Status Of The Transneptunian Automated Occultation Survey (Taos Ii)

The Transneptunian Automated Occultation Survey (TAOS II) will aim to detect occultations of stars by small (similar to 1 km diameter) objects in the Kuiper Belt and beyond. Such events are very rare (< 10(-3) events per star per year) and short in duration (similar to 200 ms), so many stars must be monitored at a high readout cadence. TAOS II will operate three 1.3 meter telescopes at the Observatorio Astronomico Nacional at San Pedro Martir in Baja California, Mexico. With a 2.3 square degree field of view and a high speed camera comprising CMOS imagers, the survey will monitor 10,000 stars simultaneously with all three telescopes at a readout cadence of 20 Hz. Construction of the site began in the fall of 2013.