The Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment (ROTSE) is a multi-telescope experiment designed to observe the optical afterglow of

gamma-ray bursts In gamma-ray astronomy, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are extremely energetic events occurring in distant galaxies which represent the brightest and most powerful class of explosion in the universe. These extreme electromagnetic emissions are second o ...

. The experiment currently consists of four telescopes located in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

, and at the

McDonald Observatory McDonald Observatory is an astronomical observatory located near unincorporated community of Fort Davis in Jeff Davis County, Texas, United States. The facility is located on Mount Locke in the Davis Mountains of West Texas, with additional faci ...

near Fort Davis,

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

. The Namibian telescope is located at the

High Energy Stereoscopic System High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) is a system of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs) for the investigation of cosmic gamma rays in the photon energy range of 0.03 to 100 TeV. The acronym was chosen in honour of Vic ...

site in the Gamsberg mountains south-west of the capital

Windhoek Windhoek (; ; ) is the capital and largest city of Namibia. It is located in central Namibia in the Khomas Highland plateau area, at around above sea level, almost exactly at the country's geographical centre. The population of Windhoek, which ...

. The ROTSE project is a collaboration of astrophysicists from the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development Laboratory, laboratories of the United States Department of Energy National Laboratories, United States Department of Energy ...

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Livermore, California, United States. Originally established in 1952, the laboratory now i ...

, the

University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW) is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It was established in 1949. The university comprises seven faculties, through which it offers bachelor's, master's and docto ...

(Australia) and the

Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics The Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik ("MPI for Nuclear Physics" or MPIK for short) is a research institute in Heidelberg, Germany. The institute is one of the 80 institutes of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (Max Planck Society), an independent, ...

(Germany). The original ROTSE-I had 4 telephoto lenses of 11 cm aperture, covering a 16x16 degree field of view. This detected the first afterglow of a GRB while the burst was still ongoing, but this was the only burst detected by ROTSE or the very similar Livermore Optical Transient Imaging System. Therefore, ROTSE-II was designed, also featuring a large field of view, but it was never built, since new satellites such as HETE-2 and SWIFT could provide smaller error boxes, making a huge field of view unnecessary. This led to the design of ROTSE-III, a more or less conventional telescope designed for fast slewing and operation at multiple locations around the world.

References

External links

ROTSE homepage
Astronomical observatories in Texas Astronomical observatories in Turkey Astronomical observatories in Namibia Astronomical observatories in New South Wales Astronomical observatories in the United States Optical telescopes University of Michigan {{Observatory-stub

See also

References

External links