``Pi of the Sky'' Detector

“Pi of the Sky” experiment has been designed for continuous observations of a large part of the sky, in search for astrophysical phenomena characterized by short timescales, especially for prompt optical counterparts of Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs). Other scientific goals include searching for novae and supernovae stars and monitoring of blasars and AGNs activity. “Pi of the Sky” is a fully autonomous, robotic detector, which can operate for long periods of time without a human supervision. A crucial element of the detector is an advanced software for real-time data analysis and identification of short optical transients. The most important result so far has been an independent detection and observation of the prompt optical emission of the “naked-eye” GRB080319B.

[1]  M. Nardini,et al.  A unifying view of gamma-ray burst afterglows , 2008, 0811.1038.

[2]  Lech Mankiewicz,et al.  Variable stars classification based on photometric data from the "Pi of the Sky" project , 2009, Symposium on Photonics Applications in Astronomy, Communications, Industry, and High-Energy Physics Experiments (WILGA).

[3]  T. Terasawa,et al.  SLOW HEATING MODEL OF GAMMA-RAY BURST: PHOTON SPECTRUM AND DELAYED EMISSION , 2009, 0905.1392.

[4]  Alan A. Wells,et al.  The Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission , 2004, astro-ph/0405233.

[5]  T. Takeshima,et al.  The GRB coordinates network (GCN): A status report , 1998 .

[6]  Y. Terada,et al.  The search for optical emission on and before the GRB trigger with the WIDGET telescope , 2005 .

[7]  T. Sakamoto,et al.  A link between prompt optical and prompt γ-ray emission in γ-ray bursts , 2005, Nature.

[8]  Lech Mankiewicz,et al.  Web interface for star databases of the Pi of the Sky experiment , 2007, Symposium on Photonics Applications in Astronomy, Communications, Industry, and High-Energy Physics Experiments (WILGA).

[9]  G. Gisler,et al.  Observation of contemporaneous optical radiation from a γ-ray burst , 1999, Nature.

[10]  G. Pojma ski The All Sky Automated Survey , 2004 .

[11]  Paolo Conconi,et al.  REM — Rapid Eye Mount. A Fast Slewing Robotized Telescope to Monitor the Prompt Infra-Red Afterglow of GRBs , 2002 .

[12]  Gracjan Maciejewski,et al.  The All Sky Automated Survey. Catalog of Variable Stars. I. 0 h - 6 hQuarter of the Southern Hemisphere , 2002 .

[13]  S. B. Pandey,et al.  Multi-wavelength observations of the GRB 080319B afterglow and the modeling constraints , 2009, 0904.1797.

[14]  A. Barnacka,et al.  Times of minima observed by "Pi of the sky" , 2008 .

[15]  Xue-Feng Wu,et al.  SUBMITTED TO APJ Preprint typeset using LATEX style emulateapj v. 10/09/06 AN UP-SCATTERED COCOON EMISSION MODEL OF GAMMA-RAY BURST HIGH-ENERGY LAGS , 2022 .

[16]  E. Mazets,et al.  Broadband observations of the naked-eye γ-ray burst GRB 080319B , 2008, Nature.

[17]  M. M. Kasliwal,et al.  THE COLLIMATION AND ENERGETICS OF THE BRIGHTEST SWIFT GAMMA-RAY BURSTS , 2009, 0905.0690.

[18]  F. Frontera Gamma Ray Bursts in the Afterglow Era , 2003 .

[19]  Rene Hudec,et al.  The burst observer and optical transient exploring system (BOOTES) , 1998 .

[20]  K. Nawrocki,et al.  The catalog of short periods stars from the “Pi of the Sky” data , 2008 .

[21]  K. Stanek,et al.  Wide‐Field Millimagnitude Photometry with the HAT: A Tool for Extrasolar Planet Detection , 2004, astro-ph/0401219.

[22]  V. M. Lipunov,et al.  MASTER: The Mobile Astronomical System of Telescope-Robots. , 2004, astro-ph/0411757.

[23]  R. Wawrzaszek,et al.  Pi of the Sky , 2007 .

[24]  Ryszard S. Romaniuk,et al.  Pi of the Sky -- All-sky Real-time Search for Fast Optical Transients; arXiv:astro-ph/0411456v1 , 2004, astro-ph/0411456.

[25]  Sergey Bondar,et al.  Wide and Fast: Monitoring the Sky in Subsecond Domain with the FAVOR and TORTORA Cameras , 2010 .

[26]  R. L. Aptekar,et al.  Konus-W gamma-ray burst experiment for the GGS Wind spacecraft , 1995 .

[27]  G. L. Wycoff,et al.  (Erratum) Letter to the Editor - The Tycho-2 catalogue of the 2.5 million brightest stars , 2000 .

[28]  L. Mankiewicz,et al.  All sky scan analysis algorithm for Pi-of-the-Sky project , 2006, Symposium on Photonics Applications in Astronomy, Communications, Industry, and High-Energy Physics Experiments (WILGA).

[29]  A. Schwarzenberg-Czerny On the advantage of using analysis of variance for period search. , 1989 .

[30]  P. Meszaros Gamma-ray bursts , 1998 .