Status and perspectives of Mini-MegaTORTORA wide-field monitoring system with high temporal resolution

Abstract

Abstract. Here we briefly summarize our long-term experience of constructing and operating wide-field monitoring cameras with sub-second temporal resolution to look for optical components of GRBs, fast-moving satellites and meteors. The general hardware requirements for these systems are discussed, along with algorithms for real-time detection and classification of various kinds of short optical transients. We also give a status report on the next generation, the MegaTORTORA multi-objective and transforming monitoring system, whose 6-channel (Mini-MegaTORTORA-Spain) and 9-channel prototypes (Mini-MegaTORTORA-Kazan) we have been building at SAO RAS. This system combines a wide field of view with subsecond temporal resolution in monitoring regime, and is able, within fractions of a second, to reconfigure itself to follow-up mode, which has better sensitivity and simultaneously provides multi-color and polarimetric information on detected transients.

GlSch

“…The real experiment has been made with four telescopes: Mini-Mega TORTORA (MMT) [20], from The Special Astrophysical Observatory in Russia; BART [21] located at the Astronomical institute AVČR at Ondřejov; BOOTES-1A [22], from the BOOTES network in Huelva; and CATA 500, a telescope from the Universidad de Chile located in the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory.…”

“…The last one will support event messages received from any celestial event notification server, e.g. VOevent [20]. But, first of all, as part of this first implementation stage, a revision of the decision algorithm will be made to try to get more accurate information including more weather parameters.…”