Robotic optical telescopes global network MASTER II. Equipment, structure, algorithms

Abstract

Presented paper describes the basic principles and features of the implementation of a robotic network of optical telescopes MASTER, designed to study the prompt (simultaneous with gamma radiation) optical emission of gamma-ray bursts and to perform the sky survey to detect unknown objects and transient phenomena. With joint efforts of Sternberg astronomical institute, High altitude astronomical station of the Pulkovo observatory, Ural state university, Irkutsk state university, Blagoveshchensk pedagogical university, Exp Astron (2012) 33:173-196 the robotic telescopes MASTER II near Kislovodsk, Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk and Blagoveshchensk were installed and tested. The network spread over the longitudes is greater than 6 h. A further expansion of the network is considered.

First gravitational-wave burst GW150914: MASTER optical follow-up observations

“…The MASTER Global Robotic Net 1 includes several observatories with identical instruments: MASTER-Amur, MASTER-Tunka, MASTER-Ural, MASTER-Kislovodsk (Russian Federation), MASTER-SAAO (South Africa) and MASTER-IAC (Spain, Canarias), and Very Wide Field cameras (MASTER-VWF) in Argentina (Lipunov et al 2004(Lipunov et al , 2010Kornilov et al 2012;Gorbovskoy et al 2013), see Figure 6 and Table 1. Each MASTER observatory provides a survey speed of 128 deg 2 per hour with a limiting magnitude (in white light) of 19 or 20, respectively, on grey or dark nights.…”

“…It is possible to observe without any filter in integral (white) light with or without two orthogonal polarizers. Details of the MASTER filters and polarization measurements can be found in Kornilov et al (2012) and Gorbovskoy et al (2013).…”

“…We developed the MASTER Global network of identical twin-tube colored wide-field telescopes with realtime reduction deployed both in the Northern and Southern hemispheres (Lipunov et al 2010;Kornilov et al 2012;Gorbovskoy et al 2012).…”

“Lomonosov” Satellite—Space Observatory to Study Extreme Phenomena in Space

“…In this way, we plan to use successive experience of ground-based systems of wide field cameras and robotic telescopes of MASTER Global Robotic Net Kornilov et al 2012), which had detected the prompt emission of several GRBs (Gorbovskoy et al 2011(Gorbovskoy et al , 2016.…”

Smooth Optical Self-similar Emission of Gamma-Ray Bursts

“…MASTER observatories equipped with identical own photometers and controlled by identical software (Lipunov et al 2010, Kornilov et al 2012Gorbovskoy et al 2013, Lipunov 2016b. The identical equipment gives us the possibility to have more than 12 continuous hours observations of optical counterparts of gamma-ray bursts in identical photometric systems.…”