Announcements
| Prompt 3 online; upcoming P2 dark cycle | Posted on Aug 21, 2008 by Kevin Ivarsen |
|---|---|
| The dome for Prompt 3 was repaired today, and the telescope will be available tonight. We will continue to monitor the weather manually and keep the domes open until at least 1am EDT (weather permitting) for the next few nights. The August/September lunar dark cycle runs from August 22nd through September 7th. As usual, Prompt 2 may be taken offline for private use during that time. | |
| P3 dome; weather update | Posted on Aug 21, 2008 by Kevin Ivarsen |
|---|---|
| Tonight we determined that the dome controller for Prompt 3 has failed. We believe that this, the weather station outage, and a number of other minor issues detected at Prompt were caused by a lightning strike or some similar event. We hope to have a replacement controller installed in the next few days, but Prompt 3 will be offline until then. We are still awaiting news on the state of the weather station, but it may be at least several more days before it is back online. In the meantime, we will try to manually monitor the weather and keep the domes open as much as possible. Because a human must be in the loop, there will unfortunately be a few restrictions while operating in this mode:
| |
| Weather station outage at Prompt | Posted on Aug 20, 2008 by Kevin Ivarsen |
|---|---|
| Earlier this week there were a few days of very bad weather at CTIO. During this time, the on-site weather station was knocked offline. PROMPT depends on this data to determine when it is safe to open the domes, so the telescopes have not been observing even though the weather cleared up a few nights ago. We have been in contact with the on-site staff at CTIO about this problem, and we hope that they will bring the weather station back online within the next few days. | |
About
SKYNET is a distributed network of robotic telescopes controlled by a central server operated by students and faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In January 2006, the first six telescopes (PROMPT) officially began operation. Two more telescopes (TTT and GORT) joined during the first year, and many more are scheduled to come online in the year to come!
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 afterflows, 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 use SKYNET to teach a unit on astronomy.