Blogging about Pan-STARRS

The Pan-STARRS 1 dome at sunrise. Photo Credit: Rob Ratkowski, PS1SC

So for the last year I’ve been involved in exploiting data from the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope. PS1 is the first telescope of the larger Pan-STARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) project to survey the sky constantly searching for asteroids that may pose a threat to the Earth. The data from PS1 will also be used to do a whole range of diverse science from the icy bodies of the Kuiper Belt, to probing the dark energy which is though to make up over 70% of the Universe.

So as well as chasing brown dwarfs in the data I’ve also been involved in setting up a blog for the PS1 Science Consortium. The PS1SC are the universities and research institutes who have access to PS1 data. The idea of the blog is to provide an outlet for PS1 scientists and technical personnel to write about the science they are doing and how the survey is progressing. Hopefully this will lead to a comprehensive, popular outline of what PS1 is, how it works and the groundbreaking research being done with it. Have a look at the blog, spread the word around and if there’s something you’d like to know about PS1 or if you have thoughts about the blog then please reply in the comments thread of this post.

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