Australia Telescope Compact Array

A proposal for the Australia Telescope Fast Response Group
ALERT

Introduction

Following ATCA responses to 4 high energy outbursts in the past 12 months, it has been decided that a proposal for a small action group be established to deal with the observation and subsequent publication of results. This document outlines the author's proposal for such an operation.

The ALERT group

In an attempt to provide ATNF Compact Array with a fast response mechanism, I am suggesting the establishment of the ALERT Group. This group would be governed by the following guidelines:

Objective of the ALERT group

The ALERT group is to provide sub-hour response to any external notification of transient astronomical phenomena occuring at declinations acsessible to the Compact Array. It will also act as the initial observing team and be responsible for the rapid announcement of results (including negative) via IAU circulars, telephone and e-mail.

The ALERT group will be responsible for the regular scanning of the IAU circulars and be sensitive to announcements that may pertain to potentially useful astronomical observations.

The ALERT group will be active in advertising its presence to the astronomical community, making it a choice target of notification. It will strive for concise, accurate and prompt results and maintain high international recognition.

The ALERT group is not responsible for the continued observing of the new astronomical event. It is there to get first observation and to get it quickly.

Management response to the ALERT group

In order to be successful in responding to important astronomical events, the ALERT group must attract the immediate attention of the Director. This is important as target of opportunity observing will make up a large component of ALERT group observing time.

By the same token, the ALERT group must be careful not to abuse this privilege, otherwise the Facility response will decline.

This means that there needs to be an assessment, by the ALERT core group, of the importance of the event. We need to establish some criteria for this assessment, so that the group approaches the Director only on important cases.

Also, the appropriate information must be ready, so that the Director can make a balanced judgement on the allocation of ``target of opportunity time''.

Organisation of the ALERT group

The ALERT group shall be roughly partitioned into two units: the core and associated groups.

The core group

The ALERT core group will comprise of not more than 3 people, who shall be drawn from a pool of interested and willing staff based at Narrabri (see the ALERT associated group).

The core group must be capable of responding to the call, observing, reducing the data and drafting a telegram. Loss of one member of the group must not hamper these abilities.

It is important that the number of people in the core group be kept to a minimum. Experience has proven that an extended group is inefficient at processing results, finalising text on circulars and intragroup communication.

The ALERT group should be responsible to generate their own external communication to other interested parties. It is mandatory that other staff let the group get on with their job.

The associated group

The ALERT associated group comprises those people not in the core group, but willing to be and in a capacity to move into the core group.

Publication of results

The ALERT core group will be responsible for the release of an IAU circular as rapidly as possible, following the reduction of the first observations. This will serve to inform other observatories of our results, prove our rapid repsonse to events and advertise that monitoring will continue.

E-mail exploders

The ALERT group will maintain two e-mail exploders, locally changeable at Narrabri (so that we are not reliant on Epping to alter them, potentially 60 hours after the first notification).

The first of these is alert@atnf.csiro.au, which contains the ALERT core group and the ALERT VMS account. This exploder is reserved for incoming announcements and internal discussion only and should not be placed on any other exploders (such as rpat_all@atnf.csiro.au) so as to keep the incoming messages limited to those relevant to the ALERT group. The alert@atnf.csiro.au e-mail address shall be widely advertised across the internet and in local ATNF documentation (such as the ATNF newsletter).

The second e-mail exploder, alert_all@atnf.csiro.au, shall not be gnerally advertised outside of ATNF and be reserved for the general discussion of topics and results from the ALERT group's observations. All ALERT associates and other interested parties should be included on this exploder, but the ALERT VMS account must not be included.

The ALERT VMS account

It is recommended that a VMS account be established on LEON:: for the ALERT group. It should be included on the alert@atnf.csiro.au exploder only, so that all e-mail it receives is directly relevant to new announcements on astronomical phenomena. The purpose of the ALERT account should be the constant monitoring of incoming announcements. When received, it can organise for members of the ALERT core group to be automatically dialed, drawing immediate attention. The account should not carry privileges, but should be capable of its prime task.

Scheduling and reduction procedures

The ALERT group should maintain a number of scheduling command procedures for quickly generating scchedules to cover the typical observation types (HI, 4-frequency flux, mosaicing, cuts). The same will apply to data reduction scripts for miriad.

A ``template'' should be established to guide the core group in their observations. This can be int he form of a checklist, built from experience on how best to handle different circumstances.

In addition, the group should regularly practise the use fo these systems to familiarise its members with the observing/reduction techniques and to check the techniques for errors that would be time consuming to fix the case of a real event.

All documentation on how to do and reduce the observations should be maintained in both electronic and printed format.

Interaction with other observatories

The obvious alternative candidates for fast response to astronomical events are the Parkes and Mopra observatories also run by the ATNF.

At present, Parkes does not have the frequency agility to perform well in this role, although it should not be disuaded from fast response actions of its equipment that is available.

Mopra, has the reduced staff capacity and, with the possible exception of W/F~band observations, is functionally covered by the ATCA.

Non-ATNF observatories are also well placed and equiped for such events. Particularly MOST, but also Mt.~Pleasant and others. These observatories should be aware of the ALERT group and vice versa, with inter-observatory communication encouraged. However, we should not let the interaction with other facilities hamper the release of results.

Conclusion

I believe that such a system will work only if the amount of bureaucracy is minimised. The concept is also hampered by the National Facility status of the ATCA. However, with a small enthusiastic group, the ability to respond quickly to the next solar neighbourhood supernova will have crucial ramifications for astronomy everywhere.

Original: Derek Mckay (11-Jul-1995)
Modified: Nuria Mckay (9-Oct-1995)

A proposal for the Australia Telescope Fast Response GroupALERT