Search

This work extends a contemporaneous effort (Panaitescu & Vestrand 2022) to study the properties of the lower-energy counterpart synchrotron emission produced by the cooling of relativistic Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) electrons through radiation (synchrotron and self-Compton) emission and adiabatic losses. We derive the major characteristics (pulse duration, lag-time after burst, brightness relative to the burst) of the Prompt Optical Counterpart (POC) accompanying GRBs. Depending on the magnetic field life-time, duration of electron injection, and electron transit-time Dto from hard X-ray (GRB) to optical emitting energies, a (true) POC may appear during the GRB pulse (of duration dtg) or after (delayed OC). The signature of counterparts arising from the cooling of GRB electrons is that true POC pulses (Dto < dtg) last as long as the corresponding GRB pulse (dto ~ dtg) while delayed OC pulses (Dto > dtg) last as long as the transit-time (dto ~ Dto). If OC variability can be measured, then another signature for this OC mechanism is that the GRB variability is "passed" only to POCs but is lost for delayed OCs. Within the GRB electron cooling model for counterparts, POCs should be on average dimmer than delayed one (which is found to be consistent with the data), and harder GRB low-energy slopes bLE should be associated more often with the dimmer POCs The range of low-energy slopes bLE in [-1/2,1/3] produced by electron cooling and the average burst brightness of 1 mJy (with 1 dex dispersion) imply that POCs of hard GRBs can be dimmer than R=20 and difficult to detect by robotic telescopes (unless there is another mechanism that overshines the emission from cooling electrons) and that the POCs of soft GRBs can be brighter than R=10, i.e. as bright as the Optical Flashes (OFs) seen for several bursts., 14 pages, to be published in the ApJ

This work is a continuation of a previous effort (Panaitescu 2019) to study the cooling of relativistic electrons through radiation (synchrotron and self-Compton) emission and adiabatic losses, with application to the spectra and light-curves of the synchrotron Gamma-Ray Burst produced by such cooling electrons. Here, we derive the low-energy slope b_LE of GRB pulse-integrated spectrum and quantify the implications of the measured distribution of b_LE. If the magnetic field lives longer than it takes the cooling GRB electrons to radiate below 1-10 keV, then radiative cooling processes of power P(gamma) ~ gamma^n with n geq 2, i.e. synchrotron and inverse-Compton (iC) through Thomson scatterings, lead to a soft low-energy spectral slope b_LE leq -1/2 of the GRB pulse-integrated spectrum F_eps ~ eps^{b_LE} below the peak-energy E_p, irrespective of the duration of electron injection t_i. IC-cooling dominated by scatterings at the Thomson--Klein-Nishina transition of synchrotron photons below E_p has an index n = 2/3 -> 1 and yield harder integrated spectra with b_LE in [0,1/6], while adiabatic electron-cooling leads to a soft slope b_LE = -3/4. Radiative processes that produce soft integrated spectra can accommodate the harder slopes measured by CGRO/BATSE and Fermi/GBM only if the magnetic field life-time t_B is shorter than the time during which the typical GRB electrons cool to radiate below 1-10 keV, which is less than (at most) ten radiative cooling timescales t_rad of the typical GRB electron. In this case, there is a one-to-one correspondence between t_B and b_LE. To account for low-energy slopes b_LE > -3/4, adiabatic electron-cooling requires a similar restriction on t_B. In this case, the diversity of slopes arises mostly from how the electron-injection rate varies with time and not from the magnetic field timescale., 31 pages, to appear in the ApJ, added discussion of broken power-law low-energy GRB spectra, additions are shown in italics

The complex multiwavelength emission of GRB afterglow 130427A (monitored in the radio up to 10 days, in the optical and X-ray until 50 days, and at GeV energies until 1 day) can be accounted for by a hybrid reverse-forward shock synchrotron model, with inverse-Compton emerging only above a few GeV. The high ratio of the early optical to late radio flux requires that the ambient medium is a wind and that the forward-shock synchrotron spectrum peaks in the optical at about 10 ks. The latter has two consequences: the wind must be very tenuous and the optical emission before 10 ks must arise from the reverse-shock, as suggested also by the bright optical flash that Raptor has monitored during the prompt emission phase (

The peaks of 30 optical afterglows and 14 X-ray light-curves display a good anticorrelation of the peak flux with the peak epoch: F_p ~ t_p^{-2.0} in the optical, F_p ~ t_p^{-1.6} in the X-ray, the distributions of the peak epochs being consistent with each other. We investigate the ability of two forward-shock models for afterglow light-curve peaks -- an observer location outside the initial jet aperture and the onset of the forward-shock deceleration -- to account for those peak correlations. For both models, the slope of the F_p - t_p relation depends only on the slope of the afterglow spectrum. We find that only a conical jet seen off-aperture and interacting with a wind-like medium can account for both the X-ray peak relation, given the average X-ray spectral slope beta_x = 1.0, and for the larger slope of the optical peak relation. However, any conclusion about the origin of the peak flux - peak epoch correlation is, at best, tentative, because the current sample of X-ray peaks is too small to allow a reliable measurement of the F_p - t_p relation slope and because more than one mechanism and/or one afterglow parameter may be driving that correlation., Comment: 13 pages, to appear in MNRAS

