The Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO) is a project dedicated to identifying optical counterparts to gravitational-wave detections using a network of dedicated, wide-field telescopes. After almost a decade of design, construction, and commissioning work, the GOTO network is now fully operational with two antipodal sites: La Palma in the Canary Islands and Siding Spring in Australia. Both sites host two independent robotic mounts, each with a field-of-view of 44 square degrees formed by an array of eight 40cm telescopes, resulting in an instantaneous 88 square degree field-of-view per site. All four telescopes operate as a single integrated network, with the ultimate aim of surveying the entire sky every 2–3 days and allowing near-24-hour response to transient events within a minute of their detection. In the modern era of transient astronomy, automated telescopes like GOTO form a vital link between multi-messenger discovery facilities and in-depth follow-up by larger telescopes. GOTO is already producing a wide range of scientific results, assisted by an efficient discovery pipeline and a successful citizen science project: Kilonova Seekers.
The search for the electromagnetic counterparts to Gravitational Wave (GW) events has been rapidly gathering pace in recent years thanks to the increasing number and capabilities of both gravitational wave detectors and wide field survey telescopes. Difficulties remain, however, in detecting these counterparts due to their inherent scarcity, faintness and rapidly evolving nature. To find these counterparts, it is important that one optimizes the observing strategy for their recovery. This can be difficult due to the large number of potential variables at play. Such follow-up campaigns are also capable of detecting hundreds or potentially thousands of unrelated transients, particularly for GW events with poor localization. Even if the observations are capable of detecting a counterpart, finding it among the numerous contaminants can prove challenging. Here we present the Gravitational wave Electromagnetic RecovRY code (GERRY) to perform detailed analysis and survey-agnostic quantification of observing campaigns attempting to recover electromagnetic counterparts. GERRY considers the campaign’s spatial, temporal and wavelength coverage, in addition to Galactic extinction and the expected counterpart light curve evolution from the GW 3D localization volume. It returns quantified statistics that can be used to: determine the probability of having detected the counterpart, identified the most promising sources, and assessed and refine strategy. Here we demonstrate the code to look at the performance and parameter space probed by current and upcoming wide-field surveys such as GOTO and VRO.
The Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO) is a wide-field telescope project focused on detecting optical counterparts to gravitational-wave sources. Each GOTO robotic mount holds eight 40 cm telescopes, giving an overall field of view of 40 square degrees. As of 2022 the first two GOTO mounts have been commissioned at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma, Canary Islands, and construction of the second node with two additional 8-telescope mounts has begin at Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, Australia. Once fully operational each GOTO mount will be networked to form a robotic, multi-site observatory, which will survey the entire visible sky every two nights and enable rapid follow-up detections of transient sources.
S. Agayeva, V. Aivazyan, S. Alishov, M. Almualla, C. Andrade, Sarah Antier, J. M. Bai, A. Baransky, S. Basa, P. Bendjoya, Z. Benkhaldoun, S. Beradze, D. Berezin, U. Bhardwaj, M. Blazek, O. Burkhonov, E. Burns, S. Caudill, N. Christensen, F. Colas, A. Coleiro, W. Corradi, M. Coughlin, T. Culino, D. Darson, D. Datashvili, G. de Wasseige, T. Dietrich, F. Dolon, D. Dornic, J. Dubouil, J.-G. Ducoin, P.-A. Duverne, A. Esamdin, A. Fouad, F. Guo, V. Godunova, P. Gokuldass, N. Guessoum, E. Gurbanov, R. Hainich, E. Hasanov, P. Hello, T. Hussenot-Desenonges, R. Inasaridze, A. Iskandar, E.E.O. Ishida, N. Ismailov, T. Jegou du Laz, D.A. Kann, G. Kapanadze, S. Karpov, R.W. Kiendrebeogo, A. Klotz, N. Kochiashvili, A. Kaeouach, J.-P. Kneib, W. Kou, K. Kruiswijk, S. Lombardo, M. Lamoureux, N. Leroy, A. Le Van Su, J. Mao, M. Masek, T. Midavaine, A. Moeller, D. Morris, R. Natsvlishvili, F. Navarete, S. Nissanke, K. Noonan, K. Noysena, N.B. Orange, J. Peloton, M. Pilloix, T. Pradier, M. Prouza, G. Raaijmakers, Y. Rajabov, J.-P. Rivet, Y. Romanyuk, L. Rousselot, F. Ruenger, V. Rupchandani, T. Sadibekova, N. Sasaki, A. Simon, K. Smith, O. Sokoliuk, X. Song, A. Takey, Y. Tillayev, I. Tosta e Melo, D. Turpin, A. de Ugarte Postigo, M. Vardosanidze, X.F. Wang, D. Vernet, Z. Vidadi, J. Zhu, Y. Zhu
GRANDMA is a world-wide collaboration with the primary scientific goal of studying gravitational-wave sources, discovering their electromagnetic counterparts and characterizing their emission. GRANDMA involves astronomers, astrophysicists, gravitational-wave physicists, and theorists. GRANDMA is now a truly global network of telescopes, with (so far) 30 telescopes in both hemispheres. It incorporates a citizen science programme (Kilonova-Catcher) which constitutes an opportunity to spread the interest in time-domain astronomy. The telescope network is an heterogeneous set of already-existing observing facilities that operate coordinated as a single observatory. Within the network there are wide-field imagers that can observe large areas of the sky to search for optical counterparts, narrow-field instruments that do targeted searches within a predefined list of host-galaxy candidates, and larger telescopes that are devoted to characterization and follow-up of the identified counterparts. Here we present an overview of GRANDMA after the third observing run of the LIGO/VIRGO gravitational-wave observatories in 2019 − 2020 and its ongoing preparation for the forthcoming fourth observational campaign (O4). Additionally, we review the potential of GRANDMA for the discovery and follow-up of other types of astronomical transients.
The Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO) is a wide-field telescope project focused on detecting optical counterparts to gravitational-wave sources. GOTO uses arrays of 40 cm unit telescopes (UTs) on a shared robotic mount, which scales to provide large fields of view in a cost-effective manner. A complete GOTO mount uses 8 unit telescopes to give an overall field of view of 40 square degrees, and can reach a depth of 20th magnitude in three minutes. The GOTO-4 prototype was inaugurated with 4 unit telescopes in 2017 on La Palma, and was upgraded to a full 8-telescope array in 2020. A second 8-UT mount will be installed on La Palma in early 2021, and another GOTO node with two more mount systems is planned for a southern site in Australia. When complete, each mount will be networked to form a robotic, dual-hemisphere observatory, which will survey the entire visible sky every few nights and enable rapid follow-up detections of transient sources.
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