Now under construction atop a mountain in northern Chile, the 8.36-metre Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will sweep the entire southern sky every three nights when it starts operating in 2022 - creating a wealth of data that will be available to all US astronomers and dozens of international partners. It promises to be a democratizing force and to usher in a new era of survey astronomy. But that promise could go unrealized without the proper infrastructure, astronomers warn. Without access to the tools and facilities needed to analyse the huge data set and to do follow-up observations, many astronomers could be locked out of the bounty. Especially vulnerable are researchers and students at small and minority-serving institutions, which often find it hard to secure telescope time.
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