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The Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS)

2006/01/24 by Michael F. Skrutskie, M. F. Skrutskie, R. M. Cutri +50 · 12,226 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics #Calibration #Celestial sphere #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Geography #Infrared #Infrared astronomy #Optics #Physics #Point source #Remote sensing #Sky #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies

paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/498708

published in The Astronomical Journal 131(2), 1163-1183 (Institute of Physics)

openalex publication_date 2006/01/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

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 K s (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 K s 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.

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