Draft version August 7, 2016Preprint typeset using LATEX style emulateapj v. 05/12/14

THE ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH DATA RELEASES OF THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY: FINAL DATAFROM SDSS-III

Shadab Alam1, Franco D. Albareti2, Carlos Allende Prieto3,4, F. Anders5, Scott F. Anderson6,

Timothy Anderton7, Brett H. Andrews8,9, Eric Armengaud10, Eric Aubourg11, Stephen Bailey12,Sarbani Basu13, Julian E. Bautista11, Rachael L. Beaton14,15, Timothy C. Beers16, Chad F. Bender17,18

Andreas A. Berlind19, Florian Beutler12, Vaishali Bhardwaj6,12, Jonathan C. Bird19, Dmitry Bizyaev20,21,22,Cullen H. Blake23, Michael R. Blanton24, Michael Blomqvist25, John J. Bochanski6,26, Adam S. Bolton7,

Jo Bovy27,28, A. Shelden Bradley20, W. N. Brandt17,29,30, D. E. Brauer5, J. Brinkmann20, Peter J. Brown31,Joel R. Brownstein7, Angela Burden32, Etienne Burtin10, Nicolas G. Busca33,34,11, Zheng Cai35, Diego Capozzi32,

Aurelio Carnero Rosell33,34, Michael A. Carr36, Ricardo Carrera3,4, K. C. Chambers37,William James Chaplin38,39, Yen-Chi Chen40, Cristina Chiappini5,34, S. Drew Chojnowski21, Chia-Hsun Chuang2,

Nicolas Clerc41, Johan Comparat2, Kevin Covey42,43, Rupert A.C. Croft1, Antonio J. Cuesta44,45,Katia Cunha33,35, Luiz N. da Costa33,34, Nicola Da Rio46, James R. A. Davenport6, Kyle S. Dawson7,

Nathan De Lee47, Timothee Delubac48, Rohit Deshpande17,18, Saurav Dhital49, Letcia Dutra-Ferreira50,34,51,Tom Dwelly41, Anne Ealet52, Garrett L. Ebelke14, Edward M. Edmondson32, Daniel J. Eisenstein53,

Tristan Ellsworth7, Yvonne Elsworth38,39, Courtney R. Epstein8, Michael Eracleous17,29,54,6,Stephanie Escoffier52, Massimiliano Esposito3,4, Michael L. Evans6, Xiaohui Fan35, Emma Fernandez-Alvar3,4,

Diane Feuillet21, Nurten Filiz Ak17,29,55, Hayley Finley56, Alexis Finoguenov57, Kevin Flaherty58,Scott W. Fleming59,60, Andreu Font-Ribera12, Jonathan Foster45, Peter M. Frinchaboy61,

J. G. Galbraith-Frew7, Rafael A. Garca62, D. A. Garca-Hernandez3,4, Ana E. Garca Perez14,3,4,Patrick Gaulme20, Jian Ge46, R. Genova-Santos3,4, A. Georgakakis41, Luan Ghezzi33,53, Bruce A. Gillespie63,

Leo Girardi64,34, Daniel Goddard32, Satya Gontcho A Gontcho44, Jonay I. Gonzalez Hernandez3,4,Eva K. Grebel65, Paul J. Green53, Jan Niklas Grieb41, Nolan Grieves46, James E. Gunn36, Hong Guo7,

Paul Harding66, Sten Hasselquist21, Suzanne L. Hawley6, Michael Hayden21, Fred R. Hearty17,Saskia Hekker67,39, Shirley Ho1, David W. Hogg24, Kelly Holley-Bockelmann19, Jon A. Holtzman21,

Klaus Honscheid68,69, Daniel Huber70,71,39, Joseph Huehnerhoff20, Inese I. Ivans7, Linhua Jiang72,Jennifer A. Johnson8,69, Karen Kinemuchi20,21, David Kirkby25, Francisco Kitaura5, Mark A. Klaene20,

Gillian R. Knapp36, Jean-Paul Kneib48,73, Xavier P. Koenig13, Charles R. Lam14 Ting-Wen Lan63, Dustin Lang1,Pierre Laurent10, Jean-Marc Le Goff10, Alexie Leauthaud74, Khee-Gan Lee75, Young Sun Lee76,

