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The Burst Observer and Optical Transient Exploring System (BOOTES) was first designed as an asset of autonomous telescopes that started to be deployed in 1998, taking 24 years to be fully developed around the earth. Nowadays BOOTES has became a global network of robotic telescopes, being the first one present in all continents, as of 2022. Here we present the details of the network and review its achievements over the last 2 decades regarding follow-up observations of high-energy transient events. Moreover, considering the recent operations of neutrino and gravitational wave detectors, some hot-topic expectations related to robotic astronomy are discussed within the framework of multi-wavelength astrophysics.

In this paper, we present a project of a multi-channel wide-field optical sky monitoring system with high temporal resolution—Small Aperture Imaging Network Telescope (SAINT)— mostly built from off-the-shelf components and aimed towards searching and studying optical transient phenomena on the shortest time scales. The instrument consists of twelve channels each containing 30 cm (F/1.5) GENON Max objectives mounted on separate ASA DDM100 mounts with pointing speeds up to 50 deg/s. Each channel is equipped with a 4128 × 4104 pixel Andor Balor sCMOS detector and a set of photometric griz filters and linear polarizers. At the heart of every channel is a custom-built reducer-collimator module allowing rapid switching of an effective focal length of the telescope—due to it the system is capable of operating in either wide-field survey or narrow-field follow-up modes. In the first case, the field of view of the instrument is 470 square degrees (39 sq.deg. for a single channel) and the detection limits (5σ level at 5500 Å) are 12.5, 16.5, 19, 21 with exposure times of 20 ms, 1 s, 30 s and 20 min, correspondingly. In the second, follow-up (e.g., upon detection of a transient of interest by either a real-time detection pipeline, or upon receiving an external trigger) regime, all telescopes are oriented towards the single target, and SAINT becomes an equivalent to a monolithic 1-meter telescope, with the field of view reduced to 11′ × 11′, and the exposure times decreased down to 0.6 ms (1684 frames per second). Different channels may then have different filters installed, thus allowing a detailed study—acquiring both color and polarization information—of a target object with the highest possible temporal resolution. The telescopes are located in two pavilions with sliding roofs and are controlled by a cluster of 25 computers that both govern their operation and acquire and store up to 800 terabytes of data every night, also performing its real-time processing using a dedicated fast image subtraction pipeline. Long-term storage of the data will require a petabyte class storage. The operation of SAINT will allow acquiring an unprecedented amount of data on various classes of astrophysical phenomena, from near-Earth to extragalactic ones, while its multi-channel design and the use of commercially available components allows easy expansion of its scale, and thus performance and detection capabilities.

Abstract Here, we introduce a low-cost airglow imaging system developed for observing plasma bubble signatures in 630.0-nm airglow emission from the F region of the ionosphere. The system is composed of a small camera, optical filter, and fish-eye lens, and is operated using free software that automatically records video from the camera. A pilot system was deployed in Ishigaki Island in the southern part of Japan (Lat 24.4, Lon 124.4, Mlat 19.6) and was operated for ~ 1.5 years from 2014 to 2016 corresponding to the recent solar maximum period. The pilot observations demonstrated that it was difficult to identify the plasma bubble signature in the raw image captured every 4 s. However, the quality of the image could be improved by reducing the random noise of instrumental origin through an integration of 30 consecutive raw images obtained in 2 min and further by subtracting the 1-h averaged background image. We compared the deviation images to those from a co-existing airglow imager of OMTIs, which is equipped with a back-illuminated cooled CCD camera with a high quantum efficiency of ~ 90%. It was confirmed that the low-cost airglow imager is capable of imaging the spatial structure of plasma bubbles, including their bifurcating traces. The results of these pilot observations in Ishigaki Island will allow us to distribute the low-cost imager in a wide area and construct a network for monitoring plasma bubbles and their space weather impacts on satellite navigation systems.

