| Authors | Skrutskie, M. F.; Cutri, R. M.; Stiening, R.; Weinberg, M. D.; Schneider, S.; Carpenter, J. M.; Beichman, C.; Capps, R.; Chester, T.; Elias, J.; Huchra, J.; Liebert, J.; Lonsdale, C.; Monet, D. G.; Price, S.; Seitzer, P.; Jarrett, T.; Kirkpatrick, J. D.; Gizis, J. E.; Howard, E.; Evans, T.; Fowler, J.; Fullmer, L.; Hurt, R.; Light, R.; Kopan, E. L.; Marsh, K. A.; McCallon, H. L.; Tam, R.; Van Dyk, S.; Wheelock, S. |
| Abstract | Between 1997 June and 2001 February the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) collected 25.4 Tbytes of raw imaging data covering 99.998% of the celestial sphere in the near-infrared J (1.25 μm), H (1.65 μm), and Ks (2.16 μm) bandpasses. Observations were conducted from two dedicated 1.3 m diameter telescopes located at Mount Hopkins, Arizona, and Cerro Tololo, Chile. The 7.8 s of integration time accumulated for each point on the sky and strict quality control yielded a 10 σ point-source detection level of better than 15.8, 15.1, and 14.3 mag at the J, H, and Ks bands, respectively, for virtually the entire sky. Bright source extractions have 1 σ photometric uncertainty of <0.03 mag and astrometric accuracy of order 100 mas. Calibration offsets between any two points in the sky are <0.02 mag. The 2MASS All-Sky Data Release includes 4.1 million compressed FITS images covering the entire sky, 471 million source extractions in a Point Source Catalog, and 1.6 million objects identified as extended in an Extended Source Catalog. |
