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| Paper: |
The All Sky Automated Survey (ASAS) and Bohdan Paczynski’s Idea of Astronomy with Small Telescopes |
| Volume: |
403, The Variable Universe: A Celebration of Bohdan Paczynski |
| Page: |
52 |
| Authors: |
Pojmanski, G. |
| Abstract: |
The All Sky Automated Survey (ASAS) is a realization of Bohdan Paczy´nski’s idea of utilizing small-scale telescopes to survey and monitor bright objects in the sky. ASAS uses telephoto lenses, multi-pixel CCD detectors, custom made parallactic mounts, and low-cost computers to investigate as many objects in the sky as feasible with current technology and the available funds. The project has demonstrated that even among stars brighter than 13th magnitude, 80% of variable stars remain unknown. Modest, 10-cm aperture lenses and amateur grade CCD cameras are capable of detecting red giants across our Galaxy and monitoring huge numbers of variable stars in the nearby Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. Many of these stars are too bright for 1-m class telescopes. During ten years of observations, photometric measurements of over 20,000,000 stars have been collected. ASAS Alert Service has been established to provide almost instantaneous notification of any unexpected behavior of existing or new objects brighter than 12.5th magnitude. We believe that ASAS will remain an ever growing source of data for virtual observatories, as well as a major source of alerts for new variable stars, comets, and asteroids. |
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