GRB050904 observed by TAROT
Alain KLOTZ 20050916TAROT is the first telescope which observed the optical counterpart of the farest GRB ever known !
Top: This animation shows the appearance
of the
optical counterpart of the GRB 050904. The first image was taken 86 seconds after the trigger detected by the SWIFT satellite. Right : The TAROT telescope is located at the Calern observatory in France. |
|
TAROT is a robotic telescope built in 1998. It was designed
to slew very quickly to directions of gamma ray bursts (GRBs) in order to
observe their early optical emission. On the 2005 september 4th, the satellite
SWIFT detected a GRB at 1h53m44s UT. An on-board automatic analysis calculated
the coordinates of the burst and send them as a message to ground stations
80 seconds later. Then this message was received by the TAROT computer and
the telescope begun observations five seconds later.
First images show no optical emission. Two minutes later, an optical source was visible on TAROT images. This source remained visible during 10 minutes by TAROT and then vanished. The magnitude was estimated be I~16. Few hours later, astronomers using the SUBARU telescope measured an incredible red-shift of z=6.29. Remind that the farest quasar known has "only" z=6.37 with a magnitude of I=23.3.
Links about GRB 050904:
http://www.insu.cnrs.fr/web/article/art.php?art=1537
http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2005/pr-22-05.html
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/starsgalaxies/2005_distant_grb.html
First images show no optical emission. Two minutes later, an optical source was visible on TAROT images. This source remained visible during 10 minutes by TAROT and then vanished. The magnitude was estimated be I~16. Few hours later, astronomers using the SUBARU telescope measured an incredible red-shift of z=6.29. Remind that the farest quasar known has "only" z=6.37 with a magnitude of I=23.3.
Links about GRB 050904:
http://www.insu.cnrs.fr/web/article/art.php?art=1537
http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2005/pr-22-05.html
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/starsgalaxies/2005_distant_grb.html
Top: This image is the sum of all TAROT images. It shows very clearly the afterglow of GRB 050904.
