Largest digital survey of visible Universe released
Cosmologists at Durham University have helped put together the world's largest digital survey of the visible Universe. The Pan-STARRS1 Surveys, which have mapped billions of stars and galaxies, have been publicly released, with scientists predicting this will lead to new discoveries about the Universe. Read more
Space Telescope Science Institute to Host Data from World's Largest Digital Sky Survey
The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, in conjunction with the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy in Honolulu, Hawaii, is publicly releasing data today from Pan-STARRS - the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System - the world's largest digital sky survey Read more
Title: PS2: Managing the next step in the Pan-STARRS wide field survey system Authors: William S. Burgett
The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) is unique among the existing or planned major ground-based optical survey systems as the only "distributed aperture" system. The concept of increasing system etendue by replicating small telescopes and digital cameras presents both management opportunities and challenges. The focus in this paper is on management lessons learned from PS1, and how those have been used to form the management plan for PS2. The management plan components emphasised here include technical development, financial and schedule planning, and critical path and risk management. Finally, the status and schedule for PS2 are presented.
Title: Design Differences between the Pan-STARRS PS1 and PS2 Telescopes Authors: Jeffrey S. Morgan, Nicholas Kaiser, Vincent Moreau, David Anderson, William Burgett
The PS2 telescope is the second in an array of wide-field telescopes that is being built for the Panoramic-Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) on Haleakala. The PS2 design has evolved incrementally based on lessons learned from PS1, but these changes should result in significant improvements in image quality, tracking performance in windy conditions, and reductions in scattered light. The optics for this telescope are finished save for their coatings and the fabrication for the telescope structure itself is well on the way towards completion and installation on-site late this year (2012). The most significant differences between the two telescopes include the following: secondary mirror support changes, improvements in the optical polishing, changes in the optical coatings to improve throughput and decrease ghosting, removal of heat sources inside the mirror cell, expansion of the primary mirror figure control system, changes in the baffle designs, and an improved cable wrap design. This paper gives a description of each of these design changes and discusses the motivations for making them.
PS1 Telescope Establishes Near-Earth Asteroid Discovery Record
The Pan-STARRS PS1 telescope on Haleakala, Maui, discovered 19 near-Earth asteroids on the night of January 29, the most asteroids discovered by one telescope on a single night. Read more
The University of Hawaii said Wednesday it expects to delay by about two years the start of a new asteroid-hunting telescope it plans to build at Mauna Kea's summit. University of Hawaii astronomer and Pan-STARRS principal investigator Nick Kaiser said mechanical problems pushed back completion of a prototype built at Haleakala. This then caused a broader plan to install four of these telescopes together at Mauna Kea to be postponed. The snag also caused the institute to use more funds during the initial stage of the project than expected. Read more
Last month, it was announced that the first Pan-STARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System) telescope, PS1, is fully operational. The system is designed to search for "killer" asteroids and comets by mapping large portions of the sky each night to look for moving objects in our solar system. Based in Hawaii, Pan-STARRS features the world's largest digital camera - a 1,400-megapixel device designed by researchers at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Read more
The first of the asteroid-hunting Pan-STARRS telescopes is now on the lookout for threatening near-Earth objects, but its vision is impaired due to the US military. From its perch atop the Haleakala volcano in Maui, Hawaii, PS1's mammoth, 1400-megapixel camera should uncover 100,000 new asteroids and identify any that are on a collision course with Earth. However, the US air force, which funded the development of the telescope, requires that software automatically black out a swathe of pixels to hide the trajectories of passing satellites. Read more
The Pan-STARRS 1 telescope, a joint project of NASA, the Air Force and a consortium of universities, began operating this spring. Its primary purpose is to map moving objects in space, particularly those with a potential to collide with earth. NASA has long had a program to identify Near Earth Objects, particularly large ones that might create great damage if they collided with Earth. These are known as Potentially Hazardous Objects (PHOs). Read more