  The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) will carry out a digital photometric and
spectroscopic survey over pi steradians in the northern Galactic cap. An array
of CCD detectors used in drift-scan mode will image the sky in five passbands
to a limiting magnitude of r' ~ 23. Selected from the imaging survey, 10^6
galaxies, 10^5 quasars and selected samples of stars will be observed
spectroscopically. In addition, a smaller (225 deg^2), deeper, southern survey
will reach ~2.0 magnitudes fainter and will contain a wealth of information
about variable sources, supernovae and proper motions. We describe the current
status of the survey, which recently saw first light, and its prospects for
constraining cosmological models.
