The First Network of Robotic Telescopes Present Across Five Continents Is Deployed
The IAA (Institute of Astrophysics of Andalucia), part of the State Agency Spanish Research Council (CSIC), has deployed the BOOTES Network. BOOTES stands for Burst Observer and Optical Transient Exploring System. This is the first robotic telescope network that will have stations on five continents. This includes installations in Spain, China, New Zealand, Chile, and South Africa.
What Does the Network Include?
This is a complete network with an automated resource that combines data from different instruments globally. It monitors the sky and provides observations from satellites and missions.
What is the BOOTES Network?
BOOTES has been successful after almost 25 years since the first station installation in 1998. This was at INTA in Huelva. This is a huge milestone as it is one of the very first robotic networks to have a presence on all continents.
The entire BOOTES network is managed by IAA-CSIC and the University of Malaga is also involved. The IAA-CSIC also works in collaboration with other international and Spanish institutions.
What Is the Objective?
The main objective of the BOOTES network is to observe transient sources and provide an automated real time response to allow for their characterization.
What Does This Deployment Mean?
The deployment of the network is considered a huge success because it was working with a limited budget and a small team. The deployment of four stations in the North (hemisphere) and three in the South (hemisphere) will ensure that detecting transient sources will now be efficient.
Unexpected good article, very interesting in my humble opinion. Thanks for the article!
Wow, check this out, from the Wikipedia page for the BOOTES Network. It provides “All-sky monitoring with the CASANDRA cameras down to 10th magnitude every 60 seconds”
@Andy Prough, thanks +10