Please could the DESI DR2 team crossmatch sources, to help with student project planning?

Question

Hello there,

I'm designing an MSc student project for Jan 2026 - Dec 2027, which will involve reducing and proposing optical spectroscopy for the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT). To avoid the possibility of their hard work being made redundant by the next data release of DESI spectra, please could I send someone a list of ~90 sources for crossmatching? We can then avoid observing the matched sources, and note this in the project plan (due next month).

Kind regards,
Sarah

Answer 1

Yes, we'd be happy to help with cross matching a list of potential targets with what DESI has already observed so that you can focus on new observations.  Please email me at StephenBailey@lbl.gov to coordinate details.

Caveat: DESI DR2 may not go public until after the student project is finished. So it's fine to focus your proposal on new observations that won't overlap with DESI DR2, but I recommend against relying that DR2 will be available to fill in the gaps on the timescale of this project.