This paper documents the seventeenth data release (DR17) from the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys; the fifth and final release from the fourth phase (SDSS-IV). DR17 contains the complete release of the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey, which reached its goal of surveying over 10,000 nearby galaxies. The complete release

We use Gaia photometry and astrometry to estimate the vertical spatial structure of the Milky Way at the Solar radius, formally accounting for sample incompleteness (the selection function) and parallax measurement uncertainty. Our results show impressive precision demonstrating the power of the Gaia data. However, systematic errors dominate the

We introduce a method to infer the vertical distribution of stars in the Milky Way using a Poisson likelihood function, with a view to applying our method to the Gaia catalogue. We show how to account for the sample selection function and for parallax measurement uncertainties. Our method is validated against a simulated sample drawn from a model

2MASS J20395358+4222505 is an obscured early B supergiant near the massive OB star association Cygnus OB2. Despite its bright infrared magnitude (K s = 5.82) it has remained largely ignored because of its dim optical magnitude (B = 16.63, V = 13.68). In a previous paper, we classified it as a highly reddened, potentially extremely luminous, early B

The Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO) is an array of wide-field optical telescopes, designed to exploit new discoveries from the next generation of gravitational wave detectors (LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA), study rapidly evolving transients, and exploit multimessenger opportunities arising from neutrino and very high energy gamma-ray

The role played by environment in galaxy evolution is a topic of ongoing debate among astronomers. There has been little success in elucidating the degree to which environment can alter, re-shape, or drive galaxy evolution, that is, using either observations or simulations. However, our knowledge of the effect of environment on gas metallicity