Using the SQL Search Tool

Open the SQL Search tool. You will see a textbox with a submit button below. Copy the following query and paste it into the textbox (deleting what is already there). Click "CSV" to request results as a CSV (comma-separated value) file. Click Submit. Results will appear in a new window. Wait for all the results to appear - it should take between one and three minutes for the query to run.

When the query is finished, save the results to your computer using the "Save" command in your browser. Be sure to save the file as plain text (not HTML), and to give the file extension .csv.

Use Excel's "Import Text File" option to open the results in Excel (see SkyServer's Graphing and Analyzing Data tutorial to learn how to import). Look at the results.

The first column, "objid," is the SDSS's Object ID for each galaxy. You can use this number to look up each galaxy in the Object Explorer. The next two numbers are the galaxy's ra and dec. The next five numbers are the magnitudes u,g,r,i,z, which you will use to make your diagram.

Now that you have your data, click the Previous button to go back to the previous page, where you will make your color-color diagram. If you are curious about the query you entered, click this link to learn more about it.