Abstract Details
| Name: Atharva Affiliation: IISER Pune Conference ID: ASI2018_1669 Title : GROWTH-India telescope Authors and Co-Authors : Dr. Varun Bhalerao, Dr. G. C. Anupama, Tarun Sharma Abstract Type : Poster Abstract Category : Instrumentation and Techniques Abstract : GW170817, the 5th gravitational wave signal to be detected was a milestone discovery in more ways than one. It opened a new window for following up gravitational waves in the more familiar electromagnetic regime which will help us gain more insights into the astrophysical processes involved in the gravitationally cataclysmic events. We present the latest updates from the GROWTH-India telescope: India's first fully robotic optical telescope. The telescope is being set up as a part of the international GROWTH collaboration, a consortium of 15 institutes in seven countries working together to study rapidly evolving transient sources like young supernovae, electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational wave sources, and near-earth objects. The upcoming telescope at Hanle, Ladakh is a 0.7m Planewave CDK telescope with a wide 0.6x0.6 degree FOV and has an Andor iKonXL back-illuminated CCD for high sensitivity and fast readout. Remote override for the robotic telescope is available via a client-server architecture: where the "client" computer at the telescope dome can function autonomously, but yields control to a remote "server" that can provide override commands. The versatile automated client is capable of controlling the observatory instruments in tandem and performing the actual observations. The data are then processed to find transients in real time. |