The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will be a large (6.7m effective
aperture), wide-field (9.6 sq.deg. field-of-view) ground-based system designed
to obtain deep imaging data in six broad bands (ugrizy, 320-1050 nm).
Each sky position will be observed multiple times, with several hundred
observations per band collected over the main survey area (20,000 sq.deg.
with equatorial declination<+34.5 deg) during the anticipated 10 years of
operations. The current observing strategy calls for about 10,000 sq.deg.
of sky to be covered using pairs of 15-second exposures in two photometric
bands spaced by about an hour within a night, and every three nights on
average, with 5-sigma depth for point sources of r~24.5. The measured properties
of newly discovered and known astrometric and photometric transients will be
publicly reported within 60 sec after closing the shutter. I will summarize the main
LSST science drivers, and will illustrate them using ongoing work based on SDSS
and other data.
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