Approximately 75% of the time on SkyMapper will be initially dedicated to the Southern Sky Survey.

Features of the Southern Sky Survey include

• Multi-colour, multi-epoch of all 20000 sq. degrees south of equator (ugriz filter + stromgren-like v)
• Data supplied to the community via Virtual Observatory
• Star and Galaxy photometry (3% absolute calibration)
• Astrometry (better than 50 mas )
• Digital images available for download photometrically calibrated, with accurate World Coordinate Systems, both single images and combined images.
• Cadence: 0, +4 hours, +2-3 days, +1-2 weeks and +1-2 years
  

Expected Survey Depth (1.5" seeing) for signal-to-noise of 5 in AB mags

	u	v	g	r	i	z
1 epoch	21.5	21.3	21.9	21.6	21.0	20.6
expt. time (sec)	110	110	110	110	110	110
6 epochs	22.9	22.7	22.9	22.6	22.0	21.5

In addition, a 5-Second Survey will be undertaken in photometric conditions for calibration of stars from 9-16th magnitude in all bands. This will provide the calibration of the survey and will allow the survey to be tied to the Hipparchos and Tycho catalogs (and other photometric standard systems that are established in the southern hemisphere) to ensure uniformity across the sky.

Southern Sky Survey Science Goals include:

• Census of bright end of TNO and Centaur population, especially off the ecliptic plane
• Galactic Census – metallicity, gravity, temperature, variability of 5 billion stars
• Mapping the structure of the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds
• Searching for new dwarf galaxy companions to the Milky Way
• Discovery of up to 50000 SNe over 5 years
• Phot-Z samples of z<0.5 galaxies for studies of Large Scale Structure (e.g. Int-Sachs wolf, Paczynski-Alcock)
• QSO discovery, variability, evolution
• Bright z>6 Quasars
• Digital reference for Radio, X-Ray, GRB instruments
• An astrometric and photometric basis for the Virtual Observatory
  
  Non-survey science identified to be undertaken with the telescope includes
  
• Planet Transit studies
• Microlensing Studies
• Supernovae
• Widefield surveys in non-survey filters