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<!DOCTYPE html> <head> <meta charset='utf-8'> <title>SkyMapper Southern Sky Survey</title>  <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href='/static/sm_asvo/fonts.css' /> <link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='/static/sm_asvo/master.css' /> <script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.11.3.min.js"></script>  <script type='text/javascript' src='/static/sm_asvo/master.js'></script> <script type='text/javascript' src="https://cdn.rawgit.com/leafo/sticky-kit/v1.1.2/jquery.sticky-kit.min.js"></script> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1" /> <link rel="icon" type="image/ico" href='/static/sm_asvo/img/favicon.ico' />  <meta property="og:title" content="SkyMapper Southern Sky Survey" /> <meta property="og:type" content="website" /> <meta property="og:url" content="https://skymapper.anu.edu.au/news/" /> <meta property="og:image" content="https://skymapper.anu.edu.au/static/sm_asvo/img/skymapper_logo1-200x198_3.jpg" /> <meta property="og:description" content="Access to and information about the SkyMapper Southern Sky Survey" /> <meta property="fb:app_id" content="968590116638493" />     <script> (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); 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The photometry is drawn from over 15 billion measurements made from more than 400,000 images acquired by the 1.3m SkyMapper telescope between March 2014 ...</p> <a href="/news/smss-dr4-available/">Read more →</a> </div><div class="clearboth"> <h3><a style="font-weight:normal" href='/news/5tb-new-external-tables/'>5 TB of new external tables!</a><span class='one-em hint'> | 7 Jul 2023</span></h3> <p>In anticipation of the upcoming SMSS DR4, we are making available ~5 TB of new external tables in the TAP service of SkyMapper's All-Sky Virtual Observatory (ASVO) node.</p> <p>Several of these are entirely new catalogues for the SkyMapper node:</p> <ul> <li> <p>CatWISE2020 Catalog (all-sky, <em>W1/W2</em>) - <code>ext.catwise2020</code></p> </li> <li> <p>NOIRLab Source Catalog (NSC) Data Release 2 (35,000 deg<sup>2</sup>, <em>u/g/r/i/z/Y/VR</em>) - <code>ext.nsc_dr2</code></p> </li> <li> <p>Southern Photometric Local Universe (S-PLUS) Survey Data Release 3 (2,000 deg<sup>2</sup>, <em>u<sup>*/</sup>g/r/i/z</em> + 7 narrow bands) - <code>ext.splus_dr3</code></p> </li> </ul> <p>Others represent updates to previous data releases:</p> <ul> <li> <p>DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys ...</p></li></ul> <a href="/news/5tb-new-external-tables/">Read more →</a> </div><div class="clearboth"> <h3><a style="font-weight:normal" href='/news/stellar-embrace-ending-10000-years-ago/'>A stellar embrace ending 10,000 years ago</a><span class='one-em hint'> | 7 Jul 2022</span></h3> <p style="margin-left:0cm; margin-right:0cm; text-align:justify">Half of all stars are born into couples, called binaries. But unfortunately, we cannot compute their lives. This may be about to change, owing to a new discovery revealing the signature of re-born binaries. </p> <p style="text-align:justify">Single stars, such as the Sun, we understand just fine: they are round and simple, and long timesteps in computer calculations are enough so we can use a computer to fast-forward into the late stages of a star's life. Binary stars, in contrast, are difficult. They may be born wide and perform a distant orbital dance around each other during the early lives. But when one ...</p> <a href="/news/stellar-embrace-ending-10000-years-ago/">Read more →</a> </div><div class="clearboth"> <h3><a style="font-weight:normal" href='/news/voracious-black-hole-slipped-through-our-fingers-5/'>Voracious Black Hole Slipped Through Our Fingers for 50 years, But SkyMapper Caught It</a><span class='one-em hint'> | 6 Jul 2022</span></h3> <p>The most rapidly growing supermassive black hole in the last 9 billion years of cosmic history was serendipitously found in the SkyMapper Southern Survey, while looking for something completely different!</p> <p><a href="https://twitter.com/adrianlucy">Dr. Adrian Lucy</a> (Space Telescope Science Institute) was using the SMSS and other imaging surveys to search the Southern sky for symbiotic binary stars, pairs of stars that are so close that the outer layers of one star are flowing onto the other. After obtaining spectroscopy of the candidates at <a href="https://www.saao.ac.za/astronomers/1-9m/">a telescope in South Africa</a>, Dr. Lucy (then a PhD student at Columbia University) discovered that one object was unlike the ...</p> <a href="/news/voracious-black-hole-slipped-through-our-fingers-5/">Read more →</a> </div><div class="clearboth"> <h3><a style="font-weight:normal" href='/news/migration-services-https/'>Migration of services to HTTPS</a><span class='one-em hint'> | 7 Aug 2021</span></h3> <p>The TAP, cone-search, and image cutout services of the SkyMapper node of the All-Sky Virtual Observatory have migrated from HTTP to HTTPS. Please be advised that you may need to update the URLs used in any scripts, bookmarks, or when connecting to the TAP endpoint with tools like TopCat. (We hope to have the TAP Registries updated soon.)</p> <p>We apologise for any inconvenience. </p> <a href="/news/migration-services-https/">Read more →</a> </div> </div>  <div class="clearboth"></div> </div> <div class="clearboth"></div> <div id='footer'><p> The use of all SkyMapper data is governed by the <a href='/policies/'>policies</a> outlined on this website. Please review them prior to downloading or publishing data.<br/> Copyright © 2025 <a href='https://rsaa.anu.edu.au/'>Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics</a>, <a href='https://www.anu.edu.au/'>The Australian National University</a>. Development funded by <a href='http://astronomyaustralia.org.au/'>Astronomy Australia Ltd.</a> as part of the <a href='http://www.asvo.org.au/'>All-Sky Virtual Observatory</a> and <a href='https://odc.org.au/'>Optical Data Centre</a>. 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