Super-LOTIS is the second incarnation of the Livermore Optical Transient Imaging System, located at the

Steward Observatory Steward Observatory is the research arm of the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona (UArizona). Its offices are located on the UArizona campus in Tucson, Arizona (US). Established in 1916, the first telescope and building were f ...

Kitt Peak Kitt Peak ( ood, Ioligam) is a mountain in the U.S. state of Arizona, and at is the highest point in the Quinlan Mountains. It is the location of the Kitt Peak National Observatory. The radio telescope at the observatory is one of ten dishes co ...

. It is an automated

telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to observe ...

designed to slew very rapidly to the location of

gamma-ray burst In gamma-ray astronomy, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are immensely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies. They are the most energetic and luminous electromagnetic events since the Big Bang. Bursts can last from ten milli ...

s (GRBs), to enable the simultaneous measurement of optical counterparts. GRBs can occur anywhere in the sky, fade very quickly, and were initially poorly localized, so the original LOTIS needed very rapid slewing (less than 10 sec) and an extremely wide

field of view The field of view (FoV) is the extent of the observable world that is seen at any given moment. In the case of optical instruments or sensors it is a solid angle through which a detector is sensitive to electromagnetic radiation. Humans a ...

(greater than 15 degrees). However, this wide field of view meant it could not see faint sources, and only the brightest GRB afterglows could be studied. Later satellites such as

HETE-2 High Energy Transient Explorer 2 (HETE-2; also known as Explorer 79) was a NASA astronomical satellite with international participation (mainly Japan and France). The satellite bus for the first HETE-1 was designed and built by AeroAstro, Inc. ...

, and BATSE detector of the

Compton Gamma Ray Observatory The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) was a space observatory detecting photons with energies from 20 k eV to 30 GeV, in Earth orbit from 1991 to 2000. The observatory featured four main telescopes in one spacecraft, covering X-ra ...

, delivered much more accurate GRB coordinates in real-time. This enabled the construction of Super-LOTIS, based upon a

Boller and Chivens Boller and Chivens was an American manufacturer of high-quality telescopes and spectrographs headquartered in South Pasadena, California. History Founded about 1946 by Harry Berthold Boller (1915-1997) and Clyde Cuthbertson Chivens (1915-2008). ...

0.6 meter telescope, with a much smaller field of view (originally 51' by 51'), but much deeper imaging. After a few years of operation in this mode (2000 to 2003), the

Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, previously called the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Explorer, is a NASA three-telescope space observatory for studying gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and monitoring the afterglow in X-ray, and UV/Visible light at the location o ...

was launched in 2004 providing even smaller error boxes. The super-LOTIS optics were modified again, now with a 17' by 17' field of view at the secondary focus, and a simultaneous visible/NIR camera. To achieve the needed response time, Super-LOTIS is fully automated and connected via Internet socket to the

Gamma-ray Burst Coordinates Network The gamma-ray burst coordinates network (GCN) is a system that distributes information about the location of a gamma-ray burst (GRB), called ''notices'', when a burst is detected by various spacecraft. The GCN also automatically receives and dist ...

. It is still in operation as of 2012. Since GRB searches only occupy a small fraction of the possible observing time, Super-LOTIS is also used for

supernova A supernova is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. It has the plural form supernovae or supernovas, and is abbreviated SN or SNe. This transient astronomical event occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star or when ...

searches and general astronomy.

References

* {{cite journal , title=The Robotic Super-LOTIS Telescope: Results & Future Plans , author=Williams, GG , author2=Milne, PA , author3=Park, HS , author4=Barthelmy, SD , author5=Hartmann, DH , author6=Updike, A , author7=Hurley, K , name-list-style=amp , arxiv=0803.0021 , date=2008 , doi=10.1063/1.2943525 , journal=AIP Conference Proceedings Robotic telescopes Gamma-ray astronomy Kitt Peak National Observatory