San Francisco Citizen

Via David Yu:

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C/2011 L4

Pan-STARRS

The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) is an array of astronomical cameras and telescopes and computing facility that is surveying the sky on a continual basis, including accurate astrometry and photometry of detected objects. By detecting any differences from previous observations of the same areas of the sky, it is expected to discover a very large number of new asteroids, comets, variable stars and other celestial objects. Its primary mission is to detect near-Earth objects that threaten impact eventsand is expected to create a database of all objects visible from Hawaii (three-quarters of the entire sky) down to apparent magnitude 24. Pan-STARRS is funded in large part by the U.S. Air Force through their Research Labs.