Announcements
| Prompt 2 schedule | Posted on May 7, 2012 by Kevin Ivarsen |
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| The next dark cycle for Prompt2 will begin on May 11th, and finish on May 25th. Prompt2 will be unavailable through Skynet during this time. | |
| All Prompt telescopes back online | Posted on May 1, 2012 by Kevin Ivarsen |
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The network issues in Prompt1 and Prompt5 have been resolved, and the dark cycle for Prompt2 has come to an end. All Prompt telescopes are now back online. The next dark cycle for Prompt2 begins around May 12th. | |
| PROMPT availability updates | Posted on Apr 29, 2012 by Kevin Ivarsen |
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After an extended period of poor weather at CTIO, we are finally seeing clear skies and relatively calm winds again. PROMPT should be open tonight. Unfortunately, we lost network connectivity to the Prompt1 and Prompt5 routers over the weekend. We will have a technician look at these issues this week and will try to have the telescopes back online as soon as possible. Finally, the dark cycle for Prompt2 is coming to an end, and the telescope should be back under Skynet control tomorrow (April 30th). | |
| GRB Followup | Posted on Apr 24, 2012 by Cluze |
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| P1, P3, P4, and P5 will be doing follow up jobs on a GRB at high priority for approximately one hour, every night, just after twilight for the next ~30 days. During that time, other jobs will be unable to go through the system on those telescopes. If this will cause any problems with any other ongoing projects, please contact us. | |
| Prompt5 maintenance - April 19th | Posted on Apr 19, 2012 by Kevin Ivarsen |
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| Prompt 5 will be offline for maintenance tonight starting at 4/19 10:30pm EDT (4/20 02:30 UTC). We expect the telescope to be back online around 4/20 3:00am EDT (4/20 07:00 UTC) and apologize for any inconvenience this outage may cause. | |
About
SKYNET is a distributed network of robotic telescopes operated by students, faculty, and staff at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The network began operation in January 2006 with the opening of the six PROMPT telescopes in Chile. Since then, several more telescopes in the U.S. and Europe have been integrated into the network. We are ramping up to integrate many new telescopes around the world throughout 2011 and 2012.
Science
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most powerful explosions the Universe has seen since the Big Bang. They occur approximately once per day and are brief, but intense, flashes of gamma radiation. They come from all different directions of the sky and last from a few milliseconds to a few hundred seconds. The primary mission of the robotic array is to obtain early time data of these transient phenomena in multiple bands.
While the array is not imaging GRB afterglows, individual telescopes perform scheduled observations of targets of scientifc interest for researchers around the globe. Observers can track their observations through the automated system and ultimately retrieve their data directly from the world wide web.
Outreach
A large fraction of PROMPT's observing time is dedicated to outreach. High schools and universities across the state of North Carolina have used SKYNET to teach astronomy for several years, and partner institutions across the U.S. are now using Skynet to enhance their curriculum. We also have programs that allow members of the general public to use Skynet's telescopes.
Contact
If you have any questions about Skynet, would like to learn how to gain access to the
telescopes, or would like more information on adding your telescope to the
network, please contact us: