Previous | Session 150 | Next | Author Index | Block Schedule
N. Kaiser (IfA, U. Hawaii), Pan-STARRS Team
The Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii is developing a large optical/near IR survey telescope system; the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System. Pan-STARRS will consist of an array of four 1.8m telescopes with very large (7 square degree) field of view, giving it an etendue larger than all existing survey instruments combined. Each telescope will be equipped with a 1.4 billion pixel CCD camera with low noise and rapid read-out, and the data will be reduced in near real time to produce both cumulative static sky and difference images, from which transient, moving and variable objects can be detected. Pan-STARRS will be able to scan the entire visible sky to approximately 24th magnitude in less than a week, and this unique combination of sensitivity and cadence will open up many new possibilities in time domain astronomy. A major goal for the project is to survey potentially dangerous asteroids, where Pan-STARRS will be able to detect most objects down to 300m size, much smaller than the km size objects accessible to existing search programs. In addition, the Pan-STARRS data will used to address a wide range of astronomical problems in the Solar System, the Galaxy, and the Cosmos at large.
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to http://pan-starrs.org. 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: kaiser@hawaii.edu
Previous | Session 150 | Next
Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #4
© 2005. The American Astronomical Soceity.