Since its launch in 2004, the Swift satellite has monitored the X-ray afterglows of several hundred Gamma-Ray Bursts, and revealed that their X-ray light-curves are more complex than previously thought, exhibiting up to three power-law segments. Energy injection into the relativistic blast-wave energizing the burst ambient medium has been proposed most often to be the reason for the X-ray afterglow complexity. We examine 117 light-curve breaks of 98 Swift X-ray afterglows, selected for their high-quality monitoring and well-constrained flux decay rates. Thirty percent of afterglows have a break that can be an adiabatic jet-break, in the sense that there is one variant of the forward-shock emission from a collimated outflow model that can account for both the pre- and post-break flux power-law decay indices, given the measured X-ray spectral slope. If allowance is made for a steady energy injection into the forward-shock, then another 56 percent of X-ray afterglows have a light-curve break that can be explained with a jet-break. The remaining 12 percent that are not jet-breaks, as well as the existence of two breaks in 19 afterglows (out of which only one can be a jet-break), suggest that some X-ray breaks arise from a sudden change in the rate at which energy is added to the blast-wave, and it may well be that a larger fraction of X-ray light-curve breaks are generated by that mechanism. To test the above two mechanisms for afterglow light-curve breaks, we derive comprehensive analytical results for the dynamics of outflows undergoing energy injection and for their light-curves, including closure relations for inverse-Compton afterglows and for the emission from spreading jets interacting with an wind-like ambient medium.

We have entered an era in time-domain astronomy in which the detected rate of explosive transients and important ephemeral states in persistent objects threatens to overwhelm the world's supply of traditional follow-up telescopes. As new, comprehensive time-domain surveys become operational and wide-field multi-messenger observatories come on-line, that problem will become more acute. The goal of this workshop was to foster discussion about how autonomous robotic telescopes and small-aperture conventional telescopes can be employed in the most effective ways to help deal with the coming deluge of scientifically interesting follow-up opportunities. Discussion topics included the role of event brokers, automated event triage, the establishment of cooperative global telescope networks, and real-time coordination of observations at geographically diverse sites. It therefore included brief overviews of the current diverse landscape of telescopes and their interactions, and also considered planned and potential new facilities and operating models.

We present observations and analysis of the broadband afterglow of Swift GRB 071025. Using optical and infrared (RIYJHK) photometry, we derive a photometric redshift of 4.4 < z < 5.2; at this redshift our simultaneous multicolour observations begin at ~30 s after the GRB trigger in the host frame and during the initial rising phase of the afterglow. We associate the light curve peak at 580 s in the observer frame with the formation of the forward shock, giving an estimate of the initial Lorentz factor Gamma_0 ~ 200. The red spectral energy distribution (even in regions not affected by the Lyman-alpha break) provides secure evidence of a large dust column. However, the inferred extinction curve shows a prominent flat component between 2000-3000 Angstroms in the rest-frame, inconsistent with any locally observed template but well-fit by models of dust formed by supernovae. Time-dependent fits to the extinction profile reveal no evidence of dust destruction and limit the decrease in the extinction column to Delta A_3000 < 0.54 mag after t = 50 s in the rest frame. Our observations provide evidence of a transition in dust properties at z~5, in agreement with studies of high-z quasars, and suggest that SN-formed dust continues to dominate the opacity of typical galaxies at this redshift.

WOS: 000269244500040, We report on a complete set of early optical afterglows of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) obtained with the Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment (ROTSE-III) telescope network from 2005 March through 2007 June. This set is comprised of 12 afterglows with early optical and Swift/X-Ray Telescope observations, with a median ROTSE-III response time of 45 s after the start of gamma-ray emission (8 s after the GCN notice time). These afterglows span 4 orders of magnitude in optical luminosity, and the contemporaneous X-ray detections allow multi-wavelength spectral analysis. Excluding X-ray flares, the broadband synchrotron spectra show that the optical and X-ray emission originate in a common region, consistent with predictions of the external forward shock in the fireball model. However, the fireball model is inadequate to predict the temporal decay indices of the early afterglows, even after accounting for possible long-duration continuous energy injection. We find that the optical afterglow is a clean tracer of the forward shock, and we use the peak time of the forward shock to estimate the initial bulk Lorentz factor of the GRB outflow, and find 100 less than or similar to Gamma(0) less than or similar to 1000, consistent with expectations., NASA [NNG-04WC41G, NNG-06GI90G, NNX-07AF02G]; NSF [AST-0407061, PHY-0801007, AST-0335588, AST-0707769]; Australian Research Council's Discovery Projects; University of New South Wales; University of Texas; University of Michigan; Michigan Space Grant Consortium, E. S. R. thanks the TABASGO foundation. This work has been supported by NASA grant NNG-04WC41G, NSF grants AST-0407061 and PHY-0801007, the Australian Research Council's Discovery Projects funding scheme, the University of New South Wales, the University of Texas, and the University of Michigan. H. A. F. has been supported by NSF grant AST-0335588 and by the Michigan Space Grant Consortium. F. Y. has been supported under NASA Swift Guest Investigator grants NNG-06GI90G and NNX-07AF02G. J.C.W. is supported in part by NSF grant AST-0707769. Special thanks to David Doss at McDonald Observatory, Toni Hanke at the H. E. S. S. site, and Tuncay Ozisik at TUG.

On 19 March 2008, the northern sky was the stage of a spectacular optical transient that for a few seconds remained visible to the naked eye. The transient was associated with GRB 080319B, a gamma-ray burst at a luminosity distance of about 6 Gpc (standard cosmology), making it the most luminous optical object ever recorded by human kind. We present comprehensive sky monitoring and multi-color optical follow-up observations of GRB 080319B collected by the RAPTOR telescope network covering the development of the explosion and the afterglow before, during, and after the burst. The extremely bright prompt optical emission revealed features that are normally not detectable. The optical and gamma-ray variability during the explosion are correlated, but the optical flux is much greater than can be reconciled with single emission mechanism and a flat gamma-ray spectrum. This extreme optical behavior is best understood as synchrotron self-Compton model (SSC). After a gradual onset of the gamma-ray emission, there is an abrupt rise of the prompt optical flux suggesting that variable self-absorption dominates the early optical light curve. Our simultaneous multi-color optical light curves following the flash show spectral evolution consistent with a rapidly decaying red component due to large angle emission and the emergence of a blue forward shock component from interaction with the surrounding environment. While providing little support for the reverse shock that dominates the early afterglow, these observations strengthen the case for the universal role of the SSC mechanism in generating gamma-ray bursts., accepted for publication in ApJ

