Colloquium: Nick Law, UNC, Chapel Hill

Abstract:  The recent consumer revolutions in digital imaging, computing and data storage have opened up a new frontier in optical astronomy: the ability to generate vast datasets to detect rapidly changing events in the sky. However, almost all telescopes are currently limited to looking at small patches of the sky. This limitation makes it very difficult to quickly find rare rapid events, such as the super flares that can destroy the habitability of exoplanets, or the electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational waves. In this talk I will introduce the Argus Array, the first large telescope able to observe the entire sky simultaneously. The 55 GPix telescope array, which we are currently prototyping, is designed to build the first million-epoch movie of the sky, at depths exceeding current sky surveys and cadences thousands of times faster. I will discuss the Array's science plans, how we will analyze its exabyte-scale dataset for interesting events in realtime, the status of our Argus Pathfinder prototype system, and prospects for the near-future construction of the full Argus Array.