Full Text Available
Note: Clicking the button above will open the full text document at the original institutional repository in a new window.
Detecting optical transients and variables with MeerLICHT
For a long time, the discovery of a transient in a one wavelength triggered observations in other wavelengths. Due to various constraints such as telescope access, scheduling and availability, and the need for human intervention, follow up observations of the transient event could take place long af...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Department of Astronomy
2019
|
| Tags: |
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1867613221292081152 |
|---|---|
| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Paterson, Kerry |
| author2 | Woudt, Patrick |
| author_browse | Paterson, Kerry Woudt, Patrick |
| author_facet | Woudt, Patrick Paterson, Kerry |
| author_sort | Paterson, Kerry |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | For a long time, the discovery of a transient in a one wavelength triggered observations in other wavelengths. Due to various constraints such as telescope access, scheduling and availability, and the need for human intervention, follow up observations of the transient event could take place long after the initial discovery. Due to the time-critical nature of some transients, with prompt emission that can fade rapidly, this delay in follow up observations can result in important information about the event being missed. Thus, the concept of MeerLICHT was born. MeerLICHT is an fully robotic, optical telescope whose main goal is the detection of transients in real-time. In collaboration with two legacy-style large survey projects (ThunderKAT and MeerTRAP) on MeerKAT (South Africa’s precursor to the Square Kilometre Array), MeerLICHT is the first fully dedicated telescope to follow another telescope in a different wavelength. Through linked-pointing, MeerLICHT and MeerKAT will provide simultaneous optical and radio data of the transient sky. This will provide invaluable information on emission at both wavelengths, including: the relation and evolution of emission from both wavelength windows, the discovery of optical counterparts of radio transients, the characterization of radio transients, and an early warning of radio transients using optical transients. This thesis contains the work on the development and implementation of the data processing pipeline for MeerLICHT. This data processing pipeline was developed for the automatic processing of data from MeerLICHT/BlackGEM for transient detection in real time. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/29987 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:32:41.376Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| publishDateRange | 2019 |
| publishDateSort | 2019 |
| publisher | Department of Astronomy |
| publisherStr | Department of Astronomy |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/29987 Detecting optical transients and variables with MeerLICHT Paterson, Kerry Woudt, Patrick Warner, Brian Groot, P. J. For a long time, the discovery of a transient in a one wavelength triggered observations in other wavelengths. Due to various constraints such as telescope access, scheduling and availability, and the need for human intervention, follow up observations of the transient event could take place long after the initial discovery. Due to the time-critical nature of some transients, with prompt emission that can fade rapidly, this delay in follow up observations can result in important information about the event being missed. Thus, the concept of MeerLICHT was born. MeerLICHT is an fully robotic, optical telescope whose main goal is the detection of transients in real-time. In collaboration with two legacy-style large survey projects (ThunderKAT and MeerTRAP) on MeerKAT (South Africa’s precursor to the Square Kilometre Array), MeerLICHT is the first fully dedicated telescope to follow another telescope in a different wavelength. Through linked-pointing, MeerLICHT and MeerKAT will provide simultaneous optical and radio data of the transient sky. This will provide invaluable information on emission at both wavelengths, including: the relation and evolution of emission from both wavelength windows, the discovery of optical counterparts of radio transients, the characterization of radio transients, and an early warning of radio transients using optical transients. This thesis contains the work on the development and implementation of the data processing pipeline for MeerLICHT. This data processing pipeline was developed for the automatic processing of data from MeerLICHT/BlackGEM for transient detection in real time. 2019-05-10T10:39:07Z 2019-05-10T10:39:07Z 2018 2019-05-10T09:58:43Z Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/29987 eng application/pdf Department of Astronomy Faculty of Science |
| spellingShingle | Paterson, Kerry Detecting optical transients and variables with MeerLICHT |
| thesis_degree_str | Doctoral |
| title | Detecting optical transients and variables with MeerLICHT |
| title_full | Detecting optical transients and variables with MeerLICHT |
| title_fullStr | Detecting optical transients and variables with MeerLICHT |
| title_full_unstemmed | Detecting optical transients and variables with MeerLICHT |
| title_short | Detecting optical transients and variables with MeerLICHT |
| title_sort | detecting optical transients and variables with meerlicht |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/29987 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT patersonkerry detectingopticaltransientsandvariableswithmeerlicht |