UKIDSS is the next generation near-infrared sky survey, the successor to 2MASS. UKIDSS began in May 2005 and will survey 7500 square degrees of the Northern sky, extending over both high and low Galactic latitudes, in JHK to K=18.3. This depth is three magnitudes deeper than 2MASS. UKIDSS will be the true near-infrared counterpart to the Sloan survey, and will produce as well a panoramic clear atlas of the Galactic plane. In fact UKIDSS is made up of five surveys and includes two deep extra-Galactic elements, one covering 35 square degrees to K=21, and the other reaching K=23 over 0.77 square degrees.

The survey instrument is WFCAM on the UK Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii. WFCAM has four 2048x2048 Rockwell devices, at 94% spacing, as illustrated at the top. The pixel scale of 0.4 arcsec gives an exposed solid angle of 0.21 sq. degs.

Four of the principal quarry of UKIDSS are: the coolest and nearest brown dwarfs, high-redshift dusty starburst galaxies, elliptical galaxies and galaxy clusters at redshifts 1‹z‹2, and the highest-redshift quasars, at z=7. UKIDSS aims to discover the nearest object to the Sun (outside the solar system) as well as some of the farthest known objects in the Universe.

The UKIDSS Consortium is a collection of some 100 astronomers who are responsible for the design and execution of the survey. The data become available to the entire ESO community immediately they are entered into the archive. Release to the world follows 18 months after each release to ESO.

24 Aug 2009 UKIDSS' 100th journal paper has appeared in press.

2 Feb 2010 World Release of UKIDSS DR4, except GPS took place today.

8 Jan 2010 Euro Release of GPS DR6 took place today.

13 Oct 2009 Euro Release of LAS, GCS, DXS DR6 took place today.

28 Aug 2009 Euro Release of GPS and UDS DR5 took place today, completing DR5.