1) an Image Atlas that will eventually contain nearly two million 512x1024 pixel images (1 arcsec/pix) in the three colors, covering the full sky, 2) a highly complete and reliable catalog that will contain ~300 million point sources having SNR>10 photometry at J\leq15.8, H\leq15.1 and Ks\leq14.3 mag. and an astrometric accuracy <0.5arcsec RMS, and 3) a catalog of 1-2 million resolved sources, primarily galaxies, having SNR>10 photometric accuracy at J\leq15.5, H\leq14.8 and Ks\leq13.5 mag.
Release of 2MASS data products to the community begins in November of 1998 with the distribution of the 2MASS Sampler data set. This data set includes 5658 images, over 200,000 point sources, and over one thousand galaxies from a 60 deg2 region of sky. Large, incremental releases of the data drawn from several thousand square degrees of sky are scheduled to begin in the Spring of 1999.
A brief report on the current status and outlook for 2MASS will be given, along with analyses that demonstrate that the survey is achieving, if not exceeding its stated performance goals.
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