Astronomy with Small Telescopes
arXiv:astro-ph/0609161 · doi:10.1086/510260
Abstract
The All Sky Automated Survey (ASAS) is monitoring all sky to about 14 mag with a cadence of about 1 day; it has discovered about 10^5 variable stars, most of them new. The instrument used for the survey had aperture of 7 cm. A search for planetary transits has lead to the discovery of about a dozen confirmed planets, so called 'hot Jupiters', providing the information of planetary masses and radii. Most discoveries were done with telescopes with aperture of 10 cm. We propose a search for optical transients covering all sky with a cadence of 10 - 30 minutes and the limit of 12 - 14 mag, with an instant verification of all candidate events. The search will be made with a large number of 10 cm instruments, and the verification will be done with 30 cm instruments. We also propose a system to be located at the L_1 point of the Earth - Sun system to detect 'killer asteroids'. With a limiting magnitude of about 18 mag it could detect 10 m boulders several hours prior to their impact, provide warning against Tunguska-like events, as well as to provide news about spectacular but harmless more modest impacts.
11 pages, accepted to PASP minor changes to the text
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