In this talk, I will present Mephisto, a 1.6m multi-channel photometric survey telescope currently being developed at SWIFAR, Yunnan University. Mephisto has a 1.6m primary and is equipped with three CCD mosaic cameras of a field-of-view 3.14 sq.deg (actually utilized 2.0 sq.deg), capable of simultaneously imaging the same patch of sky in three bands (ugi or vrz). The three cameras boast a total of 1.0 Giga pixels. Mephisto will yield real-time colours of astronomical objects with unprecedented accuracies, and deliver for the first time a coloured documentary of our evolving universe. Mephisto will be installed at Gaomeigu Station of Yunnan Observatories, and is expected to operational, with three pilot cameras that make use one quarter of the FoV, in 2022. If time allowed, I will also present some of the recent work from our group on the Galactic studies, based on data from various astrometric, photometric and spectroscopic surveys with LAMOST and Gaia etc.

Xiaowei LIU: Professor, Director
Cheung Kong Scholar of Ministry of Education (1999), Awardee of the National Natural Science Foundation of China for Distinguished Young Scholars (2003), Yunnan University Chair Professor (2017-), Founding Director of South-western Institute for Astronomy Research at Yunnan University (SWIFAR-YNU; 2017-); Yunnan Science and Technology Leading Talents (2018-); ISC-CHINA Member (2019-); ICSU-CHINA Member (2016-2019); Vice President of the International Astronomical Union (IAU; 2012-2018), Vice President of Chinese Astronomical Society (CAS; 2014-2018); 973 Project Principle Investigator (2014-2018); Cheung Kong Professor of Peking University (1999-2017), Boya Chair Professor of Peking University (2017); A major founder of the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University (KIAA-PKU), serving as Associate Director (2007-2011) and Deputy Director (2012-2013); Advanced Fellow of Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council of UK (1999-2002);

PhD of Astrophysics of Beijing Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences (1992);

1989-1992 Visiting student of European Southern Observatory),

Bachelor of Astrophysics of Peking University (1986).

Research interests:
Wide-field Astronomy, Spectroscopy, Galactic Archeology and Near-field Cosmology, Interstellar Medium, Atomic and Molecular Processes, Radiation Mechanisms.