Astronomy & Astrophysics Seminar: The Weizmann Fast Astronomical Survey (W-FAST)

Abstract:

The Weizmann Fast Astronomical Survey Telescope (W-FAST), now in commissioning phase, is a wide field fast imaging telescope that is built to detect sub-second phenomena such as occultations of stars by Solar System objects. W-FAST will be running at 25Hz, with a f.o.v of 7 deg^2, producing high cadence lightcurves for thousands of bright objects in the field, while at the same time producing deeper stacked images for observing variability on timescales of seconds to minutes. Beyond the known science objectives, we expect to find new phenomena as we explore the parameter space of very fast and very wide photometry.

Seminar Organizer: Dr. Omer Bromberg