The Dark Energy Survey and Operations: Years 4 and 5 Conference Paper uri icon

abstract

  • 2018 SPIE The Dark Energy Survey (DES) is an operating optical survey aimed at understanding the accelerating expansion of the universe using four complementary methods: weak gravitational lensing, galaxy cluster counts, baryon acoustic oscillations, and Type Ia supernovae. To perform the 5000 sq-degree wide field and 30 sq-degree supernova surveys, the DES Collaboration built the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), a 3 square-degree, 570-Megapixel CCD camera that was installed at the prime focus of the Blanco 4-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). DES has completed its third observing season out of a nominal five. This paper describes DES Year 4 (Y4) and Year 5 (Y5), the survey strategy, an outline of the survey operations procedures, the efficiency of operations and the causes of lost observing time. It provides details about the quality of these two-season's data, a summary of the overall status, and plans for the final survey season.

name of conference

  • Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes, and Systems VII

published proceedings

  • OBSERVATORY OPERATIONS: STRATEGIES, PROCESSES, AND SYSTEMS VII

altmetric score

  • 9.25

author list (cited authors)

  • Diehl, H. T., Neilsen, E., Gruendl, R. A., Abbott, T., Allam, S., Alvarez, O., ... Zhang, Y.

citation count

  • 14

complete list of authors

  • Diehl, HT||Neilsen, E||Gruendl, RA||Abbott, TMC||Allam, S||Alvarez, O||Annis, J||Balbinot, E||Bhargava, S||Bechtol, K||Bernstein, GM||Bhatawdekar, R||Bocquet, S||Brout, D||Capasso, R||Cawthon, R||Chang, C||Cook, E||Conselice, CJ||Cruz, J||D'Andrea, C||da Costa, L||Das, R||DePoy, DL||Drlica-Wagner, A||Elliott, A||Everett, SW||Frieman, J||Fausti Neto, A||Ferte, A||Friswell, I||Furnell, KE||Gelman, L||Gerdes, DW||Gill, MSS||Goldstein, DA||Gruen, D||Gulledge, DJ||Hamilton, S||Hollowood, D||Honscheid, K||James, DJ||Johnson, MD||Johnson, MWG||Kent, S||Kessler, R||Khullar, G||Kovacs, E||Kremin, A||Kron, R||Kuropatkin, N||Lasker, J||Lathrop, A||Li, TS||Manera, M||March, M||Marshall, JL||Medford, M||Menanteau, F||Mohammed, I||Monroy, MR||Moraes, B||Morganson, EP||Muir, J||Murphy, M||Nord, B||Pace, AB||Palmese, A||Park, Y||Paz-Chinchon, F||Pereira, MES||Petravick, D||Plazas, AA||Poh, J||Prochaska, T||Reil, K||Romer, AK||Roodman, A||Sako, M||Sauseda, M||Scolnic, D||Secco, LF||Sevilla-Noarbe, I||Shipp, N||Smith, JA||Soares-Santos, M||Soergel, B||Stebbins, A||Story, KT||Stringer, K||Tarsitano, F||Thomas, B||Tucker, DL||Vivas, K||Walker, AR||Wang, M-Y||Weaverdyck, C||Weaverdyck, N||Wester, W||Wethers, CF||Wilkinson, R||Wu, H-Y||Yannya, B||Zenteno, A||Zhang, Y

editor list (cited editors)

  • Peck, A. B., Benn, C. R., & Seaman, R. L.

publication date

  • July 2018