Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jun 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006aas...208.0101p&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society Meeting 208, #1.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.78
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
While there are more than a dozen telescopes larger than 10 meters there is plenty of interesting astronomy which can be done with much smaller instruments. Notice that the existing SDSS, and the future PanSTARRS and LSST saturate at 15 mag. An example of interesting science is provided with ASAS (All Sky Automated Survey) which used aperture of 7 cm to discover over 50,000 variable stars brighter than 14 mag, covering almost 3/4 of the sky. Most of these are new discoveries.ASAS like instruments are most likely more efficient in a search for afterglows following gamma-ray bursts (GRB) than CFHT and its Megacam. In fact it should be possible to detect the afterglows without a GRB trigger by imaging all visible sky every 15 minutes down to 16 mag using a number of ASAS-like instruments.Another example of small instruments being essential, is their ability to detect 'killer asteroids' prior to their impact. It will take a number of small instruments, somewhat more powerful than ASAS, to detect boulders as small as 10 - 20 meters at a distance of several days prior to their impact. This will provide time to evacuate a region in case of Tunguska-like event, or to provide news of a spectacular but harmless event in case of a more modest impact.
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