SkyMapper and the Southern Sky Survey a Resource for the Southern Sky
SkyMapper is amongst the first of a new generation of dedicated, widefield survey telescopes. The 1.3m SkyMapper telescope features a 5.7 square degree field-of-view Cassegrain imager and will see first light in late 2007. The primary goal of the facility is to conduct the Southern Sky Survey a six colour, six epoch survey of the southern sky. The survey will provide photometry for objects between 8th and 23rd magnitude with global photometric accuracy of 0.03 magnitudes and astrometry to 50 mas. This will represent a valuable scientific resource for the southern sky and in addition provide a basis for photometric and astrometric calibration of imaging data. 1 The SkyMapper Telescope The SkyMapper telescope is a 1.3m telescope currently under construction by the Australian National University’s Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics in conjunction with Electro Optic Systems of Canberra, Australia. The telescope will reside at Siding Spring Observatory in central New South Wales, Australia. The telescope is a modified Cassegrain design with a 1.35m primary and a 0.7m secondary. Corrector optics are of fused silica construction for maximum UV throughput and a set of six interchangeable filters can be placed in the optical path. The facility will operate in an automated matter with minimal operator support. Further details on all aspects of our programme can be found in .

title: The Science Case for PILOT I: Summary and Overview
abstract: PILOT (the Pathfinder for an International Large Optical Telescope) is a proposed 2.5-m optical/infrared telescope to be located at Dome C on the Antarctic plateau. Conditions at Dome C are known to be exceptional for astronomy. The seeing (above ∼30 m height), coherence time, and isoplanatic angle are all twice as good as at typical mid-latitude sites, while the water-vapour column, and the atmosphere and telescope thermal emission are all an order of magnitude better. These conditions enable a unique scientific capability for PILOT, which is addressed in this series of papers. The current paper presents an overview of the optical and instrumentation suite for PILOT and its expected performance, a summary of the key science goals and observational approach for the facility, a discussion of the synergies between the science goals for PILOT and other telescopes, and a discussion of the future of Antarctic astronomy.

title: The Mount Stromlo A bell Cluster Supernova Search
abstract: We have initiated a 3 year project to find supernovae in a well-defined sample of high-density southern Abell clusters with redshifts z ≤ 0.08. These observations will provide a volume-limited sample of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) to more than a magnitude below their peak brightness and will enable us to (1) measure the luminosity function of SNe, (2) further explore the correlation of light-curve shape with the absolute luminosity of SNe Ia to better understand SNe Ia as distance indicators, (3) measure SN rates, (4) measure the bulk motion of the Local Group using SNe Ia, and (5) directly compare SN Ia distances with brightest cluster galaxy distances. We use the MACHO wide-field two-color imager on the 1.3 m telescope at Mount Stromlo to routinely monitor ~12 clusters per week. We describe our technique for target selection and scheduling search observations, and for finding and identifying SN candidates. We also describe the results from the first year of our program, including the detection of 19 SNe, several RR Lyrae variables, and hundreds of asteroids.

title: A THEORETICAL COLOR-VELOCITY CORRELATION FOR SUPERNOVAE ASSOCIATED WITH GAMMA-RAY BURSTS
abstract: We carry out the first multi-dimensional radiative transfer calculations to simultaneously compute synthetic spectra and light curves for models of supernovae driven by fast bipolar outflows. These allow us to make self-consistent predictions for the orientation dependence of both color evolution and spectral features. We compare models with different degrees of asphericity and metallicity and find significant observable consequences of both. In aspherical models, we find spectral and light curve features that vary systematically with observer orientation. In particular, we find that the early-phase light curves are brighter and bluer when viewed close to the polar axis but that the peak flux is highest for equatorial (off-axis) inclinations. Spectral line features also depend systematically on observer orientation, including the velocity of the Si II 6355 A line. Consequently, our models predict a correlation between line velocity and color that could assist the identification of supernovae associated with off-axis jet-driven explosions. The amplitude and range of this correlation depends on the degree of asphericity, the metallicity, and the epoch of observation but we find that it is always present and acts in the same direction.

title: HATS-1b: The First Transiting Planet Discovered by the HATSouth Survey
abstract: We report the discovery of HATS-1b, a transiting extrasolar planet orbiting the moderately bright V = 12.05 G dwarf star GSC 6652-00186, and the first planet discovered by HATSouth, a global network of autonomous wide-field telescopes. HATS-1b has a period of P 3.4465 days, mass of Mp 1.86 M J, and radius of Rp 1.30 R J. The host star has a mass of 0.99 M ☉ and radius of 1.04 R ☉. The discovery light curve of HATS-1b has near-continuous coverage over several multi-day timespans, demonstrating the power of using a global network of telescopes to discover transiting planets.

title: First Searches for Optical Counterparts to Gravitational-wave Candidate Events
abstract: During the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory and Virgo joint science runs in 2009-2010, gravitational wave (GW) data from three interferometer detectors were analyzed within minutes to select GW candidate events and infer their apparent sky positions. Target coordinates were transmitted to several telescopes for follow-up observations aimed at the detection of an associated optical transient. Images were obtained for eight such GW candidates. We present the methods used to analyze the image data as well as the transient search results. No optical transient was identified with a convincing association with any of these candidates, and none of the GW triggers showed strong evidence for being astrophysical in nature. We compare the sensitivities of these observations to several model light curves from possible sources of interest, and discuss prospects for future joint GW-optical observations of this type.

