Surveys will play a key role in the era of the next generation of ground-based telescopes. Public surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and, more recently, the 3D-HST survey have a major impact on modern astronomy. Even the currently largest telescopes are involved in obtaining observations of large samples of planets, stars and galaxies (Gaia-ESO survey, VIMOS public spectroscopic survey). These surveys are essential as a preparation for the ELT era, but will also become an important mode of operation of the Extremely Large Telescopes. The first generation of ELT instruments is currently being developed. The main aim of the proposed special session is to make sure that the planned instrument suite will be capable of executing such surveys, addressing key scientific topics related to exoplanets, resolved stellar populations and high-redshift galaxies. The emphasis of the special session will be on current and planned spectroscopic surveys with instruments such as GMOS, FMOS, FLAMES, WEAVE, 4MOST and MOONS, with the aim to design the future spectroscopic surveys with multi-object spectrographs on the ELTs.

Programme

Invited speakers

Scientific organisers
Michele Cirasuolo, Francois Hammer, Jure Japelj, Lex Kaper (chair), Aprajita Verma

Contact
L.Kaper @ uva.nl