For imaging observations, the SDSS telescope used the drift scanning technique, which tracks the telescope along a great circle on the sky and continuously records small strips of the sky. The image of the stars in the focal plane drifts along the CCD chip, and the charge is electronically shifted along the detectors at exactly the same rate, instead of staying fixed as in tracked telescopes. (Simply parking the telescope as the sky moves is only workable on the celestial equator, since stars at different declination move at different apparent speed). This method allows consistent astrometry over the widest possible field, and minimises overheads from reading out the detectors. The disadvantage is minor distortion effects.