Timothy C. Licquia9, Jian Liu46, Daniel C. Long20,21, Martn Lopez-Corredoira3,4, Diego Lorenzo-Oliveira50,34,Sara Lucatello64, Britt Lundgren77, Robert H. Lupton36, Claude E. Mack III19,5, Suvrath Mahadevan17,18,

Marcio A. G. Maia33,34, Steven R. Majewski14, Elena Malanushenko20,21, Viktor Malanushenko20,21,A. Manchado3,4, Marc Manera32,78, Qingqing Mao19, Claudia Maraston32, Robert C. Marchwinski17,18,

Daniel Margala25, Sarah L. Martell79, Marie Martig75, Karen L. Masters32, Savita Mathur80,Cameron K. McBride53, Peregrine M. McGehee81, Ian D. McGreer35, Richard G. McMahon82,83,

Brice Menard63,74,84, Marie-Luise Menzel41, Andrea Merloni41, Szabolcs Meszaros85, Adam A. Miller86,87,88,Jordi Miralda-Escude89,44 Hironao Miyatake36,74, Antonio D. Montero-Dorta7, Surhud More74,

Eric Morganson53, Xan Morice-Atkinson32, Heather L. Morrison66, Benot Mosser90, Demitri Muna8,Adam D. Myers91, Kirpal Nandra41, Jeffrey A. Newman9, Mark Neyrinck63, Duy Cuong Nguyen92,

Robert C. Nichol32, David L. Nidever93, Pasquier Noterdaeme56, Sebastian E. Nuza5, Julia E. OConnell61,Robert W. OConnell14, Ross OConnell1, Ricardo L. C. Ogando33,34, Matthew D. Olmstead7,94,

Audrey E. Oravetz20,21, Daniel J. Oravetz20, Keisuke Osumi1, Russell Owen6, Deborah L. Padgett95,Nikhil Padmanabhan45, Martin Paegert19, Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille10, Kaike Pan20, John K. Parejko96,Isabelle Paris97, Changbom Park98, Petchara Pattarakijwanich36, M. Pellejero-Ibanez3,4, Joshua Pepper99,19,

Will J. Percival32, Ismael Perez-Fournon3,4, Ignasi Perez-Rafols44,100, Patrick Petitjean56,Matthew M. Pieri101,32, Marc H. Pinsonneault8, Gustavo F. Porto de Mello50,34, Francisco Prada2,102,103,

Abhishek Prakash9, Adrian M. Price-Whelan104, Pavlos Protopapas105, M. Jordan Raddick63, Mubdi Rahman63,Beth A. Reid106,12, James Rich10, Hans-Walter Rix75, Annie C. Robin107, Constance M. Rockosi108,Thase S. Rodrigues64,109,34, Sergio Rodrguez-Torres2,102, Natalie A. Roe12, Ashley J. Ross32,69,

Nicholas P. Ross110, Graziano Rossi111,10, John J. Ruan6, J. A. Rubino-Martn3,4, Eli S. Rykoff112,Salvador Salazar-Albornoz113,41, Mara Salvato41,114, Lado Samushia115,116, Ariel G. Sanchez41,

Baslio Santiago117,34, Conor Sayres6, Ricardo P. Schiavon118,119, David J. Schlegel12, Sarah J. Schmidt8,Donald P. Schneider17,29, Mathias Schultheis120, Axel D. Schwope5, C. G. Scoccola3,4, Caroline Scott53,Kris Sellgren8, Hee-Jong Seo121, Aldo Serenelli122, Neville Shane14, Yue Shen15,72, Matthew Shetrone123,

Yiping Shu7, V. Silva Aguirre39, Thirupathi Sivarani124, M. F. Skrutskie14, Anze Slosar125, Verne V. Smith126,Flavia Sobreira34,127, Diogo Souto33, Keivan G. Stassun19,128, Matthias Steinmetz5, Dennis Stello39,70,

