Results From The First Year Of The Catalina Real-time Transient Survey
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Date
2009
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Abstract
The Catalina Real-time Transient Survey (CRTS) is a collaborative effort between Caltech and LPL that uses data from Catalina Sky Survey's 0.76m Schmidt telescope to search for optical transients (OTs) varying by more than two magnitudes between past and current data. The survey covers 26,000 square degrees on the sky between declination -30 and 70 at Galactic latitudes |b| > 10 deg. Sequences of four observations are taken separated by 10 minutes and cover 1200 square degrees each night for 21 nights per lunation. Observations reach transients at unfiltered magnitudes of 19 to 20. To date more than 400 unique OTs have been identified by CRTS. These transients include more than 150 supernovae and dwarf novae, as well as UV Ceti flares, high proper motion stars, comets, Miras and currently unidentified transients. Classification is carried out using follow up imaging and spectroscopy in combination with VO-enabled archival analysis of CSS and Palomar Quest synoptic datasets and DSS, 2MASS, SDSS, GALEX and UKIDSS surveys. All candidate OTs are published within 5 mins of observation and are openly accessible as VOEvents, html tables and RSS feeds (from VOEventNet.org). As part of our public outreach program, the CRTS event stream is also published in the event layer of Google Sky....