Project ASTEROID Science -- Other Science

Project ASTEROID Science

Other Science Possible with a 2.5m Telescope

In this era of 6m to 10m telescopes, with 30m and 50m telescopes on the drawing board, at first glance it might be difficult to understand why one would invest $18 million in a 2.5m telescope (including the telescope, site acquisition, infrastructure, enclosure and other buildings, and instruments) when that sum would purchase an instrument for the larger size telescopes. However, there is a wide variety of interesting and exciting science to be pursued with smaller telescopes.

The science cases and observations that Winer Observatory intends to pursue with the Project ASTEROID telescope are explained elsewhere. Here we briefly list some additional science cases for a 2.5-meter telescope. We developed this list primarily to help attract potential funding partners interested in these programs. The science cases listed here were gathered from presentations made at the Third Community Workshop on the Ground-Based O/IR System: Building a Strategic Plan for Instrumenting Large Telescopes held November 16-17, 2006 at the Scottsdale Plaza Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona.

In the majority of these science cases, frontline science is being performed using 6m to 10m telescopes, while 2-m to 4-m telescopes are needed to provide significant augmenting capabilities. Below we list programs that can be pursued by a 2.5-m telescope (in each case, we list source materials in parentheses):

1. Star and Planet Formation

(Michael Meyer, "Searching for the Origins of Stars, Planets, and Life")

(Lisa Prato and Michael Meyer, "Breakout Group #5 Report: Connections Between Star and Planet Formation")

Short-term follow-up
Simultaneous observations
Synoptic observing -- all time scales in UBVRIJHK can yield valuable insights into processes of star and planet formation
Wide-field narrow-band imaging in the optical and infrared (OIR)
Acquisition of OIR photometry of bright sources as well as R > 500 spectra for variable sources are crucial

2. Galaxy Evolution

(Mark Dickinson, "Galaxy Evolution")

(Pat McCarthy and Harry Ferguson, "Breakout Group #2 Report: Evolution of Global Properties of Galaxies over Cosmic Time (including BH's)")

Multiband, wide-field surveys (e.g., SDSS, 2MASS, PanSTARRS)
Deep imaging with broadband filters (e.g., z~6 with 85cm telescope, Yan et al. 2005, 2006)

3. Time Domain

(Andrew Gould, "Time Domain Exploration")

(Paula Szkody and George Djorgovski, "Breakout Group #6 Report: Transient and Variable Phenomena")

(Scott Gaudi, "Breakout Group #7 Report: Planet Searches")

Transient broadband photometry (GRB's, novae, supernovae, occultations, microlensing events, new phenomena)
Astrometry of stars (parallaxes, proper motions)
Exosolar planet discovery (spectroscopic Doppler radial velocity, transits, astrometry, and microlensing)
Cataclismic variable stars
Astrometry of KBO's and NEO's
Robotic operation
VOEvent for GRB's and other time-sensitive events within the Virtual Observatory environment

4. GRB's and SNe

(Mark Phillips and Tom Matheson, "Breakout Group #4 Report: When Stars Explode")

Robotic telescopes providing UBVRIYJHK or ugrizYJHK imaging automatically triggered within first few minutes of GRB outburst to understand progenitors and explosion mechanism
Optical broadband polarimetry of GRB's probes jet formation, orientation, structure, and opening angle
Long-term optical photometric monitoring of GRB provides identification of break time, appearance of SN
Optical/NIR low-R (R~ 500-1000) spectroscopy on a TOO basis; early GRB spectra give redshift
Robotic telescopes providing UBVRIYJHK or ugrizYJHK imaging automatically triggered within hours of discovery of Low-z SNe to understand progenitors
Long-term OIR broadband photometric monitoring of SNe to obtain bolometric light curves, dust extinction, explosion physics, etc.
Optical low-R (R~ 500-1000) spectroscopy long-term monitoring of brighter SNe for SN typing, expansion velocities, nucleosynthesis, other SN science

5. Solar System

Wide-field imaging surveys (cadence is critical, and sensitivity requires broad bandwidth)
Single object spectroscopic studies
Single object time-domain imaging studies

Please note a consistent theme of robotic operation and wide-field capabilities for many of these programs. Both of these characteristics will be design elements of the Project ASTEROID telescope.

Last modified: January 3, 2008.