The MASTER-II network of robotic optical telescopes. First results

Abstract

Abstract-The main stages in the creation of the Russian segment of the MASTER network of robotic telescopes is described. This network is designed for studies of the prompt optical emission of gammaray bursts (GRBs; optical emission synchronous with the gamma-ray radiation) and surveys of the sky aimed at discovering uncataloged objects and photometric studies for various programs. The first results obtained by the network, during its construction and immediately after its completion in December 2010, are presented. Eighty-nine alert pointings at GRBs (in most cases, being the first ground telescopes to point at the GRBs) were made from September 2006 through July 2011. The MASTER network holds first place in the world in terms of the total number of first pointings, and currently more than half of first pointings at GRBs by ground telescopes are made by the MASTER network. Photometric light curves of GRB

The ASAS-SN bright supernova catalogue – I. 2013–2014

“…For this comparison, we should note that the professional groups with the most discoveries in our comparison sample are CRTS (Drake et al 2009), MASTER (Gorbovskoy et al 2013), and LOSS (Li et al 2000). MASTER and CRTS do not use difference imaging in their searches, and LOSS systematically ignored central regions of galaxies for false positive rejection.…”

“…Systematic searches for supernovae have a long and venerable history, beginning with the pioneering effort at Palomar by Zwicky (Zwicky 1938(Zwicky , 1942. In the modern era, the supernova search effort has progressed through numerous survey projects which used varying degrees of automation to survey some or all of the sky for supernovae and other transients, including the Lick Observatory Supernova Search (LOSS; Li et al 2000), the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRRS; Kaiser et al 2002), the Texas Supernova Search (Quimby 2006), the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Supernova Survey (Frieman et al 2008), the Catalina Real-Time Transient Survey (CRTS; Drake et al 2009), the CHilean Automatic Supernova sEarch (CHASE; Pignata et al 2009), the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF; Law et al 2009), the Gaia transient survey (Hodgkin et al 2013), the La Silla-QUEST (LSQ) Low Redshift Supernova Survey (Baltay et al 2013), the Mobile Astronomical System of TElescope Robots (MAS-TER; Gorbovskoy et al 2013) survey, and the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment-IV (OGLE-IV; Wyrzykowski et al 2014), among numerous others. However, despite the number of such surveys, there was no optical survey that surveyed the entire visible night sky on a rapid cadence to find the bright, nearby supernovae that can be studied in the greatest detail and have the greatest impact on our understanding of these violent events.…”

MASTER OT J004207.99+405501.1/M31LRN 2015 luminous red nova in M31: discovery, light curve, hydrodynamics and evolution

“…The main advantages of MASTER instruments are the following: (1) wide 8 square degree (twin 2.05 • × 2.05 • ) field of view of the main MASTER-II optical channel (with a limiting unfiltered magnitude of up to 20-21 per 60-180s exposition) ¡and an even bigger 800 square degree (twin 16x24 • ) field of view of Very Wide Field cameras, i.e. MASTER-VWFC (with a limiting magnitude of up to 11-12m and 13.5-15m for 1-s and coadded images, respectively); (2) twin tubes that can be pointed to different fields (allowing wide FERMI error-boxes to be observed almost in real-time) and used to observe the frame in different polarizations and in BVRI filters (Lipunov et al 2010;Kornilov et al 2012;Lipunov et al 2007;Gorbovskoy et al 2013).…”

Observations of Near-Earth Optical Transients with the Lomonosov Space Observatory

“…4) includes eight observatories: MASTER-Amur, MASTER-Tunka, MASTER-Ural, MAS-TER-Kislovodsk, MASTER-Tavrida (Russian Fed-eration), MASTER-SAAO (South Africa), MAS-TER-IAC (Spain, Canarias), and MASTER-OAFA (Argentina) [4]. Each of these observatories is able to survey 128 deg 2 /hour with a limiting magnitude of 20 m on dark, moonless nights, and each is equipped with two wideangle optical telescopes with a total field of view of 8 deg 2 , a 4098 × 4098 pixel CCD camera with a scale of 1.85 /pixel, and a photometer with Johnson BVRI filters and polarizers [5,16]. All alerts from onboard the Lomonosov Space Observatory are transmitted to the Earth through the Globalstar channels with a minimum time delay, making it possible for any telescope in the world to observe a GRB registered by the Lomonosov mis-sion.…”