In this section, we discuss in more detail the procedures that are undertaken to combine SZ effect measurements with other data to extract cosmological and astrophysical information, by reference to the cluster CL 0016+16.
CL 0016+16 was discovered as a candidate high-redshift (z ~ 0.5) cluster by Kron (1980). Its basic characteristics in the optical, X-ray, and SZ effect were described by Koo (1981), White et al. (1981), and Birkinshaw et al. (1981) in companion papers. Although the initial discovery was in the optical, this can also be regarded as an X-ray selected cluster, since it appeared independently in the Einstein Medium-Sensitivity Survey (Gioia 1990).
Since CL 0016+16 has high optical and X-ray luminosity, and a substantial SZ effect, it has been the subject of a considerable number of studies since the early 1980s. Recent measurements show it to have a redshift of 0.5481 (Ellingson 1988), and to be the dominant cluster in a supercluster with at least two adjacent X-ray clusters of lower mass (Hughes et al. 1995, Hughes and Birkinshaw 1998). A quasar of similar redshift (Margon et al. 1983) also seems to be associated with this supercluster. CL 0016+16 has a 0.5 - 4.5 keV X-ray luminosity of about 2 × 1038 W.