The Pan-STARRS View on the Extended Solar Neighborhood

Speaker: Eugene Magnier

Eugene Magnier, K.C. Chambers, N. Kaiser for the Pan-STARRS Team UH IfA / Pan-STARRS

The Pan-STARRS 1 Telescope (PS1), nearing completion on Haleakala on the island of Maui in Hawaii, will begin survey operations in 2007. PS1 will perform several complementary optical and near-infrared surveys, including the 3 pi Survey which will repeatedly observe the sky north of -30 degrees in five filters: grizy. The photometric accuracy of this survey (10 millimags) and especially the astrometric accuracy (10 milliarcsec) will allow an unparallel census of the nearest 100 pc. The PS1 Telescope will observe the full 3 pi steradians 12 times in each of the 5 filters over the 3 year mission, yielding parallax detections for all stellar objects within roughly 100 pc, and proper-motion measurements for objects substantially more distant. When coupled with the substantial throughput of the camera at 1 micron, this survey will discover hundreds of T dwards and thousands of L dwarfs, and will enable a wide variety of studies of the cool stars in the extended solar neighborhood.