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The BISTRO (B-Fields in Star-forming Region Observations) Survey is a JCMT (James Clerk Maxwell Telescope) Large Programme which has been mapping Milky Way star-forming regions in polarized light using the SCUBA-2 camera and POL-2 polarimeter since 2016. We are an international collaboration chiefly comprising astronomers from China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Canada and Vietnam, but with members spread around the world. Our chief aim is to use polarization observations to understand where and how magnetic fields influence the star formation process.
So far we have had three incarnations: BISTRO-1, mapping Gould Belt clouds within 500 pc; BISTRO-2, mapping higher-mass star-forming regions out to 2 kpc; and BISTRO-3, mapping a range of more distant high-mass star-forming regions, nearby isolated prestellar cores, and the Galactic Centre.
Image credits (clockwise from top left): Pattle et al. 2017, Doi et al. 2020, Karoly et al., 2023, Pattle et al. 2018, Arzoumanian et al. 2021, Kwon et al. 2022.