The All Sky Automated Survey is a project which final goal is photometric monitoring of approx. 10^7 stars brighter than 14 magnitude all over the sky. The initial idea for the project is due to Prof. Bohdan Paczynski of Princeton University. The prototype instrument, located at the Las Campanas Observatory (operated by the Carnegie Institution of Washington), and the data pipeline were developed by Dr. Grzegorz Pojmanski of the Warsaw University Observatory. The project is supported by a grant from KBN (Polish funding agency) to G. Pojmanski, and a generous gift from Mr. William Golden to B. Paczynski. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the on site assistance by the OGLE observers.
The first step bringing us closer to the desired goal was the prototype ASAS instrument, equipped with 768x512 Kodak CCD and 135/1.8 telephoto lens, mounted on the computer controlled robotic mount, which was developed at the Warsaw University Astronomical Observatoryand since April 7, 1997 operates at the Las Campanas Observatory, Chile.
Prototype took about 15 3-minute exposures (covering 90 sq. deg.) per hour with limiting I-magnitude 13 and resolution of 14 arcsec/pixel. Initial setup consisted of 24 fields covering 150 sq. deg. (later increased to 50 fields - 300 sq. deg) monitored few times each night.
A short history of The Prototype:During October and November, 1996 we have managed to get 5 clear observing hours and about 20 cloudy or foggy, which allowed us to do basic tests of the system. The mount seems to satisfy the design goals, and camera seems to be working properly. The only two major failures of the MEADE camera are two "flying washers", which from time to time drop onto the CCD surface.
Nevertheless, below you can find some Prototype outcome:
M 31 (Andromeda), 10 minute, no filter
Orion Nebula, 10 s, no filter
North Polar Sequence, 30 s, no filter
North Polar Sequence, 30 s, I filter
ASAS-2 data
Data obtained in the years 1997-2000 are available as:
Low cost prototype system ASAS-1, ASAS-2 was replaced by the ASAS-3 system, that consists of two wide-field 200/2.8 instruments, one narrow-field 750/3.3 telescope and one super-wide 50/4 scope, each equipped with the Apogee 2Kx2K CCD camera, locataed in the custom made automated enclosure.