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NEW CORPORATION ORGANIZED TO DEVELOP AMBITIOUS SURVEY TELESCOPE
(Media contacts listed below)
April 24, 2003

RELEASE: LSSTC-01

Four major research organizations have joined forces to build a
world-class telescope that will survey the entire sky in a relentless
search for supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, near-Earth asteroids and the
mysterious energy of expansion in the Universe known as dark energy. 

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) Corporation Inc. has been
formed by Research Corporation, the Association of Universities for
Research in Astronomy (AURA) Inc., the University of Arizona (UA),
and the University of Washington, for the purpose of designing and
constructed this challenging new telescope. The corporation held its
first meeting on April 16. 

--------------------
UA Contact Information

Peter A. Strittmatter
520-621-6524
pstrittmatter{at}as.arizona.edu

J. Roger P, Angel
520-621-6541
rangel{at}as.arizona.edu

Philip A. Pinto
520-621-8678
ppinto{at}as.arizona.edu
---------------------

The LSST will use an 8-meter primary mirror and a two billion-pixel
digital camera to scan the complete visible night sky every week to a
deep magnitude. Its steady flood of image will be supported by a
robust computer data pipeline, designed from the start to make the
LSST's daily output of five terabytes readily accessible by
astronomers from all over the world. 

The telescope will be capable of discovering 100,000 supernovae per
year and 10,000 or more Trans-Neptunian objects at the extreme edge
of the solar system. It will also survey virtually all stars within
the nearest 100 light-years for evidence of planets around them by
precisely measuring their astrometric motion on the sky.

The LSST was one of the two highest priorities for future
ground-based telescope facilities in the most recent Decadal Survey
of astronomy conducted by the National Academy of Sciences. "LSST
will open a new frontier in addressing time variable phenomena in
astronomy," according to the May 2000 academy report 'Astronomy and
Astrophysics in the New Millennium.'

The immediate goal of the LSST Corporation is to prepare a detailed
design for consideration by funding organizations and foundations,
toward telescope first light as early as 2011. No site has yet been
selected for the telescope.

"The LSST is the next big leap in charting the heavens, and an
exciting technological challenge," said Research Corporation
President John Schaefer, who was elected chair of the LSST
Corporation board at its first meeting. "It provides Research
Corporation an opportunity to fulfill an important role as a catalyst
in enabling leading-edge science to take place." 

"The LSST Corporation is a landmark public-private partnership," said
Jeremy Mould, director of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory
(NOAO) in Tucson, which represents AURA in the new organization. "The
formal existence of this corporation is a concrete step in the
construction of this powerful telescope, and a symbol of how most
large astronomical facilities will be built in the future."

"With the establishment of the LSST Corporation, we can begin to
implement this very innovative and powerful telescope concept,
originally proposed by Roger Angel," said Peter Strittmatter,
director of the Steward Observatory. "The LSST presents not only
unique opportunities for astronomical science, but major challenges
for optics fabrication and alignment. We look forward to playing our
part in meeting these challenges." 

"The University of Washington is drawing upon its strong heritage in
time-domain and survey astronomy to help address the survey's
formidable data processing challenges," said Christopher Stubbs, a UW
astronomy and physics professor who serves on the LSST board. "In
addition, the UW's experience with building wide-field astronomical
camera systems will be beneficial in developing needed
instrumentation."

For further information on the LSST, seehttp://www.lsst.org
NOAO operates Kitt Peak National Observatory southwest of Tucson and
the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory near La Serena, Chile.
NOAO is also the gateway for U.S. astronomers to use the
international Gemini telescopes via the NOAO Gemini Science Center.
NOAO is operated by AURA under a cooperative agreement with the
National Science Foundation. 

A foundation for the advancement of science, Research Corporation was
established in 1912 by scientist, inventor, and philanthropist
Frederick Gardner Cottrell. It provides an average of $6 million per
year in support of faculty in chemistry, physics and astronomy at
colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada. Research
Corporation's long-standing support of astronomy includes
partnerships in the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) and in operating
the 12-meter radio telescope at Kitt Peak. 

UA is a state institution of higher education in Arizona. UA
includes, among its research units, the Steward Observatory (SO),
which operates observatory facilities on Kitt Peak, Mt. Lemmon, Mt.
Hopkins, and Mt. Graham for the benefit of faculty and students at
the Arizona state universities. It is also a partner in the LBT, the
Magellan Project, and the Multiple Mirror Telescope Observatory, and
it operates the Mirror Lab on the UA campus. 

The University of Washington is the nation's premier public
university in sponsored research, and plays a leading role in the
Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

NEWS CONTACTS:
*    Douglas Isbell, National Optical Astronomy Observatory,
520/318-8214, disbell{at}noao.edu
*    Carmen Vitella, Research Corporation, 520/571-1111,
awards{at}rescorp.org
*    Lori Stiles, University of Arizona News Services, 520/621-1877,
lstiles{at}u.arizona.edu
*    Vince Stricherz, University of Washington News and Information
Office, 206/543-2580, vinces{at}u.washington.edu

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