[3] For the southern sky, the J-band (blue, Eastman Kodak IIIa-J) of the ESO/SERC Southern Sky Atlas (known as the SERC-J, code "S")[4][5][6] and the "quick" V-band (blue or V in the Johnson–Kron–Cousins system, Eastman Kodak IIa-D) SERC-J Equatorial Extension (SERC-QV, code "XV"), from the UK Schmidt Telescope at the Australian Siding Spring Observatory, were used.

[7] Three supplemental plates in the V-band from the SERC and Palomar surveys are included (code "XX"), with shorter exposure times for the fields containing the Andromeda Galaxy, the Large and the Small Magellanic Cloud.

After the original 1994 publication, more digitizations were made using recently completed photographic surveys, and released as the Second Generation DSS or DSS2.

[21] Similar methods were used in the production of the "Second Generation" DSS, but the microdensitometers have since been modified for multi-channel operation, in order to keep the scan time under 12 hours per plate.

[23] The compressed version of the First Generation DSS was published by the STScI and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) on 102 CD-ROMs in 1994, under the name "Digitized Sky Survey.

RealSky consequently took up less space, but the additional compression made it inappropriate for use in photometry and fine detail in the images was degraded.