The Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO)

Dyer, Martin J.; Steeghs, Danny; Galloway, Duncan K.; Dhillon, Vik S.; O'Brien, Paul; Ramsay, Gavin; Noysena, Kanthanakorn; Pallé, Enric; Kotak, Rubina; Breton, Rene; Nuttall, Laura; Pollacco, Don; Ulaczyk, Krzysztof; Lyman, Joseph; Ackley, Kendall D.
Bibliographical reference

Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) Conference Series

Advertised on:
12
2020
Number of authors
15
IAC number of authors
1
Citations
9
Refereed citations
8
Description
The Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO) is a wide-field telescope project focused on detecting optical counterparts to gravitational-wave sources. GOTO uses arrays of 40 cm unit telescopes (UTs) on a shared robotic mount, which scales to provide large fields of view in a cost-effective manner. A complete GOTO mount uses 8 unit telescopes to give an overall field of view of 40 square degrees, and can reach a depth of 20th magnitude in three minutes. The GOTO-4 prototype was inaugurated with 4 unit telescopes in 2017 on La Palma, and was upgraded to a full 8-telescope array in 2020. A second 8-UT mount will be installed on La Palma in early 2021, and another GOTO node with two more mount systems is planned for a southern site in Australia. When complete, each mount will be networked to form a robotic, dual-hemisphere observatory, which will survey the entire visible sky every few nights and enable rapid follow-up detections of transient sources.