Abstract We evaluate the capability of a low-cost all-sky imager (ASI), which has been operative in Longyearbyen (78.1° N, 15.5° E), Norway, to detect 630.0 nm airglow signatures of polar cap patches. The ASI is composed of a small camera, with a charge-coupled device (CCD), manufactured by Watec Co. Ltd., a fish-eye lens, and an optical filter whose central wavelength is 632.0 nm and full-width half maximum (FWHM) is 10 nm. In Longyearbyen, another ASI equipped with a cooled electron-multiplying charge-coupled device (EMCCD) camera has been operative for observations of polar cap patches. We compare the images from the two systems and investigate the performance of the low-cost ASI. On the night of December 4, 2013, a series of polar cap patches were observed by the EMCCD ASI. The low-cost ASI also detected regions of enhanced 630.0 nm airglow passing through the fields-of-view. The quality of the raw images from the low-cost ASI obtained every 4 s were visibly much worse than that of the EMCCD ASI. However, an integration of 7–15 consecutive images made it possible to capture the temporal evolution and spatial structure of the patches, for example, their anti-sunward propagation and finger-like structures along the trailing edge. The estimated values of the absolute optical intensity from the low-cost ASI were found to be consistent with those from the EMCCD ASI, whereby the offset was

Abstract Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most energetic and mysterious events in the Universe, which are observed in all ranges of electromagnetic spectrum. Most valuable results about physics of GRB are obtained by optical observations. GRBs are initially detected in gamma-rays with poor localization accuracy, and an optical counterpart should be found. The faster the counterpart is found, the more it can give to physics. This first phase, as a rule, corresponds to an early afterglow. The next phases of the observations are multicolor photometry, polarimetry, spectroscopy, and few days later the search for a supernova or kilonova associated with the GRB, and finally, observations of the host galaxy. To manage the problem of fast optical observations, telescopes with a small aperture are suitable. They can have a large field of view, which is necessary to cover initial localizations of GRBs. The sensitivity of the telescope+detector may be sufficient to record statistically significant light curve with fine time resolution. We describe one of the networks of telescopes with a small aperture IKI-GRB FuN, and present the results of early optical observation of GRB sources, and discuss the design requirements of the optical observations for effective GRB research in the next decade.

The study of near-Earth space includes the detection and investigation of an increasing number of space debris objects by ground-based optical telescopes. There is no natural cleansing of space in the geostationary region. The telescope Zeiss-2000 with a two-meter aperture of the Terskol observatory is the largest optical instrument regularly used for space debris investigations. One of the main purposes in «Astronomy in the Elbrus region» international program’s boundaries is the detection and characterization of small fragments of debris,which are invisible for smaller telescopes. During observations on photometric nights we usually detect 4-5 unknown fragments of 17-21st star magnitude. In this article, we present orbital parameters and physical characteristics of several small-sized fragments of the space debris detected at the Terskol observatory in 2016-2017.

The correlation between meteorological data collected at the optical wide-field patrol network (OWL-Net) Station No. 1 and the seeing of satellite optical observation data was analyzed. Meteorological data and satellite optical observation data from June 2014 to November 2015 were analyzed. The analyzed meteorological data were the outdoor air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and cloud index data, and the analyzed satellite optical observation data were the seeing full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) data. The annual meteorological pattern for Mongolia was analyzed by collecting meteorological data over four seasons, with data collection beginning after the installation and initial set-up of the OWL-Net Station No. 1 in Mongolia. A comparison of the meteorological data and the seeing of the satellite optical observation data showed that the seeing degrades as the wind strength increases and as the cloud cover decreases. This finding is explained by the bias effect, which is caused by the fact that the number of images taken on the less cloudy days was relatively small. The seeing FWHM showed no clear correlation with either temperature or relative humidity.

We present the observing program proposed by Paris and Côte d’Azur Observatories for monitoring solar activity during the upcoming cycle 25 and providing near real time images and movies of the chromosphere for space-weather research and applications. Two optical instruments are fully dedicated to this task and we summarize their capabilities. Short-term and fast-cadence observations of the chromosphere will be performed automatically at Calern observatory (Côte d’Azur), where dynamic events, as flare development, Moreton waves, filament instabilities and Coronal Mass Ejections onset, will be tracked. This new set of telescopes will operate in 2021 with narrow bandpass filters selecting Hα and CaII K lines. We present the instrumental design and a simulation of future images. At Meudon, the Spectroheliograph is well adapted to the long-term and low-cadence survey of chromospheric activity by recently improved and optimized spectroscopic means. Surface scans deliver daily (x, y, λ) datacubes of Hα, CaII K and CaII H line profiles. We describe the nature of available data and emphasize the new calibration method of spectra.