The Sixth Data Release of the Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE). I. Survey Description, Spectra, and Radial Velocities

Abstract

The Radial Velocity Experiment (R ave ) is a magnitude-limited (9 <  I  < 12) spectroscopic survey of Galactic stars randomly selected in Earth’s southern hemisphere. The R ave medium-resolution spectra ( R  ∼ 7500) cover the Ca-triplet region (8410–8795 Å). The sixth and final data release (DR6) is based on 518,387 observations of 451,783 unique stars. R ave observations were taken between 2003 April 12 and 2013 April 4. Here we present the genesis, setup, and data reduction of R ave as well as wavelength-calibrated and flux-normalized spectra and error spectra for all observations in R ave DR6. Furthermore, we present derived spectral classification and radial velocities for the R ave targets, complemented by cross-matches with Gaia DR2 and other relevant catalogs. A comparison between internal error estimates, variances derived from stars with more than one observing epoch, and a comparison with radial velocities of Gaia DR2 reveals consistently that 68% of the objects have a velocity accuracy better than 1.4 km s –1 , while 95% of the objects have radial velocities better than 4.0 km s –1 . Stellar atmospheric parameters, abundances and distances are presented in a subsequent publication. The data can be accessed via the R ave website ( http://rave-survey.org ) or the Vizier database.