From TORTORA to MegaTORTORA—Results and Prospects of Search for Fast Optical Transients

摘要

To study short stochastic optical flares of different objects (GRBs, SNs, etc.) ofunknown localizations as well as NEOs it is necessary to monitor large regionsof sky with high-time resolution. We developed a system consisting of widefieldcamera with field of view of 400–600 sq.deg. which uses TV-CCD with0.13 s temporal resolution to record and classify optical transients, and a fastrobotic telescope aimed to perform their spectroscopic and photometric investigationjust after detection. Such two-telescope complex, combining wide-fieldcamera TORTORA and robotic telescope REM, operated from May 2006 atLa Silla ESO observatory. Some results of its operation, including first hightime resolution study of optical transient accompanying GRB and discoveryof its fine time structure, are presented. Also, prospects for improving theefficiency of such observations are given, and a project of a next generationwide field monitoring system, the MegaTORTORA, is described.