Subaru Telescope: current status and strategy toward future
Ikuru Iwata (Subaru Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory of
Japan)
Subaru Telescope is an 8.2m telescope on top of Maunakea, Hawaii.
The telescope has suites of state-of-art instruments which cover
almost entire wavelength range in optical to mid-infrared and
various spectral resolutions. I will briefly introduce some
scientific highlights using Subaru Telescope to show its
capabilities. Recently a new prime focus optical imager Hyper
Suprime-Cam (HSC) started its science operations. HSC has 1.5 deg.
field-of-view with excellent image quality, and the international
collaboration team is conducting a large survey using HSC with 300
nights in total which aims at covering about 1,400 sq. degrees.
I will also introduce some new instrument projects such as Prime
Focus Spectrograph (PFS) which employs 2,400 fibres over 1.3 sq.
degree FoV, new exoplanet instruments, a wide-field near-infrared
instrument concept with Ground-Layer Adaptive Optics, and the
strategic plan of Subaru Telescope toward 2020s. Subaru Telescope
is accessible by Canadian community thorugh the Subaru-Gemini
time exchange program, and we wish to enlarge the collaboration
with Canada in any possible ways.
