Status of the Transneptunian Automated Occultation Survey (TAOS II)

Matthew J. Lehner; Shiang-Yu Wang; Mauricio Reyes-Ruíz; Zhi-Wei Zhang; Liliana Figueroa; Chung-Kai Huang; Wei-Ling Yen; Charles Alcock; Fernando Alvarez Santana; Joel Castro-Chacón; Wen-Ping Chen; You-Hua Chu; Kem H. Cook; John C. Geary; Benjamín Hernández; Jennifer E. Karr; J. J. Kavelaars; Timothy Norton; Andrew Szentgyorgyi

doi:10.1117/12.2309584

6 July 2018 Status of the Transneptunian Automated Occultation Survey (TAOS II)

Matthew J. Lehner, Shiang-Yu Wang, Mauricio Reyes-Ruíz, Zhi-Wei Zhang, Liliana Figueroa, Chung-Kai Huang, Wei-Ling Yen, Charles Alcock, Fernando Alvarez Santana, Joel Castro-Chacón, Wen-Ping Chen, You-Hua Chu, Kem H. Cook, John C. Geary, Benjamín Hernández, Jennifer E. Karr, J. J. Kavelaars, Timothy Norton, Andrew Szentgyorgyi

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 10700, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes VII; 107004V (2018) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2309584
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2018, Austin, Texas, United States

Abstract

The Transneptunian Automated Occultation Survey (TAOS II) will aim to detect occultations of stars by small (~1 km diameter) objects in the Kuiper Belt and beyond. Such events are very rare (< 10⁻³events per star per year) and short in duration (~200 ms), so many stars must be monitored at a high readout cadence in order to detect events. TAOS II will operate three 1.3 meter telescopes at the Observatorio Astronomico Nacional at San Pedro Martir in Baja California, Mexico. With a 2.3 square degree field of view and a high speed camera comprising CMOS imagers, the survey will monitor 10,000 stars simultaneously with all three telescopes at a readout cadence of 20 Hz. Construction of the site began in the fall of 2013, and the survey will begin by the end of 2018. This paper describes the observing system and provides an update on the status of the survey infrastructure.

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Matthew J. Lehner, Shiang-Yu Wang, Mauricio Reyes-Ruíz, Zhi-Wei Zhang, Liliana Figueroa, Chung-Kai Huang, Wei-Ling Yen, Charles Alcock, Fernando Alvarez Santana, Joel Castro-Chacón, Wen-Ping Chen, You-Hua Chu, Kem H. Cook, John C. Geary, Benjamín Hernández, Jennifer E. Karr, J. J. Kavelaars, Timothy Norton, and Andrew Szentgyorgyi "Status of the Transneptunian Automated Occultation Survey (TAOS II)", Proc. SPIE 10700, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes VII, 107004V (6 July 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2309584

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