Abstract
Recent advances in the technology of
rotating liquid-mirrors now make feasible the
construction of large optical telescopes for
dedicated survey programs. Two three-metre-class
astronomical telescopes have been built and
asix-metre telescope is under construction. These
instruments observe in zenith-pointing mode, using
drift-scanning CCD cameras to record continuous
imaging of a strip of sky typically 20 arcmin
wide. This enables them to observe of order 100
square degrees of sky with an integration time of
a few minutes per night. Data can be co-added from
night to night in order to increase the depth of
the survey. Liquid-mirror telescopes are
particularly wellsuited to surveys using broad or
intermediate bandwidth filters to obtain
photometric redshifts and spectral energy
distributions for faint galaxies and
quasars.
Liquid-Mirror Telescope Surveys