Hi, I am fitting theoretical isochrones to photometry of galactic globular clusters. For some of them the SkyMapper DR2 photometry appears very useful, covering HB, RGB, TO and MS. However, for some other clusters DR2 is too shallow: data a magnitude deeper would be much better, specially in u and v filters. Should I wait for a (soon) next release with a deeper photometry, e.g. DR3, or any next release will be at same level of a limiting magnitude?

Best regards,

George Gontcharov

Dear George,

DR3 does provide much more sky coverage in u and v down to ~19.5 mag compared to DR2 (see the attached v-band map, where the darker colours indicate deeper photometry; the u-band map is similar). We expect DR3 to become available to the world in the second half of this year. But for quicker access, you could strike up a collaboration with an Australian astronomer!

Regards,

Christopher Onken

SkyMapper Team

Hi! As I understand, such an Australian astronomer must assume some obligations and fulfill some conditions. He would understand which data and where to take. Also, he/she should postpone his/her current research and join my research for a short time. Am I right?

Dear George,

we would hope that the Australian collaborator(s) would be contributing to the research, but the extent of that involvement is up to you to decide together. The only obligations are not to compete with the couple of remaining Protected Science programs and to acknowledge use of the data. See:

• https://skymapper.anu.edu.au/science-projects/
• https://skymapper.anu.edu.au/how-to-cite/

But to gain access to the DR3 data, they would need to run any database/image queries from Australia.

Regards,

Christopher Onken

SkyMapper Team