Up: Real-time and pre-burst optical
Subsections
The Sonneberg sky patrol is operated every clear night by an array of twelve
deg2 cameras with photographic records.
Blue and red emulsions are in use and their mean limiting magnitudes amount
to about mag 14.5.
The Ondrejov sky patrol is operated at 11 ground stations equipped by 2
guided and 11 fixed photographic red sensitive cameras reaching lim
magnitudes between 4 (for fixed cameras) and 11 (for guided cameras)
over fields of view of 180 deg diameter. The recent improvements will result in the sensitivity increase
to mag 6 for fixed and to magnitude 12-13 for guided cameras in
the best cases.
- Optics: Fish-Eye Objective F-Distagon 3.5/30.
- Detector: Planfilm FOMAPAN 400 ASA or 100 ASA
(panchromatic emulsion)
mm, sky diameter 80 mm.
- Typical exposure time: 3 hrs for guided cameras,
whole night for fixed cameras.
- 2 stations equipped with guided and fixed cameras.
- 9 stations equipped with fixed cameras.
- Sensitivity for brief 1 s
triggers 2-3 mag, for stars up to mag 11;
after improvements in 1998 mag 4-6
for 1 s flashes and mag 12-13 for stars.
- Response limited to the red light above 400 nm.
- Preferences:
(1) Large sky coverage (full visible hemisphere),
(2) Large fraction of observation time:
to
srh for one station/year,
(3) Multiplicity of data to eliminate background triggers easily,
(4) Classification of detected triggers by parallax,
(5) Simultaneous and pre-burst optical data (limits) for GRBs.
Both data sets have been examined for observations covering the
GRB positions at times during as well as immediately before and
after the triggers (within 2 days).
Up: Real-time and pre-burst optical
Copyright The European Southern Observatory (ESO)