Astro-COLIBRI is a novel tool that evaluates alerts of transient observations in real time, filters them by user-specified criteria, and puts them into their multiwavelength and multimessenger context. Through fast generation of an overview of persistent sources as well as transient events in the relevant phase space, Astro-COLIBRI contributes to an enhanced discovery potential of both serendipitous and follow-up observations of the transient sky. The software's architecture comprises a Representational State Transfer Application Programming Interface, both a static and a real-time database, a cloudbased alert system, as well as a website and apps for iOS and Android as clients for users. The latter provide a graphical representation with a summary of the relevant data to allow for the fast identification of interesting phenomena along with an assessment of observing conditions at a large selection of observatories around the world.
The study of flaring astrophysical events in the multi-messenger approach requires instantaneous follow-up observations to better understand the nature of these events through complementary observational data. We present Astro-COLIBRI as a platform that integrates specific tools in the real-time multi-messenger ecosystem. The Astro-COLIBRI platform bundles and evaluates alerts about transients from various channels. It further automates the coordination of follow-up observations by providing and linking detailed information through its comprehensible graphical user interface. We present the functionalities with documented examples of Astro-COLIBRI usage through the community since its public release in August 2021. We highlight the use cases of Astro-COLIBRI for planning follow-up observations by professional and amateur astronomers, as well as checking predictions from theoretical models.
In recent decades, astronomy and astrophysics have experienced several fundamental changes. On one hand, there has been a significant increase in the observation of transient phenomena, which are short-lived events such as supernova explosions, fast radio bursts, and gamma-ray bursts. In addition, the detection of a growing number of different cosmic messengers provides researchers with crucial information about these objects. For example, the detection of high-energy neutrinos and gravitational waves regularly complements traditional astronomical observations in the electromagnetic spectrum. This trend is expected to intensify in the coming years with the commissioning of a wide variety of next-generation observatories, which will enable more in-depth studies of the transient sky.To enhance our understanding and optimize the observations of these phenomena, we have developed the Astro-COLIBRI platform. It is freely available to amateur and professional astronomers in the form of a smartphone application (iOS and Android), a web interface (https://astro-colibri.com), an API (https://astro-colibri.science), and a chatbot 'Astro-COLIBRI GPT', among many other features. Astro-COLIBRI serves as a central access point for information on astrophysical sources and transient events, allowing a wide network of observers to track and receive real-time alerts.Here we highlight the key features of Astro-COLIBRI, with a particular emphasis on recent innovations. These include a discussion forum that facilitates user interactions and our strengthened collaboration with various networks of amateur astronomers.
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