The Wide Field Survey Telescope(WFST) is a dedicated photometric surveying facility being built jointly by University of Science and Technology of China(USTC) and the Purple Mountain Observatory(PMO). It is equipped w...The Wide Field Survey Telescope(WFST) is a dedicated photometric surveying facility being built jointly by University of Science and Technology of China(USTC) and the Purple Mountain Observatory(PMO). It is equipped with a 2.5-meter diameter primary mirror, an active optics system, and a mosaic CCD camera with 0.73 gigapixels on the primary focal plane for highquality image capture over a 6.5-square-degree field of view. The installation of WFST near the summit of Saishiteng mountain in the Lenghu region is scheduled in summer of 2023, and the operation is planned to start three months later. WFST will scan the northern sky in four optical bands(u, g, r and i) at cadences from hourly/daily in the deep high-cadence survey(DHS) program, to semi-weekly in the wide field survey(WFS) program. During a photometric night, a nominal 30 s exposure in the WFS program will reach a depth of 22.27, 23.32, 22.84, and 22.31(AB magnitudes) in these four bands, respectively, allowing for the detection of a tremendous amount of transients in the low-z universe and a systematic investigation of the variability of Galactic and extragalactic objects. In the DHS program, intranight 90 s exposures as deep as 23(u) and 24 mag(g), in combination with target of opportunity follow-ups, will provide a unique opportunity to explore energetic transients in demand for high sensitivities, including the electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave events, supernovae within a few hours of their explosions,tidal disruption events and fast, luminous optical transients even beyond redshift of unity. In addition, the final 6-year co-added images, anticipated to reach g■25.8 mag in WFS or 1.5 mags deeper in DHS, will be of fundamental importance to general Galactic and extragalactic science. The highly uniform legacy surveys of WFST will serve as an indispensable complement to those of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time(LSST) that monitors the southern sky.展开更多
基金supported by the Cyrus Chun Ying Tang Foundationsthe Major Science and Technology Project of Qinghai Province(Grant No.2019ZJ-A10)+4 种基金the 111 Project for“Observational and Theoretical Research on Dark Matter and Dark Energy”(Grant No.B23042)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant Nos.11833007,12073078,12173088,12192221,12192224,12233008,12273036,and 12273113)the Frontier Scientific Research Program of Deep Space Exploration Laboratory(Grant No.2022-QYKYJH-HXYF-012)the support from the USTC Research Funds of the Double First-Class Initiative(Grant No.YD2030002009)Project for Young Scientists in Basic Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(Grant No.YSBR-061),respectively。
文摘The Wide Field Survey Telescope(WFST) is a dedicated photometric surveying facility being built jointly by University of Science and Technology of China(USTC) and the Purple Mountain Observatory(PMO). It is equipped with a 2.5-meter diameter primary mirror, an active optics system, and a mosaic CCD camera with 0.73 gigapixels on the primary focal plane for highquality image capture over a 6.5-square-degree field of view. The installation of WFST near the summit of Saishiteng mountain in the Lenghu region is scheduled in summer of 2023, and the operation is planned to start three months later. WFST will scan the northern sky in four optical bands(u, g, r and i) at cadences from hourly/daily in the deep high-cadence survey(DHS) program, to semi-weekly in the wide field survey(WFS) program. During a photometric night, a nominal 30 s exposure in the WFS program will reach a depth of 22.27, 23.32, 22.84, and 22.31(AB magnitudes) in these four bands, respectively, allowing for the detection of a tremendous amount of transients in the low-z universe and a systematic investigation of the variability of Galactic and extragalactic objects. In the DHS program, intranight 90 s exposures as deep as 23(u) and 24 mag(g), in combination with target of opportunity follow-ups, will provide a unique opportunity to explore energetic transients in demand for high sensitivities, including the electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave events, supernovae within a few hours of their explosions,tidal disruption events and fast, luminous optical transients even beyond redshift of unity. In addition, the final 6-year co-added images, anticipated to reach g■25.8 mag in WFS or 1.5 mags deeper in DHS, will be of fundamental importance to general Galactic and extragalactic science. The highly uniform legacy surveys of WFST will serve as an indispensable complement to those of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time(LSST) that monitors the southern sky.
