The Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment ( ROTSE ) is a multi-telescope experiment designed to observe the optical afterglow of gamma-ray bursts . The experiment currently consists of four telescopes located in Australia , Namibia , Turkey , and at the McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis , Texas .
8-740: The Namibian telescope is located at the High Energy Stereoscopic System site in the Gamsberg mountains south-west of the capital Windhoek . The ROTSE project is a collaboration of astrophysicists from the University of Michigan , Los Alamos National Laboratory , Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory , the University of New South Wales (Australia) and the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (Germany). The original ROTSE-I had 4 telephoto lenses of 11 cm aperture, covering
16-408: A 16x16 degree field of view. This detected the first afterglow of a GRB while the burst was still ongoing, but this was the only burst detected by ROTSE or the very similar Livermore Optical Transient Imaging System . Therefore, ROTSE-II was designed, also featuring a large field of view, but it was never built, since new satellites such as HETE-2 and SWIFT could provide smaller error boxes, making
24-470: A 28 m mirror, located at the centre of the array. The four 12 m telescopes began operation in 2004, with the 28 m telescope added as an upgrade (called H.E.S.S. II) in 2012. As with other gamma-ray telescopes, H.E.S.S. observes high energy processes in the universe. Gamma-ray producing sources include supernova remnants , active galactic nuclei and pulsar wind nebulae . It also actively tests unproven theories in physics such as looking for
32-540: A huge field of view unnecessary. This led to the design of ROTSE-III, a more or less conventional telescope designed for fast slewing and operation at multiple locations around the world. 35°52′52″N 106°40′29″W / 35.88111°N 106.67472°W / 35.88111; -106.67472 This article about a specific observatory, telescope or astronomical instrument is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . High Energy Stereoscopic System High Energy Stereoscopic System ( H.E.S.S. )
40-439: Is a system of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs) for the investigation of cosmic gamma rays in the photon energy range of 0.03 to 100 TeV. The acronym was chosen in honour of Victor Hess , who was the first to observe cosmic rays . The name also emphasizes two main features of the installation, namely the simultaneous observation of air showers with several telescopes, under different viewing angles, and
48-465: The combination of telescopes to a large system to increase the effective detection area for gamma rays. H.E.S.S. permits the exploration of gamma-ray sources with intensities at a level of a few thousandth parts of the flux of the Crab Nebula . H.E.S.S. consists of five telescopes: four with mirrors just under 12 m in diameter, arranged as a square with 120 m sides, and one larger telescope with
56-658: The predicted gamma-ray annihilation signal from WIMP dark matter particles and testing Lorentz invariance predictions of loop quantum gravity . H.E.S.S. is located in the Khomas highlands of Namibia near the Gamsberg mountain, an area well known for its excellent optical quality. The first of the four telescopes of Phase I of the H.E.S.S. project went into operation in Summer 2002; all four were operational in December 2003. In 2004 H.E.S.S.
64-502: Was the first IACT experiment to spatially resolve a source of cosmic gamma rays . In 2005, it was announced that H.E.S.S. had detected eight new high-energy gamma ray sources, doubling the known number of such sources. As of 2014, more than 90 sources of teraelectronvolt gamma rays were discovered by H.E.S.S. In 2016, the HESS collaboration reported deep gamma ray observations which show the presence of petaelectronvolt-protons originating from
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