Exploring the Time Domain with the Palomar-QUEST Sky Survey

TL;DR

The Palomar-QUEST survey explores sky variability across broad flux and wavelength ranges, aiming to detect transients and variable sources with a large-area, multi-filter, multi-visit approach as a prototype for future surveys.

Contribution

This paper introduces the Palomar-QUEST survey's design, capabilities, and real-time transient detection strategy, serving as a prototype for upcoming large-scale sky variability studies.

Findings

Survey will cover 12,000-15,000 sq. degrees with deep imaging.

Near-simultaneous multi-filter observations enable variability analysis.

Real-time transient detection pipeline is proposed.

Abstract

Exploration of the time variability on the sky over a broad range of flux levels and wavelengths is rapidly becoming a new frontier of astronomical research. We describe here briefly the Palomar-QUEST survey being carried out from the Samuel Oschin 48-inch Schmidt telescope at Palomar. The following features make the survey an attractive candidate for studying time variability: anticipated survey area of 12,000 - 15,000 sq. degrees in the drift scan mode, point source depth of 21st mag. in I under good conditions, near simultaneous observations in four filters, and at least four passes per year at each location covered. The survey will yield a large number of transients and highly variable sources in the near future and in that sense is a prototype of LSST and Pan-STARRS. We briefly outline our strategy for searching such objects and the proposed pipeline for detecting transients in real-time.