We have classified 409 objects in the Northern Sky Variability Survey (NSVS) as new β Lyrae or Algol-type eclipsing binaries. These candidates have outside of eclipse magnitudes of ~10-13. Through automated Fourier analysis routines and some manual inspection, we list the period, eclipse depths, coordinates, an estimate of the time of primary eclipse, and the 2MASS colors for these candidates. This list of new β Lyrae type candidates greatly increases the number of known systems of this type. We have also identified 37 candidate low-mass, main-sequence pairs (M 1,2 < 1 M ☉, T < 5500 K) in the NSVS database. If confirmed, these systems will greatly increase the number of such low-mass systems known as well as help constrain atmospheric models for these types of stars.

We report on follow-up observations of the GRB 060927 using the ROTSE-IIIa telescope and a suite of larger aperture ground-based telescopes. An optical afterglow was detected 20 s after the burst, the earliest rest-frame detection of optical emission from any GRB. Spectroscopy performed with the VLT about 13 hours after the trigger shows a continuum break at lambda ~ 8070 A produced by neutral hydrogen absorption at z~5.6. We also detect an absorption line at 8158 A which we interpret as SiII at z=5.467. Hence, GRB 060927 is the second most distant GRB with a spectroscopically measured redshift. The shape of the red wing of the spectral break can be fitted by a damped Lyalpha profile with a column density with log(N_HI/cm^-2) ~ 22.5. We discuss the implications of this work for the use of GRBs as probes of the end of the dark ages and draw three main conclusions: i) GRB afterglows originating from z>6 should be relatively easy to detect from the ground, but rapid NIR monitoring is necessary to ensure that they are found; ii) The presence of large HI column densities in some GRBs host galaxies at z>5 makes the use of GRBs to probe the reionization epoch via spectroscopy of the red damping wing challenging; iii) GRBs appear crucial to locate typical star-forming galaxies at z>5 and therefore the type of galaxies responsible for the reionization of the universe., 15 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ, uses emulateapj

In 2002, the RAPid Telescopes for Optical Response (RAPTOR) project pushed the envelope of automated astronomy by becoming the first fully autonomous closedloop robotic telescope. Deployment required a fast, efficient, and reliable network technology to perform the collaborative, synchronized observations and the Telescope ALert Operation Network System (TALONS) was engineered to meet this goal. It was soon realized that the telescope systems mandate could be expanded to include monitoring the sky for anomalous and interesting behaviors in persistent sources rather than focusing on only optical transients and GRB follow-ups. But to achieve this goal we would need to make this system think and that would require the merging of the robotic telescopes assets with new technologies. The binding thread between the new technologies and RAPTOR would be an enhanced TALONS astronomical network. We have now seen that any isolated telescope system can deliver good science, but if it could cooperatively operate with a network of other telescope assets it could increase the likelihood of great science. While using the internet for communicating between distributed astronomical systems is still in its infancy, it already shows great potential (White et al. 2004) and the varied architectural techniques available offer operators great flexibility to meet their local needs and to meet a goal of greater interconnectivity. In this paper we will present the evolution of RAPTOR and TALONS into a thinking telescope system and how that effort highlights the process of designing and engineering a meta-network to meet the goal of greater interconnectivity in the astronomical community. (© 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Networks are becoming a key element in most current and all future, telescope and observatory projects. The ability to easily and efficiently pass observation data, alert data and instrumentation requests between distributed systems could enable science as never before. However, any effective large scale or meta-network of astronomical resources will require a common communication format or development resources will have to be continuously dedicated to creating interpreters. The necessary elements of any astronomy communication can be easily identified, efficiently described and rigidly formatted so that both robotic and human operations can use the same data. In this paper we will explore the current state of notification, what notification requirements are essential to create a successful standard and present a standard now under development by the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA), called the VOEvent.

The RAPid Telescopes for Optical Response (RAPTOR) system at Los Alamos National Laboratory observed GRB 060206 starting 48.1 minutes after gamma-ray emission triggered the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) on-board the Swift satellite. The afterglow light curve measured by RAPTOR shows a spectacular re-brightening by ~1 mag about 1 h after the trigger and peaks at R ~ 16.4 mag. Shortly after the onset of the explosive re-brightening the OT doubled its flux on a time-scale of about 4 minutes. The total R-band fluence received from GRB 060206 during this episode is 2.3e-9 erg/cm2. In the rest frame of the burst (z = 4.045) this yields an isotropic equivalent energy release of ~0.7e50 erg in just a narrow UV band 130 +/- 22 nm. We discuss the implications of RAPTOR observations for untriggered searches for fast optical transients and studies of GRB environments at high redshift., Submitted to ApJ Letters

We present the unfiltered ROTSE-III light curve of the optical transient associated with GRB 050319 beginning 4 s after the cessation of gamma-ray activity. We fit a power-law function to the data using the revised trigger time given by Chincarini et al. (2005), and a smoothly broken power-law to the data using the original trigger disseminated through the GCN notices. Including the RAPTOR data from Wozniak et al. (2005), the best fit power-law indices are alpha=-0.854 (+/- 0.014) for the single power-law and alpha_1=-0.364 (+/- 0.020), alpha_2= -0.881 (+/- 0.030), with a break at t_b = 418 (+/- 30) s for the smoothly broken fit. We discuss the fit results with emphasis placed on the importance of knowing the true start time of the optical transient for this multi-peaked burst. As Swift continues to provide prompt GRB locations, it becomes more important to answer the question, "when does the afterglow begin" to correctly interpret the light curves., 14 pages including 2 figures; Accepted for publication in ApJ

