Data model: boss_survey

General description: The full BOSS survey geometry, given as a small set of rectangles in the "corrected" eta-lambda survey coordinates. The area described defines the maximum coverage that BOSS will achieve. In the .ply and .fits versions of these files the rectangles are also expressed in terms of spherical polygons in the style of the mangle software product.

Naming convention: boss_survey.fits, boss_survey.par, boss_survey.ply, boss_survey_sdsspix.fits, boss_survey_sdsspix.par, boss_survey_sdsspix.ply

Approximate size: 20 Mbytes.

File type: FITS, Yanny, and Mangle-style (all provided)

Read by products: bosstile, bosstarget

Written by products: bosstile

Required column names:

• XCAPS[3, NCAPS] (float64): direction of cap defining tiling geometry, on unit sphere (not included in .par file)
• CMCAPS[NCAPS] (float64): size of each cap defining the field (not included in .par file)
• NCAPS (int32): number of caps (should be 1 for this file; not included in .par file)
• USE_CAPS (int32): bitmask containing which caps to actually use (not included in .par file)
• WEIGHT (float64): weight for polygon (should be 1 for this file ;not included in .par file)
• PIXEL (int32): pixel # (should be -1, no pixelization ;not included in .par file)
• STR (float64): area in steradians of polygon (not included in .par file)
• AREA (float64): area in square deg of polygon (not included in .fits files)
• AREANAME (string): which part of the survey this polygon is in ('SGC' or 'NGC')
• IBOSS (int32): index number of this polygon
• CETAMIN (float64): minimum value of "corrected" eta coordinate for rectangle
• CETAMAX (float64): maximum value of "corrected" eta coordinate for rectangle
• CLAMBDAMIN (float64): minimum value of "corrected" lambda coordinate for rectangle
• CLAMBDAMAX (float64): maximum value of "corrected" lambda coordinate for rectangle

Example file: boss_survey.par

For IDL users, this file is given in a "FITS" mangle format, readable by the idlutils routine "read_fits_polygons", and in a "Yanny" mangle format, readable by "read_yanny_polygons".