Exploring the Time Domain with the Palomar-QUEST Sky Survey
A. Mahabal (1), S. G. Djorgovski (1), M. J. Graham (1), R. Williams, (1), B. Granett (1), M. Bogosavljevic (1), C. Baltay (2), D. Rabinowitz (2),, A. Bauer (2), P. Andrews (2), N. Morgan (2), J. Snyder (2), N. Ellman (2), S., Duffau (2), J. Musser (3), S. Mufson (3)

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…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsAstronomy and Astrophysical Research · Astronomical Observations and Instrumentation · Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