The ROTSE-IIIc telescope at the H.E.S.S. site, Namibia, obtained the earliest detection of optical emission from a Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB), beginning only 21.8 s from the onset of Swift GRB 050801. The optical lightcurve does not fade or brighten significantly over the first ~250 s, after which there is an achromatic break and the lightcurve declines in typical power-law fashion. The Swift/XRT also obtained early observations starting at 69 s after the burst onset. The X-ray lightcurve shows the same features as the optical lightcurve. These correlated variations in the early optical and X-ray emission imply a common origin in space and time. This behavior is difficult to reconcile with the standard models of early afterglow emission., Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters

Many eclipsing binary star systems show long-term variations in their orbital periods, evident in their O - C (observed minus calculated period) diagrams. With data from the Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment (ROTSE-I) compiled in the SkyDOT database, New Mexico State University 1 m data, and recent American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) data, we revisit Borkovits and Hegedus's best-case candidates for third-body effects in eclipsing binaries: AB And, TV Cas, XX Cep, and AK Her. We also examine the possibility of a third body orbiting Y Cam. Our new data support their suggestion that a third body is present in all systems except AK Her, as is revealed by the sinusoidal variations of the O - C residuals. Our new data suggest that a third body alone cannot explain the variations seen in the O - C residuals of AK Her. We also provide a table of 143 eclipsing binary systems that have historical AAVSO O - C data with new values computed from the SkyDOT database.

We present the results of a search for untriggered gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows with the Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment-III (ROTSE-III) telescope array. This search covers observations from September 2003 to March 2005. We have an effective coverage of 1.74 deg^2 yr for rapidly fading transients that remain brighter than ~ 17.5 magnitude for more than 30 minutes. This search is the first large area survey to be able to detect typical untriggered GRB afterglows. Our background rate is very low and purely astrophysical. We have found 4 previously unknown cataclysmic variables (CVs) and 1 new flare star. We have not detected any candidate afterglow events or other unidentified transients. We can place an upper limit on the rate of fading optical transients with quiescent counterparts dimmer than ~ 20th magnitude at a rate of less than 1.9 deg^-2 yr-1 with 95% confidence. This places limits on the optical characteristics of off-axis (orphan) GRB afterglows. As a byproduct of this search, we have an effective ~ 52 deg^2 yr of coverage for very slowly decaying transients, such as CVs. This implies an overall rate of outbursts from high galactic latitude CVs of 0.1 deg^2 yr^-1., Seven pages, five figures, uses emulateapj class file. Accepted to Astrophysical Journal

The ROTSE-IIIa telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, Australia, detected prompt optical emission from Swift GRB 050401. In this letter, we present observations of the early optical afterglow, first detected by the ROTSE-IIIa telescope 33 s after the start of gamma-ray emission, contemporaneous with the brightest peak of this emission. This GRB was neither exceptionally long nor bright. This is the first prompt optical detection of a GRB of typical duration and luminosity. We find that the early afterglow decay does not deviate significantly from the power-law decay observable at later times, and is uncorrelated with the prompt gamma-ray emission. We compare this detection with the other two GRBs with prompt observations, GRB 990123 and GRB 041219a. All three bursts exhibit quite different behavior at early times., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters

The RAPid Telescopes for Optical Response (RAPTOR) system at Los Alamos National Laboratory observed GRB 050319 starting 25.4 seconds after gamma-ray emission triggered the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) on-board the Swift satellite. Our well sampled light curve of the early optical afterglow is composed of 32 points (derived from 70 exposures) that measure the flux decay during the first hour after the GRB. The GRB 050319 light curve measured by RAPTOR can be described as a relatively gradual flux decline (power-law index alpha = -0.37) with a transition, at about 400 s after the GRB, to a faster flux decay (alpha = -0.91). The addition of other available measurements to the RAPTOR light curve suggests that another emission component emerged after 10^4 s. We hypothesize that the early afterglow emission is powered by extended energy injection or delayed reverse shock emission followed by the emergence of forward shock emission., Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters. To see a short movie of fading GRB 050319 go to http://www.raptor.lanl.gov/images/GRB050319/grb050319_movie_annotated.gif

We present a catalog of 8678 slowly varying stars with near-infrared colors corresponding to the evolved asymptotic giant branch population. Objects were selected from the Northern Sky Variability Survey (NSVS) covering the entire sky above declination δ = -38° in a single unfiltered photometric band corresponding to a V-band magnitude range of ~8–15.5 mag. After quality cuts, the number of measurements for a typical star is approximately 150, but it ranges up to ~1000 for high-declination stars. We show that the use of support vector machines, a modern machine-learning algorithm, can reliably distinguish Mira variables from other types of red variables, namely, semiregular and irregular. We also identify a region of parameter space that is dominated by carbon stars. Our classification is based on period, amplitude, and three independent colors possible with photometry from the NSVS and the Two Micron All Sky Survey. The overall classification accuracy is ~90% despite the relatively short survey baseline of 1 yr and limited set of features. There are 6474 stars in our sample without identifications in the General Catalogue of Variable Stars, which, as such, are most likely new discoveries. Period-amplitude and period-color diagrams of both our previously known and newly identified Mira stars are in good agreement with published studies based on smaller samples.

