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.