Incremental Data Release from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS)

The Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) Second Incremental Data Release is now available for public access. This Release includes data from the northern and southern 2MASS facilities, covering 47% of the sky. The Release data products consist of a Point Source Catalog containing positions and photometry for over 162 million objects, an Extended Source Catalog containing positions, photometry and basic shape information for over 585,000 resolved sources, approximately 1.9 million compressed 512x1024 pixel (1"/pixel) images in the three Survey bandpasses, and non-compressed "postage-stamp" images for all of the Extended Source Catalog objects.

The release data products can be accessed on-line from the IPAC/2MASS Web site at http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/2mass/ or directly from the NASA/Infrared Science Archive site at http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/. In the near future, the release Catalogs will be available via ftp download, and on a limited distribution DVD-ROM. Access to the 2MASS Atlas Images is currently possible only via the on-line services.

The 2MASS/IPAC webpage contains general information about this data release, including an on-line Explanatory Supplement
( http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/2mass/releases/second/doc/explsup.html), sky coverage maps, images of interesting objects in the release, catalog characteristics, etc. A tool for determining whether a specified position is included in the release area is available on the NASA/Infrared Science Archive webpage. Questions about the release can be directed to the 2MASS Help Desk at 2mass@ipac.caltech.edu.

We encourage you to notify us (at 2mass@ipac.caltech.edu) about any refereed publications or conference proceedings (even in preprint form) which make use of these or earlier 2MASS Release data products. We will gladly provide links to your papers from the 2MASS website. Thank you very much in advance.

The Two Micron All Sky Survey is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology. Funding for the survey has been provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation.