Related papers: Optical Synoptic Telescopes: New Science Frontiers
Astronomers have come to recognize the benefits of photonics, often in combination with optical systems, in solving longstanding experimental problems in Earth-based astronomy. Here, we explore some of the recent advances made possible by…
Most major discoveries in astronomy are unplanned, and result from surveying the Universe in a new way, rather than by testing a hypothesis or conducting an investigation with planned outcomes. For example, of the 10 greatest discoveries…
The days of the lone astronomer with his optical telescope and photographic plates are long gone: Astronomy in 2025 will not only be multi-wavelength, but multi-messenger, and dominated by huge data sets and matching data rates. Catalogues…
I summarize the scientific goals and current status of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, briefly describe the Early Data Release, and discuss some recent scientific results obtained from commissioning data which are apposite to the distribution…
The tens of millions of radio sources to be detected with next-generation surveys pose new challenges, quite apart from the obvious ones of processing speed and data volumes. For example, existing algorithms are inadequate for source…
The Universe is almost totally unexplored at low surface brightness levels. In spite of great progress in the construction of large telescopes and improvements in the sensitivity of detectors, the limiting surface brightness of imaging…
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey is an ambitious, multi-institutional project to create a huge digital imaging and spectroscopic data bank of 25% of the celestial sphere, approximately 10,000 deg^2 centred on the north galactic polar cap. The…
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope is designed to provide an unprecedented optical imaging dataset that will support investigations of our Solar System, Galaxy and Universe, across half the sky and over ten years of repeated observation.…
A survey that can cover the sky in optical bands over wide fields to faint magnitudes with a fast cadence will enable many of the exciting science opportunities of the next decade. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will have an…
Fundamental changes are taking place in the way we do astronomy. In twenty years time, it is likely that most astronomers will never go near a cutting-edge telescope, which will be much more efficiently operated in service mode. They will…
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) will carry out a digital photometric and spectroscopic survey over pi steradians in the northern Galactic cap. An array of CCD detectors used in drift-scan mode will image the sky in five passbands to a…
The new frontier of cosmology will be led by three-dimensional surveys of the large-scale structure of the Universe. Based on its all-sky surveys and redshift depth, the SKA is destined to revolutionize cosmology, in combination with future…
For the past 400 years, astronomers have sought to observe and interpret the Universe by building more powerful telescopes. These incredible instruments extend the capabilities of one of our most important senses, sight, towards new limits…
Some 400 years after Galileo, modern telescopes have enabled humanity to "see" what the natural eye cannot. Astronomical images today contain information about incredibly large objects located across vast distances and reveal information…
Recent X-ray observations have had a major impact on topics ranging from protostars to cosmology. They have also drawn attention to important and general physical processes that currently limit our understanding of thermal and nonthermal…
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is making a multi-colour, three dimensional map of the nearby Universe. The survey is in two parts. The first part is imaging one quarter of the sky in five colours from the near ultraviolet to the near…
Breakthroughs in physics and astrophysics are often driven by technological advances, with the recent detection of gravitational waves being one such example. This white paper focuses upon how improved astrometric and spectroscopic…
Sky coverage is one of the most important pieces of information about astronomical observations. We discuss possible representations, and present algorithms to create and manipulate shapes consisting of generalized spherical polygons with…
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) will carry out a digital photometric and spectroscopic survey over pi steradians in the northern Galactic cap. An array of CCD detectors used in drift-scan mode will image the sky in five passbands to a…
Quantum optics potentially offers an information channel from the Universe beyond the established ones of imaging and spectroscopy. All existing cameras and all spectrometers measure aspects of the first-order spatial and/or temporal…