The Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO)
Abstract
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.
- Publication:
-
Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes VIII
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- DOI:
- 10.1117/12.2561008
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2012.02685
- Bibcode:
- 2020SPIE11445E..7GD
- Keywords:
-
- Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics;
- General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
- E-Print:
- 8 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, submitted to SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2020