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R. C. Smith Abstract
CTIO - The Next 50 Years
R. C. Smith (NOAO/CTIO)
After 50 years of solid scientific productivity, CTIO has established a strong reputation as a world-leading international observatory. The next 50 years are filled with opportunities to build on this foundation, continuing to put CTIO at the forefront of astronomy. In the near term (the next 10 years) we will be taking advantage of the power of DECam to map the southern skies, both as part of Dark Energy Survey and as part of a wide variety of community projects spanning scientific areas from near-earth asteroids to the most distant gravitationally-lensed galaxies. In addition, we will add new spectroscopic capabilities, both in the optical, with COSMOS, and the near-infrared, with TripleSpec. With the combination of these new facilities with those coming to SOAR, including SAM, SIFS, and STELES, CTIO will provide a highly-efficient suite of capabilities to support astronomers for this decade.
And of course we will be preparing for the next decade, which will be the decade of LSST. CTIO continues to play a central role in supporting the development of LSST during its construction on Cerro Pachon over the next 5 years. However, even more important will be the role CTIO facilities will play in the science of the LSST era. While astronomers will certainly be able to do many new and innovative projects with only the LSST database, a significant fraction of the scientific potential of LSST relies upon optical and infrared followup. The telescopes and instruments of CTIO, from the tenant 1m telescopes to the instruments on the Blanco and SOAR, will be a critical part of the newly rebalanced observing "system". Given that cutting-edge instrumentation can take 5-10 years to move from conception to first light, today is not too early to decide which new instruments we must start developing now in order to fulfill the needs of the community in the next decade.