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P. Coppi, J. Snyder (Yale University), QUEST Collaboration
The QUEST (Quasar Equatorial Survey Team)
collaboration, a joint venture between Yale University,
Indiana University, and CIDA in Venezuela, has instrumented
the focal plane of the 1m CIDA Schmidt telescope with an 8k
\times 8k CCD mosaic camera. The camera operates in
driftscan mode, covering a ~ 300 sq.deg.
(2.4\circ\times120\circ) swath of sky in one night.
Using filters, we obtain up to 4 colors per object
simultaneously, and using the telescope's 3.2\circ
objective prism, we obtain slitless (10-30 Åresolution)
spectra for all objects. With the current version of the
instrument, the equatorial sky between \delta=±6\circ
is accessible (~ 2000 sq.deg. in a typical season). The
camera is well-suited for large-area objective prism and
variability studies. We present an overview of the camera
and data system, and highlight some of our first science
results. These include: the detection of the optical
afterglow from a gamma-ray burst with a 2 degree radius
error box only 3 hours after the event; the detection of
new, faint (mb ~18-19) RR Lyrae stars; a multi-band,
multi-epoch survey of the entire Orion OB1 association
(~120 sq.deg.) to V\alt 20, in order to obtain a
comprehensive census of the low mass young stellar
population (down to ~0.2\> M\odot); and a 700 sq.
deg H\alpha emission line catalog containing \approx 700
objects with redshifts 0 \noindent (The observations reported here were made at the
Observatorio Nacional de Llano del Hato, Mérida,
Venezuela, operated by the Centro de Investigaciones de
Astronom{\'i}a [CIDA] and supported by the Consejo Nacional
de Investigaciones Cient{\'i}ficas y Tecnológicas
[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.
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The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address
for comments about the abstract:
coppi@astro.yale.edu