Pi of the Sky—robotic telescope

Abstract

Pi of the Sky is a system of wide field-of-view robotic telescopes designed for observations of short timescale astrophysical phenomena, especially for prompt optical GRB emission. The apparatus was designed for autonomous operation, follows the predefined observing strategy and adopts it to the actual conditions, monitoring a large part of the sky with time resolution of the order of 1 - 10 seconds and range 12m-13m. Observation strategy and system design was successfully tested with a prototype detector working in 2004-2009 at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile, and moved to San Pedro de Atacama Observatory in March 2011. In October 2010 the first unit of the final Pi of the Sky detector system, with 4 CCD cameras, was successfully installed in the INTA El Arenosillo Test Centre in Spain. Simultaneous observations from locations in Chile and Spain allow a systematic search for optical transients of cosmological origin. Accurate analysis of data arising from a wide-field system like Pi of the Sky is a real challenge because of a number of factors that can influence the measurements. We have developed a set of dedicated algorithms which remove poor quality measurements, improve photometric accuracy and allow us to reach uncertainties as low as 0.015– 0.02 mag. Three more units (12 CCD cameras) are being prepared for installation on a new platform in INTA, aiming at a total coverage of about 6400 square degrees. Status and performance of the detectors is presented.