Michael A. Strauss36,129, Alina Streblyanska3,4, Nao Suzuki74, Molly E. C. Swanson53, Jonathan C. Tan46,Jamie Tayar8, Ryan C. Terrien17,18,130, Aniruddha R. Thakar63, Daniel Thomas32,131, Neil Thomas46,

Benjamin A. Thompson61, Jeremy L. Tinker24, Rita Tojeiro132, Nicholas W. Troup14, Mariana Vargas-Magana1,Jose A. Vazquez125, Licia Verde89,44,133, Matteo Viel97,134, Nicole P. Vogt21, David A. Wake77,135, Ji Wang13,Benjamin A. Weaver24, David H. Weinberg8, Benjamin J. Weiner35, Martin White12,106, John C. Wilson14,

John P. Wisniewski136, W. M. Wood-Vasey9,129, Christophe Yeche10, Donald G. York137, Nadia L. Zakamska63,O. Zamora3,4, Gail Zasowski63, Idit Zehavi66, Gong-Bo Zhao138,32, Zheng Zheng7, Xu Zhou ()139,

arX

iv:1

501.

0096

3v3

[as

tro-

ph.I

M]

21

May

201

5

2

Zhimin Zhou ()139, Hu Zou ()139 Guangtun Zhu63,88,

Draft version August 7, 2016

ABSTRACT

The third generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) took data from 2008 to 2014 us-ing the original SDSS wide-field imager, the original and an upgraded multi-object fiber-fed opticalspectrograph, a new near-infrared high-resolution spectrograph, and a novel optical interferometer.All the data from SDSS-III are now made public. In particular, this paper describes Data Release11 (DR11) including all data acquired through 2013 July, and Data Release 12 (DR12) adding dataacquired through 2014 July (including all data included in previous data releases), marking the endof SDSS-III observing. Relative to our previous public release (DR10), DR12 adds one million newspectra of galaxies and quasars from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) over anadditional 3000 deg2 of sky, more than triples the number of H-band spectra of stars as part of theApache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE), and includes repeatedaccurate radial velocity measurements of 5500 stars from the Multi-Object APO Radial Velocity Ex-oplanet Large-area Survey (MARVELS). The APOGEE outputs now include measured abundancesof 15 different elements for each star. In total, SDSS-III added 2350 deg2 of ugriz imaging; 155,520spectra of 138,099 stars as part of the Sloan Exploration of Galactic Understanding and Evolution 2(SEGUE-2) survey; 2,497,484 BOSS spectra of 1,372,737 galaxies, 294,512 quasars, and 247,216 starsover 9376 deg2; 618,080 APOGEE spectra of 156,593 stars; and 197,040 MARVELS spectra of 5,513stars. Since its first light in 1998, SDSS has imaged over 1/3 of the Celestial sphere in five bands andobtained over five million astronomical spectra.Keywords: AtlasesCatalogsSurveys

1 McWilliams Center for Cosmology, Department of Physics,Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA15213, USA

2 Instituto de Fsica Teorica, (UAM/CSIC), UniversidadAutonoma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, E-28049 Madrid, Spain

3 Instituto de Astrofsica de Canarias (IAC), C/Va Lactea,s/n, E-38200, La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain

4 Departamento de Astrofsica, Universidad de La Laguna,E-38206, La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain

5 Leibniz-Institut fur Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP), An derSternwarte 16, D-14482 Potsdam, Germany

6 Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Box351580, Seattle, WA 98195, USA

7 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah,Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA

8 Department of Astronomy, Ohio State University, 140 West18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA

9 PITT PACC, Department of Physics and Astronomy,University of Pittsburgh, 3941 OHara Street, Pittsburgh, PA15260, USA

10 CEA, Centre de Saclay, Irfu/SPP, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette,France

11 APC, University of Paris Diderot, CNRS/IN2P3,CEA/IRFU, Observatoire de Paris, Sorbonne Paris Cite,F-75205 Paris, France

12 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One CyclotronRoad, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA

13 Department of Astronomy, Yale University, P.O. Box208101, New Haven, CT 06520-8101, USA

14 Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia, P.O.Box 400325, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4325, USA

15 Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington,813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena,