Large area sky surveys are now a reality in the radio, IR, optical and X-ray passbands. In the next few years, new surveys using optical, UV and IR mosaic cameras with high throughput digital detectors will expand the dynamic range and accuracy of photometry and astrometry of objects over a significant fraction of the entire sky. Parallel X-ray and radio surveys over the same areas will produce astronomical image and spectroscopic databases of unprecedented size and quality. The combined data sets will provide significant new constraints on star formation, stellar dynamics, Galactic structure, the evolution of galaxies and large scale structure, as well as new opportunities to identify rare objects in the solar system and the Galaxy. Large area surveys have formidable data acquisition, processing, archiving, and data distribution demands and this meeting provided a forum for sharing experiences amongst workers specializing in different wavebands as well as discussing how multiband observations can reveal fundamental relationships in our understanding of the Universe.

Zusammenfassung
Proceedings of the 179th Symposium of the International Astronomical Union held in Baltimore, MD, USA, August 26-30, 1996

Inhalt

1. General Sky Survey Reviews.- 2. Survey Projects.- 3. The Interstellar Medium.- 4. Galactic Structure.- 5. Extra-Galactic Astronomy.- 6. Large Scale Structure.- 7. Data Processing Techniques.- 8. Catalogues.- 9. Multi-Wavelength Cross Identification.- 10. Databases.- 11. Conference Summary and Resolutions.- Conference Resolutions.- Author index.