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B. Chen (JHU), C. Stoughton, B. Yanny (FNAL), A. Uomoto (JHU), J. R. Pier (USNO), SDSS Collaboration
We present SDSS star counts for about a million stars over 500 square degrees north and south of the Galactic plane. The color-magnitude diagram clearly reveals a significant thick disk population distinct in color from Galactic halo and disk populations. The scele height of the thick disk is found to be about half of the original proposal of 1300 pc.
Halo turnoff stars are used as tracers to investigate the structure of Galactic halo. Some halo streams are clearly present for g' > 20. For stars with g' < 20, where the halo streams are not important, the density law for the Galactic halo is studied. The Data support a flattened halo with c/a ~ 0.55.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: bchen@pha.jhu.edu