Instrumentation of LOTIS: Livermore Optical Transient Imaging System; a fully automated wide field of view telescope system searching for simultaneous optical counterparts of gamma ray bursts

摘要

LOTIS is a rapidly slewing wide-field-of-view telescope which was designed and constructed to search for simultaneous gamma-ray burst (GRB) optical counterparts. This experiment requires a rapidly slewing (< 10 sec), wide- field-of-view (> 15 deg), automatic and dedicated telescope. LOTIS utilizes commercial tele-photo lenses and custom 2048 x 2048 CCD cameras to view a 17.6 x 17.6 deg field of view. It can point to any part of the sky within 5 sec and is fully automated. It is connected via Internet socket to the GRB coordinate distribution network which analyzes telemetry from the satellite and delivers GRB coordinate information in real-time. LOTIS started routine operation in Oct. 1996. In the idle time between GRB triggers, LOTIS systematically surveys the entire available sky every night for new optical transients. This paper describes the system design and performance.