Laboratory. RAPTOR is a fully autonomous robotic system that is designed to identify and make follow-up observations of optical transients with durations as short as one minute. The RAPTOR design is based on Biomimicry of Human Vision. The sky monitor is composed of two identical arrays of telescopes, separated by 38 kilometers, which stereoscopically monitor a field of about 1300 square-degrees for transients. Both monitoring arrays are carried on rapidly slewing mounts and are composed of an ensemble of wide-field telescopes clustered around a more powerful narrow-field telescope called the “fovea” telescope. All telescopes are coupled to real-time analysis pipelines that identify candidate transients and relay the information to a central decision unit that filters the candidates to find real celestial transients and command a response. When a celestial transient is found, the system can point the fovea telescopes to any position on the sky within five seconds and begin follow-up observations. RAPTOR also responds to Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) alerts generated by GRB monitoring spacecraft. Here we present RAPTOR observations of GRB 021211 that constitute the earliest detection of optical emission from that event and are the second fastest achieved for any GRB. The detection of bright optical emission from GRB021211, a burst with modest gamma-ray fluence, indicates that prompt optical emission, detectable with small robotic telescopes, is more common than previously thought. Further, the very fast decline of the optical afterglow from GRB 021211 suggests that some so-called “optically dark” GRBs were not detected only because of the slow response of the follow-up telescopes. (© 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

The existence of rapidly slewing robotic telescopes and fast alert distribution via the Internet is revolutionizing our capability to study the physics of fast astrophysical transients. But the salient challenge that optical time domain surveys must conquer is mining the torrent of data to recognize important transients in a scene full of normal variations. Humans simply do not have the attention span, memory, or reaction time required to recognize fast transients and rapidly respond. Autonomous robotic instrumentation with the ability to extract pertinent information from the data stream in real time will therefore be essential for recognizing transients and commanding rapid follow-up observations while the ephemeral behavior is still present. Here we discuss how the development and integration of three technologies: (1) robotic telescope networks; (2) machine learning; and (3) advanced database technology, can enable the construction of smart robotic telescopes, which we loosely call “thinking” telescopes, capable of mining the sky in real time. (© 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

We search for microvariability in a sample of 485 Mira variables with high quality I-band light curves from the second generation Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE-II). Rapid variations with amplitudes in the ~0.2-1.1 mag range lasting hours to days were discovered in Hipparcos data by de Laverny et al. (1998). Our search is primarily sensitive to events with time-scales of about 1 day, but retains a few percent efficiency (per object) for detecting unresolved microvariability events as short as 2 hours. We do not detect any candidate events. Assuming that the distribution of the event time profiles is identical to that from the Hipparcos light curves we derive the 95% confidence level upper limit of 0.038 per year per star for the rate of such events (1 per 26 years per average object of the ensemble). The high event rates of the order of 1 per year per star implied by the Hipparcos study in the H_P band are excluded with high confidence by the OGLE-II data in the I band. Our non-detection could still be explained by much redder spectral response of the I filter compared to the H_P band or by population differences between the bulge and the solar neighborhood. In any case, the OGLE-II I-band data provide the first limit on the rate of the postulated microvariability events in Mira stars and offer new quantitative constraints on their properties. Similar limits are obtained for other pulse shapes and a range of the assumed time-scales and size-frequency distributions.

The Northern Sky Variability Survey (NSVS) is a temporal record of the sky over the optical magnitude range from 8 to 15.5. It was conducted in the course of the first generation Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment (ROTSE-I) using a robotic system of four co-mounted unfiltered telephoto lenses equipped with CCD cameras. The survey was conducted from Los Alamos, NM, and primarily covers the entire northern sky. Some data in southern fields between declinations 0 and -38 deg is also available, although with fewer epochs and noticeably lesser quality. The NSVS contains light curves for approximately 14 million objects. With a one year baseline and typically 100-500 measurements per object, the NSVS is the most extensive record of stellar variability across the bright sky available today. In a median field, bright unsaturated stars attain a point to point photometric scatter of ~0.02 mag and position errors within 2 arcsec. At Galactic latitudes |b| < 20 deg the data quality is limited by severe blending due to ~14 arcsec pixel size. We present basic characteristics of the data set and describe data collection, analysis, and distribution. All NSVS photometric measurements are available for on-line public access from the Sky Database for Objects in Time-Domain (SkyDOT; http://skydot.lanl.gov) at LANL. Copies of the full survey photometry may also be requested on tape., accepted for publication in Astronomical Journal

The ROTSE-IIIa telescope and the SSO-40 inch telescope, both located at Siding Spring Observatory, imaged the early time afterglow of GRB 030418. In this report we present observations of the early afterglow, first detected by the ROTSE-IIIa telescope 211 s after the start of the burst, and only 76 s after the end of the gamma-ray activity. We detect optical emission that rises for ~600 s, slowly varies around R=17.3 mag for ~1400 s, and then fades as a power law of index alpha=-1.36. Additionally, the ROTSE-IIIb telescope, located at McDonald Observatory, imaged the early time afterglow of GRB 030723. The behavior of this light curve was qualitatively similar to that of GRB 030418, but two magnitudes dimmer. These two afterglows are dissimilar to other afterglows such as GRB 990123 and GRB 021211. We investigate whether the early afterglow can be attributed to a synchrotron break in a cooling synchrotron spectrum as it passes through the optical band, but find this model is unable to accurately describe the early light curve. We present a simple model for gamma-ray burst emission emerging from a wind medium surrounding a massive progenitor star. This model provides an effective description of the data, and suggests that the rise of the afterglow can be ascribed to extinction in the local circumburst environment. In this interpretation, these events provide further evidence for the connection between gamma-ray bursts and the collapse of massive stars., Comment: Five pages, four figures, uses emulateapj class file. Accepted to Astrophysical Journal Letters

