TAOS: The Taiwanese–American Occultation Survey

The Taiwanese–American Occultation Survey (TAOS) seeks to determinethe number and size spectrum for small (∼3 km) bodies in the KuiperBelt. This will be accomplished by searching for the brief occultations of brightstars (R∼14) by these objects. We have designed and built a specialpurpose photometric monitoring system for this purpose. TAOS comprisesfour 50 cm telescopes, each equipped with a 2048×2048 pixel CCDcamera, in a compact array located in the central highlands of Taiwan. TAOSwill monitor up to 3,000 stars at 5 Hz. The system will go into scientificoperation at the end of 003.