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CRTS Discoveries:

Image: © Axel Mellinger
Current Observing Weather Mt. Lemmon ,
Siding Spring
Recent news about CRTS from CACR
and UA news, featured in
astronomy.com,
redorbit,
skynightly,
spaceref,
astronomynow, etc.
The Survey
Introduction
The Catalina Real-Time Transient Survey is a synoptic astronomical exploration that
covers tens of thousands of square degrees
of the sky in order discover rare in interesting transient phenomina. The survey utilizes data taken by
the three dedicated telescopes of the
highly successful Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) NEO project.
CRTS detects and openly publishes all transients within minutes of observation so that all astronomers may
follow ongoing events.
Automated Analysis
CRTS builds on the work performed for the Palomar Quest
survey and continues to pave the way for deeper upcoming transient surveys
(Pan-STARRs,
SkyMapper and LSST),
by automating the event discovery and classification processes so that robust decisions can enable intelligent
human and robotic follow up.
Rapid Response
In order to fully understand rapidly varying transient astronomical behaviour, automated alerting and
follow-up is a necessity. Rapid transient science is enabled by the affiliated projects
VOEventNet and SkyAlert.
- VOEventNet is a means of transporting astronomical events to interested subscribers, automatically within minutes of discovery.
- SkyAlert enables users to perform complex queries about discoveries in order to receive personally tailored
and filtered event streams.
CRTS also publishes VOEvents directly to the general public via
Google Sky in
kml.
Past Astronomical Discoveries
The Brightest Supernova of 2007
Below is a picture of a nearby supernova discovered by CRTS in NGC4038/39 (the Antenanne).

photo credit: Daniel Verschatse & Robert Gendler
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