Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

2MASS 6X Extended Source Working Database Table

Metadata Updated: July 11, 2025

During the final months of 2MASS observatory operations, a campaign of targeted "long exposure" observations was carried out during times when no previously unscanned parts of the sky were available for the main survey. These observations used the same freeze-frame scanning technique employed for the survey, but with READ2-READ1 exposures six times longer than was used for normal survey observations (hence they are referred to as "6x" observations). The 2MASS 6x measurements were intended to probe ~1 magnitude deeper than the main survey in unconfused regions.Approximately 590 deg2 of sky distributed in 30 targeted regions were scanned at least once using the long exposures. Most of this area is concentrated in two large, comprehensive surveys of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, 383 deg2 and 127 deg2, respectively. Twenty-eight additional smaller fields were mapped in the 6x mode from both observatories, covering targets that include the Pleiades open cluster, galactic star formation complexes, M31, nearby galaxy clusters and the Lockman Hole. Data processing produced a 6x Image Atlas and 6x point and extended source Working Databases (6x-PSWDB and 6x-XSWDB), analogous to those from the main survey. "Catalogs" of point and extended source detections (6x-PSC and 6x-XSC) that represent uniform, higher reliability single-epoch snapshots of the near infrared sky were drawn from the 6x WDBs using SNR and quality criteria similar to those used to construct the All-Sky Release PSC and XSC (A3.6.c). The 6x-PSC and 6x-XSC have not received the same level of scrutiny and validation as the 2MASS All-Sky PSC and XSC, though.Unlike the All-Sky Release Catalogs, the 6x Catalogs are not released as separate tables. The 6x Point and Extended Source Catalogs are instead integrated into the respective 6x Point and Extended Source WDBs. Sources comprising the Catalogs are denoted in the WDBs with the cat flag, and have cat="1".

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date July 11, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date July 11, 2025
Publisher NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive
Maintainer
Identifier ivo://irsa.ipac/2mass/catalog/6xxswdb
Data Last Modified 2025-07-09
Category Astrophysics
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 4aefa56b-7cf3-45ab-b72d-0a9e2b9d9339
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash e45bd134031ea60908db92dd9c21230fc4e2acc640d175a989fb512846780aaa
Source Schema Version 1.1

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.