title: Electron transport theory in gases: must it be so difficult?
abstract: This article reviews recent progress in both experimental and kinetic theoretical determination of charged particle transport coefficients in electric and magnetic fields in the context of wire gas chamber detectors. The “Magboltz” code of Biagi [13] is discussed. It is pointed out that there is really no alternative to the accurate “multiterm theory” of Ness [3–5] if high precision is required, but this may not be readily accessible to the nonspecialist because of its mathematical complexity. On the other hand, “momentum transfer” theory provides relatively simple expressions for transport coefficients and has an accuracy of the order of 10%. We focus on this simplified theory in the bulk of the paper, discussing some previous results and giving new formulas. In order to illustrate the utility of the method, we have performed numerical calculations in several cases of relevance to wire gas chambers.

title: A SUB 100 FS ELECTRON BUNCH ARRIVAL-TIME MONITOR SYSTEM FOR FLASH
abstract: The stability of free-electron lasers and experiments carried out in pump-probe configurations depends sensitively on precise synchronization between the photoinjector laser, low-level RF-systems, probe lasers, and other components in the FEL. A precise measurement of the arrival-time of the electron bunch with respect to the clock signal of a master oscillator is, therefore, of special importance. For this task, we propose an arrival-time monitor based on a beam pick-up with several GHz bandwidth which permits measurements in the sub 100 fs regime. The RF-signal from the beam pick-up is sampled by an ultrashort laser pulse using a broadband electro-optical modulator. The modulator converts the deviation of the electron bunch arrival-timefrom a referenceinto an amplitudemodulation of the laser pulse. This modulation is detected by a photo detector and sampled by a fast ADC. By directly using the laser pulses from the future master laser oscillator of the machine, any additional timing jitter is avoided. In this paper we present the layout of the system and first experimental results.

title: Status of the optical replica synthesizer at FLASH
abstract: A novel laser-based method to measure the longitudinal profile of ultrashort electron bunches,known as the Optical Replica Synthesizer (ORS)  is currently implemented at the free-electron laser FLASH at DESY. The paper describes its technical layout and the status of the project.

title: First operation of a free-electron laser generating GW power 
radiation at 32 nm wavelength
abstract: Many scientific disciplines ranging from physics, chemistry and biology to 
material sciences, geophysics and medical diagnostics need a powerful X-ray 
source with pulse lengths in the femtosecond range [1-4]. This would 
allow, for example, time-resolved observation of chemical reactions with 
atomic resolution. Such radiation of extreme intensity, and tunable over a 
wide range of wavelengths, can be accomplished using high-gain free-electron 
lasers (FEL) [5-10]. Here we present results of the first successful 
operation of an FEL at a wavelength of 32 nm, with ultra-short pulses (25 fs 
FWHM), a peak power at the Gigawatt level, and a high degree of transverse 
and longitudinal coherence. The experimental data are in full agreement with 
theory. This is the shortest wavelength achieved with an FEL to date and an 
important milestone towards a user facility designed for wavelengths down to 6 nm. With a peak brilliance exceeding the state-of-the-art of synchrotron radiation sources [4] by seven orders of magnitude, this device opens a new field of experiments, and it paves the way towards sources with even shorter wavelengths, such as the Linac Coherent Light Source [3] at Stanford, USA, and the European X-ray Free Electron Laser Facility [4] in Hamburg, Germany.

title: HATSouth: A Global Network of Fully Automated Identical Wide-Field Telescopes*
abstract: HATSouth is the world's first network of automated and homogeneous telescopes that is capable of year-round 24 hr monitoring of positions over an entire hemisphere of the sky. The primary scientific goal of the network is to discover and characterize a large number of transiting extrasolar planets, reaching out to long periods and down to small planetary radii. HATSouth achieves this by monitoring extended areas on the sky, deriving high precision light curves for a large number of stars, searching for the signature of planetary transits, and confirming planetary candidates with larger telescopes. HATSouth employs six telescope units spread over three prime locations with large longitude separation in the southern hemisphere (Las Campanas Observatory, Chile; HESS site, Namibia; Siding Spring Observatory, Australia). Each of the HATSouth units holds four 0.18 m diameter f/2.8 focal ratio telescope tubes on a common mount producing an 8.2° × 8.2° field of view on the sky, imaged using four 4 K × 4 K CCD cameras and Sloan r filters, to give a pixel scale of 3.7'' pixel-1. The HATSouth network is capable of continuously monitoring 128 square arc degrees at celestial positions moderately close to the anti-solar direction. We present the technical details of the network, summarize operations, and present detailed weather statistics for the three sites. Robust operations have meant that on average each of the six HATSouth units has conducted observations on ~500 nights over a 2 years time period, yielding a total of more than 1 million science frames at a 4 minute integration time and observing ~10.65 hr day-1 on average. We describe the scheme of our data transfer and reduction from raw pixel images to trend-filtered light curves and transiting planet candidates. Photometric precision reaches ~6 mmag at 4 minute cadence for the brightest non-saturated stars at r ≈ 10.5. We present detailed transit recovery simulations to determine the expected yield of transiting planets from HATSouth. We highlight the advantages of networked operations, namely, a threefold increase in the expected number of detected planets, as compared to all telescopes operating from the same site.