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C. M. Rockosi (UCO/Lick Observatory)
SEGUE, the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration, is an imaging and spectroscopic survey of the structure, kinematics and chemical abundance distribution of the Milky Way on the largest scales. The survey is designed to map the global structure and stellar population content of the Galactic halo, thin and thick disks, and has the depth, area and velocity accuracy necessary to undertake a systematic search for substructure in the distant halo. The goal is to create a dataset that can be used to investigate the formation and evolution of the Milky Way through study of its merging history, chemical abundance evolution and dynamical properties.
SEGUE will image 3500 square degrees of new area at |b| < 35 degrees and in the South Galactic sky, extending the original SDSS ugriz data to lower Galactic latitude to facilitate study of the thin and thick disks and the Galactic anticenter region. SEGUE will also obtain moderate-resolution (R=1800) spectroscopy for 240,000 stars at 15 < g < 20.5 along 200 lines of sight distributed over Galactic longitude and |b| > 15 degrees. The spectroscopic targets are selected from the 5-band imaging data in distinct categories so as to sample a range of absolute luminosities (and therefore distances) from giants to nearby dwarfs along each line of sight, and to maximize our chances of finding rare, interesting objects. I will describe the design of the SEGUE survey as motivated by its major scientific goals, progress to date and plans for the future.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #4
© 2005. The American Astronomical Soceity.