
The Quasar Equatorial Survey Team (QUEST) is a
multi-national
collaboration of astronomers and physicists, led by Professor
Charles Baltay of the Yale Department of Physics. We have constructed
a
camera which contains 16 2048x2048 pixel CCDs to survey the equatorial
sky. This camera is mounted at the 1m Schmidt telescope at the
Llano del Hato Observatory in Merida, Venezuela, which is operated
by the Cento de Investigaciones de Astronomia. Our
primary scientific goal
is to search for new quasars and gravitational lenses. We are also using
the QUEST camera to study other topics including
- Emission Line Galaxies (Chris Sabbey's Ph. D. thesis)
- RR Lyrae Stars (Kathy Vivas' Ph. D. thesis)
- Star Formation in the Orion Region
- Search for New Solar System Objects
- Search for Optical Transients of Gamma-ray Bursters
- Search for Quiescent Compact Binary Systems
- A Variety of Astrometric Projects
Several
papers
have been published or submitted.