3
$\begingroup$

The tag currently has 21 questions after I added it to Any plans for TESS after it finishes northern sky survey?

For background, Wikipedia's Astronomical survey says

An astronomical survey is a general map or image of a region of the sky which lacks a specific observational target. Alternatively, an astronomical survey may comprise a set of many images or spectra of objects which share a common type or feature. Surveys are often restricted to one band of the electromagnetic spectrum due to instrumental limitations, although multiwavelength surveys can be made by using multiple detectors, each sensitive to a different bandwidth

I just want to double check if sky-survey is a sufficiently general term to apply to all types of surveys. TESS is an exoplanet survey and does indeed look for specific things though it doesn't a priori look at specific targets.

also note: "There is no usage guidance for this tag … yet!"

$\endgroup$

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4
$\begingroup$

I think sky-survey is totally fine. Among astronomers, these are normally just called "surveys" because the "sky" part is implied by context and the background of the people having the discussion. For the more general audience of SE, putting the "sky-" prefix before it helps remove any ambiguity about what is being surveyed (and would be in good company of probably the most impactful sky survey SDSS - the Sloan Digital Sky Survey). As for TESS, 'Survey' is in its acronym...

$\endgroup$
1

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .