The QUEST (Quasar Equatorial Survey Team) is a collaboration among Yale University, the Centro de Investigaciones de Astronomia, the Universidad de Los Andes, and Indiana University. The QUEST camera is a 4x4 array of 2048x2048 CCDs mounted at the prime focus of the 1 meter Schmidt near MÚrida, Venezuela. The field-of-view is 2.3 by 2.3 degrees. The limiting magnitudes for a single scan are 21.5 magnitudes in the Visual, and 21.4 magnitudes in the Red.
Dr. Schaefer is using the camera to follow the lightcurves of intermediate redshift supernovae. The project anticipates a discovery of about 30 supernova between redshifts of 0 and 0.1; about 210 supernova between redshifts of 0.1 and 0.2, and about 390 supernova between redshifts of 0.2 and 0.3 over the next three years. This type of supernova forms one of distance standards used to establish the distance scale (the Hubble constant, Ho ) of the universe to an estimated accuracy of +/- 0.01 magnitudes.
