Scientific efficiency of ground-based telescopes

Abstract

I scanned the six major astronomical journals of 2008 for all 1589 papers that are based on new data obtained from ground-based optical/IR telescopes worldwide. Then I collected data on numbers of papers, citations to them in 3+ years, the most-cited papers, and annual operating costs. These data are assigned to four groups by telescope aperture. For instance, while the papers from telescopes with an aperture >7m average 1.29 more citations than those with an aperture of 2 to <4m, this represents a small return for a factor of four difference in operating costs. Among the 17 papers that have received ≥100 citations in 3+ years, only half come from the large (>7m) telescopes. I wonder why the large telescopes do so relatively poorly and suggest possible reasons. I also found that papers based on archival data, such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, produce 10.6% as many papers and 20.6% as many citations as those based on new data. Also, the 577.2 papers based on radio data produced 36.3% as many papers and 33.6% as many citations as the 1589 papers based on optical/IR telescopes. © 2012. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.