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Assume that we will continue to take pretty pictures, and that they will continue to evolve. Beyond that though, there may be many areas where more of us could extend our very nice imaging equipment and do some science - preferably as part of a pro-am collaboration. There are probably quite a few remaining niches for relatively small scopes - the following is an initial summary of what these might be. Recent technological advances - extremely low read noise sensors, very high frame rate sensors, more affordable larger scopes - will enable new approaches in some of these areas. Would be very grateful for any corrections/additions
Imaging.
1. Deep imaging of galactic star halos/bridges and dwarf galaxies associated with nearby big ones.
2. Deep imaging of farther off interesting southern regions not covered by the SDSS, panSTARRS or any other deep surveys
3. comet discovery, imaging, possibly photometry
4. SN discovery, possibly photometry
5. minor planet/asteroid studies – photometry, occlusion
6. variable star photometry
7. exo-planet discovery
- transit
- microlensing
8. colour imaging for illustration in science/outreach activity
9. narrowband widefield surveys of the southern sky (Ha, O3, S2, N2...)
10. planetary lucky imaging
spectroscopy
1. high speed solar spectroscopy
2. comet spectra
3. interesting nearby star spectroscopy
4. nearby SN characterisation
phenomenology
1. seeing statistics
2. background sky brightness
3. cloud cover statistics
Last edited by Shiraz; 04-02-2017 at 06:48 PM.
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