[Previous] | [Session 4] | [Next]
A. K. Vivas, R. Zinn (Yale University), QUEST Collaboration
The QUEST RR Lyrae Survey is a large scale, multi-band, multi-epoch, drift-scan survey carried out with a CCD mosaic camera at the 1m Schmidt telescope at the Llano del Hato Observatory, Venezuela. The camera consists of 16 2048x2048 CCDs which allows to survey the sky at a rate of 34.5 sq. degrees/hr, down to a magnitude of V~20. The survey is able to find RR Lyrae stars that lie at distances from ~4 to 70 Kpc. Thus, it will provide a much needed sample of tracers at large galactocentric distances, which is essential for understanding the formation of the halo of the Milky Way. We intend to survey a total of 700 sq. degress of the sky, covering a large range in galactic latitude.
We present here our first results for an area of 60 sq. degrees at intermediate to low galactic latitude (b=-40 to -10) in the B, V, R and I bands. The QUEST Collaboration has developed an automated software for analizing the huge amount of data produced by the survey. Variable stars are discovered by using a \chi2 test and RR Lyrae stars are isolated by their colors, light curves, periods and amplitudes.
Research reported herein based on observations at the Observatorio Nacional de Llano del Hato, Venezuela, operated by the Centro de Investigaciones de Astronom{\'i}a (CIDA) and supported by CONICIT.
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to http://hepwww.physics.yale.edu/www-info/astro/quest.html. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the Web site for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back comand on your browser.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: vivas@astro.yale.edu