Re: LSST: The Death of Amateur Astronomy?
- From: David Weinshenker <daze39@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2008 09:07:09 -0700
James wrote:
When the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope comes on board, I don't see
how amateurs will be able to discover anything new in the sky. The
LSST will always be there first. You can forget comet hunting,
asteroid hunting, or finding galaxy supernovae.
LSST will image ten square degrees of sky to 24th magnitude every 16
seconds, completing the entire visible sky in three nights. Image
difference comparisons will be almost instantaneous. If anything moves
or changes in the sky, LSST will find it and report it.
"With its ability to go faint fast, LSST will find virtually all one-
kilometer NEOs in less than a year. In a decade of operation, it will
find 90 percent of all NEOs down to 140 meters in diameter... a new
source brightening over a period of a few days with a particular color
signature will be identified as one of the several hundred thousand
supernovae LSST is expected to discover each year."
http://www.lsst.org/About/Tour/software.shtml
It won't replace all other observations - for example, consider
the stuff that the Center for Backyard Astrophysics (cbastro.org)
is doing with high-time-resolution monitoring of short-period
variable stars: this can't be replaced by a once-every-three-nights
survey image.
The LSST looks more like an automated successor to the Palomar Sky
Survey project that was done with the big 4 x 6 ft. Schmidt camera.
-dave w
.
- References:
- LSST: The Death of Amateur Astronomy?
- From: James
- LSST: The Death of Amateur Astronomy?
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