SkyMapper will be among the first of a new breed of surveying telescopes which are able to scan the nighttime skies more quickly and deeper than ever before. The SkyMapper telescope will provide a deep digital map of the southern sky which will allow astronomers to study everything from nearby objects such as asteroids in our solar system to the most distant objects in the universe called quasars. The data taken by the SkyMapper telescope will be shared with astronomers around the world via the Virtual Observatory initiative, so that every possible use can be made of this resource.

The SkyMapper Telescope

• Is a 1.3m telescope with an 8-sq degree field of view
• Will have an integrated16kx16k CCD mosaic with 0.5" pixels covering 5.7-sq degrees
• Will be located at Siding Spring Observatory
• The telescope had its first light in 2008
• The facility will have science operations in early 2009
• Will be fully automated
• Will conduct a multi-colour, multi-epoch survey of the southern hemisphere known as the Southern Sky Survey.
• Is a replacement of the Great Melbourne Telescope, destroyed in the bushfires of January 18, 2003.