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Low-cost access to the deep, high-cadence sky : the Argus optical array
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Law, Nicholas M., Corbett, Hank, Galliher, Nathan W., Gonzalez, Ramses, Vasquez, Alan, Walters, Glenn, Machia, Lawrence, Ratzloff, Jeff, Ackley, Kendall, Bizon, Chris, Clemens, Christopher, Cox, Steven, Eikenberry, Steven, Howard, Ward S., Glazier, Amy, Mann, Andrew W., Quimby, Robert, Reichart, Daniel and Trilling, David (2022) Low-cost access to the deep, high-cadence sky : the Argus optical array. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 134 (1033). 035003. doi:10.1088/1538-3873/ac4811 ISSN 0004-6280.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1538-3873/ac4811
Abstract
New mass-produced, wide-field, small-aperture telescopes have the potential to revolutionize ground-based astronomy by greatly reducing the cost of collecting area. In this paper, we introduce a new class of large telescope based on these advances: an all-sky, arcsecond-resolution, 1000 telescope array which builds a simultaneously high-cadence and deep survey by observing the entire sky all night. As a concrete example, we describe the Argus Array, a 5 m-class telescope with an all-sky field of view and the ability to reach extremely high cadences using low-noise CMOS detectors. Each 55 GPix Argus exposure covers 20% of the entire sky to mg = 19.6 each minute and mg = 21.9 each hour; a high-speed mode will allow sub-second survey cadences for short times. Deep coadds will reach mg = 23.6 every five nights over 47% of the sky; a larger-aperture array telescope, with an étendue close to the Rubin Observatory, could reach mg = 24.3 in five nights. These arrays can build two-color, million-epoch movies of the sky, enabling sensitive and rapid searches for high-speed transients, fast-radio-burst counterparts, gravitational-wave counterparts, exoplanet microlensing events, occultations by distant solar system bodies, and myriad other phenomena. An array of O(1000) telescopes, however, would be one of the most complex astronomical instruments yet built. Standard arrays with hundreds of tracking mounts entail thousands of moving parts and exposed optics, and maintenance costs would rapidly outpace the mass-produced-hardware cost savings compared to a monolithic large telescope. We discuss how to greatly reduce operations costs by placing all optics in thermally controlled, sealed domes with only a few moving parts. Coupled with careful software scope control and use of existing pipelines, we show that the Argus Array could become the deepest and fastest Northern sky survey, with total costs in the $20M range.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Divisions: | Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Physics | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific | ||||||
| Publisher: | Institute of Physics Publishing, Inc. | ||||||
| ISSN: | 0004-6280 | ||||||
| Official Date: | 24 March 2022 | ||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 134 | ||||||
| Number: | 1033 | ||||||
| Article Number: | 035003 | ||||||
| DOI: | 10.1088/1538-3873/ac4811 | ||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access |
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