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GOTO (telescope array)
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GOTO (telescope array)
The Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO) is an array of robotic optical telescopes optimized for the discovery of optical counterparts to gravitational wave events and other multi-messenger signals. The array consists of a network of telescope systems, with each system consisting of eight 0.4m telescopes on a single mounting.
As of May 2023 the network consists of two sites, each with two systems. GOTO-N (North) located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (ORM) on the island of La Palma, Spain and GOTO-S (South) located at Siding Spring Observatory (SSO), Australia.
The project is run by an international consortium of universities and other research institutes, including the University of Warwick, Monash University, the University of Sheffield, the University of Leicester, Armagh Observatory, the National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand, the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, the University of Portsmouth, the University of Turku, and the University of Birmingham.
Each GOTO system can point independently, whilst each unit telescope (UT) has a fixed orientation on the mount so all 8 must be pointed at once. Each UT's pointing is offset from the others to cover the adjacent area of sky, with a small overlap between them. This results in each GOTO system acting as a single large telescope with a very wide field of view (FoV).
The UTs are ASA H400 Newtonian telescopes, each with an aperture of 400mm and a focal length of 960mm (f/2.4). Attached to each telescope is a focuser, filter wheel, and a Finger Lakes Instrumentation (FLI) ML50100 camera, based on the Onsemi KAF-50100 CCD sensor. The fast focal ratio of f/2.4 and large image sensor result in a relatively large field of view, with each GOTO system having a total FoV of approximately 40 square degrees, around 200x the area of the full Moon in the sky. The fast focal ratio also means that only a small amount of time is needed to observe each area of the sky, with each visit requiring only 3 minutes of exposure time.
GOTO utilises difference imaging to identify changes of existing objects and the appearance of new transients. Images of the sky are matched to previous observations of the same region, finding the difference between these two images will show only the changes in the new image. Sources within these difference images can then be detected automatically. Using difference imaging in this way produces many thousands of candidate sources per image, the vast majority of which are artefacts of the processing and not real transients. GOTO utilises a convolutional neural network based 'real-bogus' classifier to identify which sources are likely to be real.
In addition to follow-up of gravitational wave events, GOTO can respond to detections of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). On September 11, 2023, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected a gamma ray burst (GRB 230911A) and follow-up observations by GOTO discovered an optical counterpart (GOTO23akf/AT 2023shv), which was later confirmed as a GRB afterglow by the Swift X-ray telescope.
GOTO's typical mode of operation when not performing a follow-up campaign is to survey the entire visible sky. As there are sites located in both the northern and southern hemispheres, the visible sky for GOTO is all areas which are visible at night from anywhere on the Earth. If both sites have good weather conditions the entire visible sky can be observed every 2–3 days.
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GOTO (telescope array)
The Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO) is an array of robotic optical telescopes optimized for the discovery of optical counterparts to gravitational wave events and other multi-messenger signals. The array consists of a network of telescope systems, with each system consisting of eight 0.4m telescopes on a single mounting.
As of May 2023 the network consists of two sites, each with two systems. GOTO-N (North) located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (ORM) on the island of La Palma, Spain and GOTO-S (South) located at Siding Spring Observatory (SSO), Australia.
The project is run by an international consortium of universities and other research institutes, including the University of Warwick, Monash University, the University of Sheffield, the University of Leicester, Armagh Observatory, the National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand, the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, the University of Portsmouth, the University of Turku, and the University of Birmingham.
Each GOTO system can point independently, whilst each unit telescope (UT) has a fixed orientation on the mount so all 8 must be pointed at once. Each UT's pointing is offset from the others to cover the adjacent area of sky, with a small overlap between them. This results in each GOTO system acting as a single large telescope with a very wide field of view (FoV).
The UTs are ASA H400 Newtonian telescopes, each with an aperture of 400mm and a focal length of 960mm (f/2.4). Attached to each telescope is a focuser, filter wheel, and a Finger Lakes Instrumentation (FLI) ML50100 camera, based on the Onsemi KAF-50100 CCD sensor. The fast focal ratio of f/2.4 and large image sensor result in a relatively large field of view, with each GOTO system having a total FoV of approximately 40 square degrees, around 200x the area of the full Moon in the sky. The fast focal ratio also means that only a small amount of time is needed to observe each area of the sky, with each visit requiring only 3 minutes of exposure time.
GOTO utilises difference imaging to identify changes of existing objects and the appearance of new transients. Images of the sky are matched to previous observations of the same region, finding the difference between these two images will show only the changes in the new image. Sources within these difference images can then be detected automatically. Using difference imaging in this way produces many thousands of candidate sources per image, the vast majority of which are artefacts of the processing and not real transients. GOTO utilises a convolutional neural network based 'real-bogus' classifier to identify which sources are likely to be real.
In addition to follow-up of gravitational wave events, GOTO can respond to detections of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). On September 11, 2023, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected a gamma ray burst (GRB 230911A) and follow-up observations by GOTO discovered an optical counterpart (GOTO23akf/AT 2023shv), which was later confirmed as a GRB afterglow by the Swift X-ray telescope.
GOTO's typical mode of operation when not performing a follow-up campaign is to survey the entire visible sky. As there are sites located in both the northern and southern hemispheres, the visible sky for GOTO is all areas which are visible at night from anywhere on the Earth. If both sites have good weather conditions the entire visible sky can be observed every 2–3 days.
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