Astrophysics (Index)About

synoptic

(general, covering everything)

The word synoptic as used in science means covering everything, i.e., "the whole picture". The word is related to synopsis, which means roughly the same as abstract or summary, i.e., a description of an entire written work. Meteorology uses the term synoptic, and astronomy has as well. In meteorology (e.g., synoptic meteorology), it means "involving all the Earth", or at least far beyond a single locality, e.g., using data from many locations and modeling the weather over a large region. In astrophysics, the term synoptic astronomy has recently been used to mean time-domain astronomy, i.e., observation and study of changes over time. I would guess that most generally, it is meant to encompass the entire celestial sphere and the entire electromagnetic spectrum as well as all of multi-messenger astronomy.


(science,astronomy,weather)
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synoptic
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/synoptic
https://glossary.ametsoc.org/wiki/Synoptic
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012IAUS..285..141D/abstract

Referenced by pages:
DSA-2000
MeerKLASS
Rubin Observatory (VRO)

Index