The Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey provides optical-wavelength integral field unit (IFU) spectroscopy of over 10,000 nearby galaxies.  This page provides descriptions, tutorials, and reference material that will help users of SDSS MaNGA data to identify and retrieve relevant products for scientific analysis, using the MAST Portal or one of the Application Programming Interfaces.

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MaNGA Overview

Survey Summary

The Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey provides optical-wavelength integral field units (IFU) spectroscopy of over 10,000 nearby galaxies. MaNGA collected data between 2014-2020 as part of the SDSS-IV project. The MaNGA data includes observations of over 10,000 unique galaxies out to redshift of z < 0.27.  The data were reduced using the MaNGA Data Reduction Pipeline (DAP), and processed with the MaNGA Data Analysis Pipeline (DAP) to obtain spatially stacked spectra, stellar kinematics, absorption and emission line measurements, and other properties for every galaxy in the sample. A graphic showing the MaNGA instrument and example spectra is shown in Figure 1.

MaNGA obtains spectra across the entire face of target galaxies using custom designed fiber bundles. The bottom right illustrates how the array of fibers spatially samples a particular galaxy. The top right compares spectra observed by two fibers at different locations in the galaxy, showing how the spectrum of the central regions differs dramatically from outer regions. Image Credit: Dana Berry / SkyWorks Digital Inc., David Law, and the SDSS collaboration.

Figure 1 - MaNGA obtains spectra across the entire face of target galaxies using custom designed fiber bundles. The bottom right illustrates how the array of fibers spatially samples a particular galaxy. The top right compares spectra observed by two fibers at different locations in the galaxy, showing how the spectrum of the central regions differs dramatically from outer regions. Image Credit: Dana Berry / SkyWorks Digital Inc., David Law, and the SDSS collaboration.


Telescopes & Instrumentation

MaNGA data was obtained at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico using the SDSS-2.5m telescope (Gunn et al. 2006). The MaNGA instrument is a fiber-fed IFU spectrograph with wavelength coverage between 360 nm to 1040 nm and resolution (λ/δλ) of roughly 2000. Each galaxy is observed with a "fiber bundle" containing between 7 and 127 fibers arranged in a hexagonal pattern to sample different locations in the target galaxy, as demonstrated in Figure 2. Each individual optical fiber has a diameter of 120 microns, which maps to 2 arc seconds field of view on the sky. The fibers feed in to the two BOSS spectrographs resulting in a spectrum for every fiber in the bundle.

Additional information about MaNGA instrument can be found in the SDSS documentation or the technical paper Drory et al. (2015).

Images of the fibers in each of the MaNGA IFUs ranging from 7 to 127 fibers. Figure is from <a href="https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AJ....149...77D/abstract">Drory et al. (2015)</a>

Figure 2 -Images of the fibers in each of the MaNGA IFUs ranging from 7 to 127 fibers. Figure is from Drory et al. (2015)


Data Products & Access

The MaNGA data products are available for download through several MAST interfaces, including the MAST Portal and programmatically in Python through astroquery.mast. For information on how to access and download MaNGA data through MAST,  please refer to the SDSS Data Access at MAST article. 

MAST has archived the high-level "science ready" data products from the MaNGA survey. The MaNGA Data Products page contains details on which files are available at MAST, which include the summary catalogs, 3D image cubes, 2D row-stacked spectra, and various models and measurements from the MaNGA Data Analysis Pipeline. If you are looking for SDSS raw data, intermediate and ancillary pipeline products, these are not available at MAST and should be accessed through the SDSS Science Archive Server (SAS). 

An AGN host galaxy seen by MaNGA

The same spiral galaxy, now showing circles for the individual IFU fibers

Figure 3 - Left: A face-on spiral galaxy seen by MaNGA - the red hexagon shows the coverage of the MaNGA IFU instrument. Right: The same spiral galaxy, now showing circles for the individual IFU fibers.


For Further Reading...

Citations and Acknowledgements

Refer to the SDSS Surveys page for instructions on how to cite this document and acknowledge the use of data obtained from MAST in publications.

For other relevant MaNGA citations, please refer to the MaNGA Technical Papers list. These include: