Dear APO colleagues: We are pleased to report the discovery of a quasar at redshift z=5.28. The object, SDSS1208+00, has an i'- and z'-band magnitude of 20.7. Quasar selections at z>5 suffer increasing contamination from cool stars and z~1 galaxies. We are carrying out a project to obtain the infrared magnitudes for selected SDSS targets. The IR photometry was made at the IRTF in Hawaii, and the infrared colors enable us to isolate a handful of highly potential targets out of a list of several hundreds. Among the four objects for which we took optical spectra at the APO 3.5m telescope Thursday night, two quasars at z=4.7 and 5.28 are found. The new discovery shows the power of SDSS, as well as the effectiveness of IR selection. These faint targets are a real challenge. The telescope operator, Russet McMillan, did a superb job, and the telescope performed extremely well. The seeing was among the best we have witnessed. The exposure started only shortly before the end of our run, as we had difficulty finding any reference objects in this deserted field. The next observer, Paula Szkody, let us to finish up. Kindness always pays. We wish to thank you all for keeping the telescope in great condition. It will surely make more exciting discoveries. Zlatan Tsvetanov and Wei Zheng ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Zlatan Tsvetanov | Center for Astrophysical Sciences | e-mail: zlatan@pha.jhu.edu Department of Physics and Astronomy | http://adcam.pha.jhu.edu/~zlatan The Johns Hopkins University | 3701 San Martin Dr. | Tel: 410-516-8585 (office) Baltimore, MD 21218 | Fax: 410-516-8260 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *************************************************************** Wei Zheng Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University 3400 N. Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21218-2686 E_mail: zheng@pha.jhu.edu TEL. (410)516-5459, FAX (410)516-8260 *************************************************************** DSS DSS DSS DSS DSS Digital Sky Survey DSS DSS DSS DSS DSS DSS DSS DSS This is message 1509 in the sdss-general archive. You can find DSS the archive on http://www.astro.princeton.edu:81/sdss-general/INDEX.html DSS To join/leave the list, send mail to sdss-request@astro.princeton.edu DSS To post a message, mail it to sdss-general@astro.princeton.edu DSS DSS DSS DSS DSS DSS DSS DSS DSS DSS DSS DSS DSS DSS DSS DSS DSS ----- End Included Message ----- APO APO APO APO APO Apache Point Observatory 3.5m APO APO APO APO APO This is message 426 in the apo35-general archive. You can find APO the archive on http://www.astro.princeton.edu/APO/apo35-general/INDEX.html APO To join/leave the list, send mail to apo35-request@astro.princeton.edu APO To post a message, mail it to apo35-general@astro.princeton.edu APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO