Deep Lens Survey


see

The Deep Lens Survey is an ultra-deep multi-band optical survey of seven 4 square degree fields. Mosaic CCD imagers at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory's Blanco and Mayall telescopes are being used. The deep fields took five years to complete, in four bands: B, V, R, and z', to 29/29/29/28 mag per square arcsecond surface brightness. Optical transient events and supernova candidates are released in real time.

Survey

The main goal of the survey is to produce unbiased maps of the large-scale structure of the mass distribution beyond the local universe, via very deep multicolor imaging of seven 2-degree fields and colour-redshifts. The shear of distant galaxies induced by the mass of foreground structures will be measured. These weak-lensing observations are sensitive to all forms of clumped mass and will yield unbiased mass maps with resolution of one arcmin in the plane of the sky, in multiple redshift ranges. These maps will measure for the first time the change in large scale structure from z = 1 to the present epoch, and test the current theories of structure formation, which predict that mass in the low-redshift universe has a particular filamentary/sheetlike structure. These observations will directly constrain the clustering properties of matter, and, when compared with the results from microwave background anisotropy missions, will test the basic theory of structure formation via gravitational instability.
While this is the main goal of the survey, a wide-field imaging survey has a myriad of other uses. In addition, the group is acquiring the data in a way which makes it possible to detect variable objects on scales of hours to months, by spreading observations of individual subfields over 4 runs over two years.

Discoveries

List of discovered minor planets

26 February 2001
14 February 2002
5 March 2000
23 February 2001
26 March 2001
3 April 2003
7 January 2003
29 March 2004
1 April 2003
17 December 2001
4 April 2003
12 January 2002
31 March 2003
21 December 2000
4 January 2003
23 February 2001
3 April 2003
26 March 2001
12 January 2002
5 March 2000
26 March 2004
1 April 2003
1 April 2003
31 March 2003
3 May 2005

31 March 2003
3 May 2005
23 February 2001
25 November 2000
9 March 2003
26 March 2004
3 May 2005
31 March 2003
3 May 2005
9 March 2003
3 May 2005
15 February 2002
26 March 2004
1 April 2003
3 April 2003
2 April 2006
24 November 2000
3 May 2005
6 May 2005
6 May 2005
4 May 2005
19 December 2000
3 May 2005
31 March 2003
6 May 2005

Galaxy clusters