All Sky Automated Survey

The All Sky Automated Survey (ASAS) is a Polish project implemented on 7 April 1997 to do photometric monitoring of approximately 20 million stars brighter than 14 magnitude all over the sky. The automatic telescopes discovered two new comets in 2004 and 2006. The ASAS-South, located in Chile and ASAS-North, located in Hawai'i, are managed by Grzegorz Pojmański of the Warsaw University Observatory via the internet.

The idea was initiated by the Polish astronomy Professor Bohdan Paczyński of Princeton University. The prototype instrument and data pipeline were designed and built by Grzegorz Pojmański. The work on the ASAS program began in 1996 with a mere $1 million budget. The automatic telescope, located in Las Campanas Observatory, Chile, was designed to register the brightness of circa one million stars in the Southern Hemisphere. However, it proved very efficient and helped to find many new variable stars. The project was then expanded, and now operates four telescopes located in Las Campanas Observatory. The Chilean observatory is operated by the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

So far, ASAS has discovered 50,000 variables located south of declination +28°, which means that it has covered 3/4 of all the sky. Pojmański comes to Chile only once every year. The telescope works automatically. Routine work such as exchanging of the data is done by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) observers. Such an intervention is needed once a week. On each starry night when an OGLE observator opens or closes the dome, the ASAS booth is opened or closed automatically.

Grzegorz Pojmański is supported in the project by the State Committee for Scientific Research, Poland. The project is assisted by OGLE observers. Paczyński was supported by William Golden.