Image Credit: ESO/B. Tafreshi (twanight.org)
The La Silla Schmidt Southern Survey (LS4) is a new time-domain survey that builds on the rich history of wide-field observations conducted by the La Silla Schmidt telescope. LS4 is upgrading the Quest camera to fully fill the Schmidt focal plane with 32 LBNL deep-depletion well CCDs to provide a total field of view of ~20 sq. deg. The LBNL CCDs are especially sensitive to red-optical and near-infrared photons, and LS4 will utilize a single “fixed” filter in which half the focal plane observes in the i band, one quarter observes in the g band, and one quarter observes in the z band.
The wide field of view and red-sensitive detectors will allow LS4 to monitor the night sky searching for stellar explosions, stellar variables, and anything else that changes brightness on timescales of minutes to years.
The LS4 project is led by the LS4 Founding Members, including Northwestern/CIERA, and the LS4 survey is run by the LS4 Founding Members and Institutional Collaborators.
LS4 Leadership at CIERA
Prof. Adam Miller is the Director of the LS4 and Northwestern/CIERA’s member of the LS4 Executive Council.
Adam Miller has been working with wide-field time-domain surveys for more than a decade and his research group works at the intersection of data science and astronomy to learn about stellar evolution.