The Catalina Real-Time Transient Survey (CRTS)

该奖项是根据2009年《美国复苏和再投资法案》(公法111-5)提供资金的。乔戈夫斯基博士和他的团队将使用NASA资助的Catalina Sky Survey(CSS)的数据流来搜索瞬变天文物体，包括耀斑恒星、伽马射线爆发和强烈微透镜事件。这项调查使用了亚利桑那州的两台广视场望远镜和澳大利亚的一台，来记录太阳系中的物体，特别是轨道上的小行星，这些小行星使它们离地球很近。该团队将建立一个开放的光学瞬变发现引擎，将来自css的图像与同一片天空的早期图像进行比较，并识别已经变亮的来源。该小组将在通过虚拟天文台协议访问的公共服务器上提供产生的数据流，以便更广泛的社区可以立即进行后续观测。研究生和本科生将通过参与研究进行培训。该团队计划与微软的万维网望远镜项目合作，以一种业余天文学家和普通公众都能接触到的形式呈现事件流。该项目将是第一个能够快速跟踪如此广泛的明亮瞬变源的项目，并可以作为开发科学战略和程序的试验台。由此产生的科学可能具有变革性，并将为建造和运营未来设施(如大型天气观测望远镜)提供决策依据。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). Dr. Djorgovski and his team will use the data stream from the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) to search for transient astronomical objects including flare stars, gamma-ray bursts, and strong microlensing events. That survey uses two wide-field telescopes in Arizona and one in Australia to catalog objects in the Solar System, particularly asteroids on orbits that bring them close to Earth. The team will build an open optical-transient discovery engine to compare image from CSS with earlier images of the same piece of sky and identify sources that have brightened. The team will provide the resulting data stream on a public server accessed by Virtual Observatory protocols, so that it is available to the wider community for immediate followup observations. Graduate and undergraduate students will be trained by participating in the research. The team plans to work with Microsoft's World Wide Telescope project to present the event stream in a form accessible to amateur astronomers and the general public. This project will be the first that allows rapid followup of such a wide range of bright transient sources, and can act as a testbed to develop scientific strategies and procedures. The resulting science is potentially transformative, and will inform decisions on building and operating future facilities such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.