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Searching for Fast Optical Transients using a Veritas Cherenkov Telescope

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2012

Sean C. Griffin
Sean C. Griffin*
Affiliation:
Physics Department, McGill University, 3600 University Street, Montreal, QC, H3A2T8, Canada email: griffins@physics.mcgill.ca
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Abstract

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Astronomical transients are intrinsically interesting objects to study. However, fast optical transients (μs time-scales) are a largely unexplored field of optical astronomy. Most optical observations use instruments that have integration times of the order of seconds and are thus unable to resolve fast transients. Current-generation atmospheric Cherenkov gamma-ray telescopes such as Veritas, which consists of four 12-m telescopes, have huge collecting areas, much larger than those of any existing optical telescopes. This paper outlines the benefits of using a Cherenkov telescope to detect optical transients, and the implementation of the Veritas Transient Detector (TRenDy), a dedicated multi-channel photometer based on field-programmable gate arrays which can be used on Veritas for such studies without interfering with gamma-ray observations.

Keywords

accretioninstrumentation: photometersX-rays: binaries
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 7 , Symposium S285: New Horizons in Time-Domain Astronomy , September 2011 , pp. 321 - 323
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2012

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