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Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope | ||
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Two Communities - One Large Project Canada and France have joined a large fraction (~50%) of their dark and grey telescope time for a large project, the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey (CFHTLS). Under the supervision of the CFHT Scientific Advisory Council (SAC), organized and monitored by a Steering Group (SG), and technically supported by a Data Oversight Group (DOG), the CFHTLS is a major undertaking for the Canadian and French communities: more than 450 nights over 5 years will be devoted to the survey using the wide field imager MegaPrime equipped with MegaCam, a 36 CCDs 1 degree x 1 degree field of view camera. With a PI-less structure and a data access policy granting equal and immediate access to any member of the two communities to both processed images and catalogs, the CFHTLS is both exciting and challenging. The proprietary period for the CFHTLS pixel data is 3 years for the first year of operation, two years for the second year, and one year for the following years. The survey officially started in mid 2003 and the first pixel data will be made public to the world in August 2006. The three main entities serving the Canadian and French communities are 1) the CFHT for the data acquisition, pre-processing and calibration, 2) the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (CADC) for all activities related to the archiving and release of the various data products to the communities, and 3) Terapix (based in Paris) for the data ressampling and stacking, fine astrometric calibration, and source catalogs generation. The CFHT Board of Executives gave its final approval for the project following a SAC recommendation prepared at its May 2002 meeting. Various reports and recommendations have been written in the course of the year 2001 and, though a bit dated today, they still contain the core rational for the survey. The documents are presented here.
Three surveys from the Solar System to the Distant Universe A very wide shallow survey, the "Very Wide"Covering a large fraction of the ecliptic plane inside a band of +/-2 degrees for a total area of 410 square degrees, this survey will provide an unprecedented sample of the solar system population beyond Neptune. This data set will undoubtedly provide discoveries that are sure to challenge the currently discussed models of the solar system formation. CFHTLS-VW should be conducted in 3 colors (g'/r'/i') to create a major new stellar data set (much deeper and of better image quality than the Sloan Digitized Sky Survey) for studies related to stellar populations (including white and brown dwarfs), as well as structures & dynamics of our Galaxy.A wide synoptic survey, the "Wide"Covering 170 square degrees in three patches of 49 to 72 square degrees through the whole filter set (u*, g', r', i', z') down to i'=24.5, this survey will allow the study of the large scale structures and matter distribution in the universe through weak lensing and galaxy distribution, as well as the study of clusters of galaxies through morphology and photometric properties of galaxies. Thanks to the sequencing of the r' observations in two phases, early in the survey and three years later, proper motions will be available for galactic structure studies. All fields will be used for stellar population investigations and searched for moving objects and transient phenomena.A deep synoptic survey, the "Deep"Covering 4 square degrees in four independent fields spread across the sky to have two fields visible throughout a given night at any time of the year, and acquired through the whole filter set (u*, g', r', i', z') with integration times ranging from 33 to 132 hours depending on the filter (u*: 33, g':33, r':66, i':132, z':66), this survey will also be sequenced over 5 years. Aimed mainly at the detection and monitoring of as many as 700 type Ia supernovae and at the study of the galaxy distribution on images reaching r'=28, this survey will lead to a better understanding of the early universe as well as a the determination of the dark energy parameters with an unprecedented accuracy. The galaxies and quasars will constitute statistical samples bringing strong constraints on galaxy evolution and global star formation history. Thanks to the time sequencing, transient phenomena and moving objects will be detected and followed up, providing a unique monitoring over five years of fields at various galactic and ecliptic latitudes. |