Community Input

The NSF Senior Review report urged NOAO to ensure that the astronomical community has access to facilities that remain scientifically balanced over all apertures.

To accomplish this, NOAO has chartered a new committee, called Renewing Small Telescopes for Astronomical Research (ReSTAR), to develop a prioritized, quantitative, science-justified list of instrumental and operations capabilities appropriate to telescopes with apertures less than 6 meters, together with estimates of the number of observing nights needed. The committee must both address near-term needs and uses of such telescopes, and attempt to predict how these needs will evolve over the next ten years into the era of Pan-STARRS, LSST, JWST, ALMA, GSMT and the NVO.

To complete its challenging task, this committee needs input from you and your colleagues on the telescope performance and instrument capabilities that you need to accomplish your science!

The Committee takes the “Renewing” part of its name seriously - new telescopes, modernization of existing telescopes, and new instrumentation are all possible. In thinking about the instruments and observing modes needed on small (less than 2-m) and midsize (2- to 5-m) telescopes to carry out your exciting science programs in the next 10 years, think broadly. Our blueprint for the future system of small and mid-sized telescopes should not be constrained by existing instrumentation and the limitations of existing telescopes. What do you need?

1. To which of the following areas of scientific research does your own research expertise most closely relate? (Mark all that apply)

Cosmology, including the distance scale, supernovae, dark matter, and dark energy

Structure and evolution of galaxies including stellar populations

Accretion, high energy processes, AGN, and black holes

Star formation and the interstellar medium

Stellar physics

Extra-solar planets

The Solar System

Other, please specify:

2a. Describe briefly what you believe will be the most important observational programs that you can imagine carrying out on small and moderate aperture telescopes during the next five years (2008-2012, i.e. before LSST). Don’t be constrained by existing telescopes, instruments, and observing modes.

2b. What observational programs are you likely to want to carry out on small or midsize telescopes in the next decade, beyond 2012 after LSST is expected to be in operation?

3. Please rank which capabilities you will need to carry out your research on small and mid-size (1-5 meters) during the next five years (2008-12) and beyond 2012, after ALMA, NVO, LSST, Pan-STARRS, JWST, and GSMT come into operation. Rank the importance of all of the instrumental capabilities you would likely use, with “1” being the most important. If you are unlikely to use a particular capability, leave it unranked.

For your top three instrumentation “picks,” please indicate how many nights you would need each year to make progress on the science programs you described above.

Instrumental Capabilities 2008-12
Rank		 Beyond 2012
Rank		 # of Nights
Wide field, broad band, optical imaging
Wide field, narrow band, optical imaging
High spatial resolution imaging in the infrared
1-5 micron infrared imaging
1-5 micron infrared spectroscopy (R<20,000)
1-5 micron infrared spectroscopy (R>20,000)
Mid-infrared (8-13 micron) imaging
Mid-infrared (8-13 micron) spectroscopy
Low resolution optical spectroscopy (100<R<1,000)
Moderate resolution optical spectroscopy (1,000<R<10,000)
High resolution optical spectroscopy (10,000<R<50,000)
Very high resolution optical spectroscopy (R>50,000)
Other (please specify)

4. Consider what operational modes will be most important to you on small and mid-size telescopes in the next 10 years. How should time be allocated among the different operations modes during those two time periods to your science? For the modes listed below, indicate a percentage of time that should be available to the community through public access. For definitions of the following terms, click here.

Classically scheduled PI science programs

Classically scheduled PI science programs with remote observing

Large, community-based survey projects

Service or queue observing modes

Time domain observing modes

5. How will the major new facilities and programs, including ALMA, NVO, LSST, Pan-STARRS, JWST, and GSMT, which will be in operation in the next decade, affect your planned use of small and moderate aperture telescopes in your field of research?

6. The ReSTAR science subcommittees will be compiling descriptions of science programs which will best be done on small and moderate aperture telescopes during the coming decade. If you are willing to be consulted by or assist the subcommittees with documenting the telescope, instrumental, and operational resources needed to carry out those programs, please provide contact information.

Name:

Email address:

Email feedback to the ReSTAR Committee.

For input that does not fit into this survey form, or to include an attached file, please send email to restar-feedback at noao.edu.