Invited Presentation

Current Status of the Pan-STARRS Project and Beyond

W. P. Chen (NCU)

The Panoramic Survey Telescope And Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) aims to patrol cyclically the entire visible sky from Hawaii. The prototype, PS1, will end its 3.5 year mission by early 2014. So far every patch of the sky north of declination of -30 deg has been observed at more than 30 epochs in 5 filter bands. Some medium-deep fields have been observed in every observable night. PS1 provides unprecedented data on cosmic variability in time (gamma-ray bursts, supernovae, variable stars, etc.) and in position (solar-system bodies, stellar proper motions and parallaxes). On behalf of the PS1 team, I report on the current status of the project and the next steps after PS1.