The observation of a prompt optical flash from GRB990123 convincingly demonstrated the value of autonomous robotic telescope systems. Pursuing a program of rapid follow-up observations of gamma-ray bursts, the Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment (ROTSE) has developed a next-generation instrument, ROTSE-III, that will continue the search for fast optical transients. The entire system was designed as an economical robotic facility to be installed at remote sites throughout the world. There are seven major system components: optics, optical tube assembly, CCD camera, telescope mount, enclosure, environmental sensing & protection and data acquisition. Each is described in turn in the hope that the techniques developed here will be useful in similar contexts elsewhere., 19 pages, including 4 figures. To be published in PASP in January, 2003. PASP Number IP02-110

The X-ray nova XTE J1118+480 exhibited two outbursts in the early part of 2000. As detected by the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), the first outburst began in early January and the second began in early March. Routine imaging of the northern sky by the Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment (ROTSE) shows the optical counterpart to XTE J1118+480 during both outbursts. These data include over 60 epochs from January to June 2000. A search of the ROTSE data archives reveal no previous optical outbursts of this source in selected data between 1998 April and 2000 January. While the X-ray-to-optical flux ratio of XTE J1118+480 was low during both outbursts, we suggest that they were full X-ray novae and not minioutbursts based on comparison with similar sources. The ROTSE measurements taken during the 2000 March outburst also indicate a rapid rise in the optical flux that preceded the X-ray emission measured by the RXTE by approximately 10 days. Using these results, we estimate a preoutburst accretion disk inner truncation radius of ~1.2 × 104 Schwarzschild radii.

We present a temperature map and a temperature profile of the central part (r < 20' or 1/4 virial radius) of the Coma cluster. We combined 5 overlapping pointings made with XMM/EPIC/MOS and extracted spectra in boxes of 3.5' X 3.5'. The temperature distribution around the two central galaxies is remarkably homogeneous (r, 7 pages, 8 figures, Accepted for publication in A&A (special Letter issue on XMM)

We have been developing a Compton scatter polarimeter for measuring the linear polarization of hard X-rays (100-300 keV) from astrophysical sources. A laboratory prototype polarimeter has been used to successfully demonstrate the reliability of our Monte Carlo simulation code and to demonstrate our ability to generate a polarized photon source in the lab. Our design concept places a self-contained polarimeter module on the front-end of a a 5-inch position sensitive PMT (PSPMT). We are currently working on the fabrication of a science model based on this PSPMT concept. Although the emphasis of our development effort is towards measuring hard X-rays from solar flares, our design has the advantage that it is sensitive over a rather large field-of-view (>1 steradian), a feature that makes it especially attractive for /spl gamma/-ray burst studies.

Observatories are complex scientific and technical institutions serving diverse users and purposes. Their telescopes, instruments, software, and human resources engage in interwoven workflows over a broad range of timescales. These workflows have been tuned to be responsive to concepts of observatory operations that were applicable when various assets were commissioned, years or decades in the past. The astronomical community is entering an era of rapid change increasingly characterized by large time domain surveys, robotic telescopes and automated infrastructures, and - most significantly - of operating modes and scientific consortia that span our individual facilities, joining them into complex network entities. Observatories must adapt and numerous initiatives are in progress that focus on redesigning individual components out of the astronomical toolkit. New instrumentation is both more capable and more complex than ever, and even simple instruments may have powerful observation scripting capabilities. Remote and queue observing modes are now widespread. Data archives are becoming ubiquitous. Virtual observatory standards and protocols and astroinformatics data-mining techniques layered on these are areas of active development. Indeed, new large-aperture ground-based telescopes may be as expensive as space missions and have similarly formal project management processes and large data management requirements. This piecewise approach is not enough. Whatever challenges of funding or politics facing the national and international astronomical communities it will be more efficient - scientifically as well as in the usual figures of merit of cost, schedule, performance, and risks - to explicitly address the systems engineering of the astronomical community as a whole., Comment: SPIE 2014 Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes, and Systems V, Proc. SPIE 9149-5

The prompt optical emission that arrives with the γ-rays from a cosmic γ-ray burst (GRB) is a signature of the engine powering the burst, the properties of the ultra-relativistic ejecta of the explosion, and the ejecta's interactions with the surroundings1,2,3,4,5. Until now, only GRB 990123 had been detected6 at optical wavelengths during the burst phase. Its prompt optical emission was variable and uncorrelated with the prompt γ-ray emission, suggesting that the optical emission was generated by a reverse shock arising from the ejecta's collision with surrounding material. Here we report prompt optical emission from GRB 041219a. It is variable and correlated with the prompt γ-rays, indicating a common origin for the optical light and the γ-rays. Within the context of the standard fireball model of GRBs, we attribute this new optical component to internal shocks driven into the burst ejecta by variations of the inner engine. The correlated optical emission is a direct probe of the jet isolated from the medium. The timing of the uncorrelated optical emission is strongly dependent on the nature of the medium.

The optical light that is generated simultaneously with the x-rays and gamma-rays during a gamma-ray burst (GRB) provides clues about the nature of the explosions that occur as massive stars collapse to form black holes. We report on the bright optical flash and fading afterglow from the powerful burst GRB 130427A and present a comparison with the properties of the gamma-ray emission that show correlation of the optical and >100 MeV photon flux light curves during the first 7,000 seconds. We attribute this correlation to co-generation in an external shock. The simultaneous, multi-color, optical observations are best explained at early times by reverse shock emission generated in the relativistic burst ejecta as it collides with surrounding material and at late times by a forward shock traversing the circumburst environment. The link between optical afterglow and >100 MeV emission suggests that nearby early peaked afterglows will be the best candidates for studying GRB emission at GeV/TeV energies., Main text and supplementary materials that will appear in Science

