Bootstrapping Forefront Science with Small Telescopes

Wen-Ping Chen^1,2*

¹Astronomy, National Central University, Zhongli District, Taiwan
²Physics, National Central University, Taiwan

* Presenter:Wen-Ping Chen, email:wchen@astro.ncu.edu.tw

In an era of large to gigantic OIR telescopes, small telescopes, particularly in global networking, still deliver focused niche science.
Here I describe how NCU with limited human and financial resources operates a suite of small telescopes at Lulin Observatory, the largest
being a humble one meter, to study cosmic temporal phenomena, such as stellar variability, or transient objects, by joining high-profile
international collaborations or making use of more powerful facilities to "secure the discoveries". I will reminisce several projects I have
been heavily involved, e.g., TAOS, Pan-STARRS, Tenagra, EDEN, with the lessons well learned.

Keywords: Time domain astrophysics, Telescope, Astronomical observation