Bibcode
Dyer, Martin J.; Ackley, Kendall; Jiménez-Ibarra, Felipe; Lyman, Joseph; Ulaczyk, Krzysztof; Steeghs, Danny; Galloway, Duncan K.; Dhillon, Vik S.; O'Brien, Paul; Ramsay, Gavin; Noysena, Kanthanakorn; Kotak, Rubina; Breton, Rene; Nuttall, Laura; Pallé, Enric; Pollacco, Don; Killestein, Tom; Kumar, Amit; O'Neill, David; Kelsey, Lisa; Godson, Ben; Jarvis, Dan
Referencia bibliográfica
Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes X
Fecha de publicación:
8
2024
Número de citas
1
Número de citas referidas
0
Descripción
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.