We investigate the effect that the absorption of high-energy (above 100 MeV) photons produced in GRB afterglow shocks has on the light-curves and spectra of Fermi-LAT afterglows. Afterglows produced by the interaction of a relativistic outflow with a wind-like medium peak when the blast-wave deceleration sets in, and the afterglow spectrum could be hardening before that peak, as the optical thickness to pair-formation is decreasing. In contrast, in afterglows produced in the interaction with a homogeneous medium, the optical thickness to pair-formation should increase and yield a light-curve peak when it reaches unity, followed by a fast light-curve decay, accompanied by a spectral softening. If energy is injected in the blast-wave, then the accelerated increase of the optical thickness yields a convex afterglow light-curve. Other features, such as a double-peak light-curve or a broad hump, can arise from the evolution of the optical thickness to photon-photon absorption. Fast decays and convex light-curves are seen in a few LAT afterglows, but the expected spectral softening is rarely seen in (and difficult to measure with) LAT observations. Furthermore, for the effects of photon-photon attenuation to shape the high-energy afterglow light-curve without attenuating it too much, the ejecta initial Lorentz factor must be in a relatively narrow range (50-200), which reduces the chance of observing those effects., Comment: 8 pages, to appear in the ApJ

CATSAT is a small, fast and cheap space mission currently funded for Phase A studies under the Student Explorer Demonstration Initiative (STEDI) by University Space Research Association. Its prime scientific objective is to determine burst distances by measuring their spectra at energies from 200 keV observations. The Hard X-Ray spectrometer consists of CaF2(Eu)-PMT detectors which are optimized in the cyclotron absorption energy band. The X-ray Albedo Polarimeter consists of nine collimated NaI-PMT detectors observing the earth reflected emission. Results from the XAP will be used to determine the burst direction and to place constraints on X-ray polarization. CATSAT was designed at three universities to be built with student help in two years for a cost of $3.5M.

We model the time-variable absorption of FeII, FeIII, SiII, CII and CrII detected in UVES spectra of GRB 080310, with the afterglow radiation exciting and ionizing the interstellar medium in the host galaxy at a redshift of z=2.42743. To estimate the rest-frame afterglow brightness as a function of time, we use a combination of the optical VRI photometry obtained by the RAPTOR-T telescope array -- which are presented in this paper -- and Swift's X-Ray Telescope observations. Excitation alone, which has been successfully applied for a handful of other GRBs, fails to describe the observed column-density evolution in the case of GRB 080310. Inclusion of ionization is required to explain the column-density decrease of all observed FeII levels (including the ground state 6D9/2) and increase of the FeIII 7S3 level. The large population of ions in this latter level (up to 10% of all FeIII) can only be explained through ionization of FeII, whereby a large fraction of the ionized FeII ions -- we calculate 31% using the Flexible Atomic (FAC) and Cowan codes -- initially populate the 7S3 level of FeIII rather than the ground state. This channel for producing a significant FeIII 7S3 level population may be relevant for other objects in which absorption lines from this level -- the UV34 triplet -- are observed, such as BAL quasars and Eta Carinae. This provides conclusive evidence for time-variable ionization in the circumburst medium, which to date has not been convincingly detected. However, the best-fit distance of the neutral absorbing cloud to the GRB is 200--400 pc, i.e. similar to GRB-absorber distance estimates for GRBs without any evidence for ionization. We find that the presence of time-varying ionization in GRB 080310 is likely due to a combination of the super-solar iron abundance ([Fe/H]=+0.2) and the low HI column density (log N(HI)=18.7). [abridged], Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures; accepted for publication in A&A (on August 8, 2012)

We report the discovery of a six-month-long mid-infrared transient, SDWFS-MT-1 (aka SN 2007va), in the Spitzer Deep, Wide-Field Survey of the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey Bootes field. The transient, located in a z=0.19 low luminosity (M_[4.5]~-18.6 mag, L/L_MilkyWay~0.01) metal-poor (12+log(O/H)~7.8) irregular galaxy, peaked at a mid-infrared absolute magnitude of M_[4.5]~-24.2 in the 4.5 micron Spitzer/IRAC band and emitted a total energy of at least 10^51 ergs. The optical emission was likely fainter than the mid-infrared, although our constraints on the optical emission are poor because the transient peaked when the source was "behind" the Sun. The Spitzer data are consistent with emission by a modified black body with a temperature of ~1350 K. We rule out a number of scenarios for the origin of the transient such as a Galactic star, AGN activity, GRB, tidal disruption of a star by a black hole and gravitational lensing. The most plausible scenario is a supernova exploding inside a massive, optically thick circumstellar medium, composed of multiple shells of previously ejected material. If the proposed scenario is correct, then a significant fraction (~10%) of the most luminous supernova may be self-enshrouded by dust not only before but also after the supernova occurs. The spectral energy distribution of the progenitor of such a supernova would be a slightly cooler version of eta Carina, peaking at 20-30 microns., 26 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in ApJ

WOS: 000274848100054, We present a multi-wavelength study of GRB 081008, at redshift 1.967, by Swift, ROTSE-III, and Gamma-Ray Burst Optical/NearInfrared Detector. Compared to other Swift GRBs, GRB 081008 has a typical gamma-ray isotropic equivalent energy output (similar to 10(53) erg) during the prompt phase, and displayed two temporally separated clusters of pulses. The early X-ray emission seen by the Swift X-Ray Telescope was dominated by the softening tail of the prompt emission, producing multiple flares during and after the Swift Burst Alert Telescope detections. Optical observations that started shortly after the first active phase of gamma-ray emission showed two consecutive peaks. We interpret the first optical peak as the onset of the afterglow associated with the early burst activities. A second optical peak, coincident with the later gamma-ray pulses, imposes a small modification to the otherwise smooth light curve and thus suggests a minimal contribution from a probable internal component. We suggest the early optical variability may be from continuous energy injection into the forward shock front by later shells producing the second epoch of burst activities. These early observations thus provide a potential probe for the transition from the prompt phase to the afterglow phase. The later light curve of GRB 081008 displays a smooth steepening in all optical bands and X-ray. The temporal break is consistent with being achromatic at the observed wavelengths. Our broad energy coverage shortly after the break constrains a spectral break within optical. However, the evolution of the break frequency is not observed. We discuss the plausible interpretations of this behavior., NASA [NNX-08AN25G, NAS5-00136, NNX-08AV63G, PHY-0801007]; STFC; DFG; Australian Research Council; University of New South Wales; University of Texas; University of Michigan; Leibniz-Prize [HA 1850/28-1]; Science and Technology Facilities Council [ST/H001972/1], F.Y. gratefully acknowledges useful discussions with S. B. Pandey. This work made use of data supplied by the UK Swift Science Data Centre at the University of Leicester. F. Y. is supported by the NASA Swift Guest Investigator grants NNX-08AN25G. J.L.R. acknowledges support for this work from NASA contract NAS5-00136. R. W. and P.T.O. gratefully acknowledge funding from the STFC for Swift at the University of Leicester. T. K. acknowledges support by the DFG cluster of excellence "Origin and Structure of the Universe." ROTSE-III has been supported by NASA grant NNX-08AV63G, NSF grant PHY-0801007, the Australian Research Council, the University of New South Wales, the University of Texas, and the University of Michigan. Special thanks to the H. E. S. S. staff, especially Toni Hanke. Part of the funding for GROND (both hardware as well as personnel) was generously granted from the Leibniz-Prize (DFG grant HA 1850/28-1) to Professor G. Hasinger (IPP).

We review high-energy observations of solar flares with emphasis on measurements by instruments on the Solar Maximum Mission satellite. Those observations show that, contrary to prior expectation, high-energy emission is a common property of solar flares. Direct interpretation of the measurements shows that both energetic ion and relativistic electron acceleration are ubiquitous flare phenomena and that those particles can be accelerated to high energies very rapidly. We present evidence that the high-energy emission from flares is anisotropic. We also review how studies of the nuclear line spectra have allowed derivation of characteristics of both the energetic ions and the target material. Altogether, these results clearly refute many of the old ideas about energetic flare particles and have stimulated new thinking about how particles are accelerated and transported during flares.

We report on the results of rapid responses to GRB 080330 and GRB 080413A by the ROTSE-IIIb and ROTSE-IIIc telecopes. In both cases, optical follow-up started during the prompt emission phase and recorded optical flares peaking at similar times as the last hard X-ray pulses detected by the Swift BAT. For both events, the XRT observations started at the end of the prompt BAT detection and displayed an evolution in time opposite to the optical lightcurve. These very early observations provide us an opportunity to probe the onset of afterglow for these two events.

We report on observations of a gamma-ray burst (GRB 061126) with an extremely bright (R ~ 12 mag at peak) early-time optical afterglow. The optical afterglow is already fading as a power law 22 seconds after the trigger, with no detectable prompt contribution in our first exposure, which was coincident with a large prompt-emission gamma-ray pulse. The optical--infrared photometric spectral energy distribution is an excellent fit to a power law, but it exhibits a moderate red-to-blue evolution in the spectral index at about 500 s after the burst. This color change is contemporaneous with a switch from a relatively fast decay to slower decay. The rapidly decaying early afterglow is broadly consistent with synchrotron emission from a reverse shock, but a bright forward-shock component predicted by the intermediate- to late-time X-ray observations under the assumptions of standard afterglow models is not observed. Indeed, despite its remarkable early-time brightness, this burst would qualify as a dark burst at later times on the basis of its nearly flat optical-to-X-ray spectral index. Our photometric spectral energy distribution provides no evidence of host-galaxy extinction, requiring either large quantities of grey dust in the host system (at redshift 1.1588 +/- 0.0006, based upon our late-time Keck spectroscopy) or separate physical origins for the X-ray and optical afterglows., Comment: Revised version submitted to ApJ. Contains significantly expanded discussion, an additional figure, and numerous other changes

We present several cases of optical observations during gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) which resulted in prompt limits but no detection of optical emission. These limits constrain the prompt optical flux densities and the optical brightness relative to the gamma-ray emission. The derived constraints fall within the range of properties observed in GRBs with prompt optical detections, though at the faint end of optical/gamma flux ratios. The presently accessible prompt optical limits do not require a different set of intrinsic or environmental GRB properties, relative to the events with prompt optical detections., Comment: ApJ accepted. 20 pages in draft manuscript form, which includes 6 pages of tables and 2 figures

ROTSE-III is a homogeneous worldwide array of 4 robotic telescopes. They were designed to provide optical observations of γ -ray burst (GRB) afterglows as close as possible to the start of γ -ray emission. ROTSE-III is fulfilling its potential for GRB science, and provides optical observations for a variety of astrophysical sources in the interim between GRB events. (© 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Over the past four years we have seen continued advancement in network technology and how those technologies are beginning to enable astronomical science. Even though some sociological aspects are hindering full cooperation between most observatories and telescopes outside of their academic or institutional connections, an unprecedented step during the summer of 2005 was taken towards creating a world-wide interconnection of astronomical assets. The Telescope Alert Operations Network System (TALONS), a cen tralized server/client bi-directional network developed and operated by Los Alamos National Labor atory, integrated one of its network nodes with a node from the eScience Telescopes for Astronomical Research (e STAR) , a peer-to-peer agent based network developed and operated by The University of Exeter. Each network can act independently, providing support for their direct clients, and by interconnection provide local clients with access to; outside telescope systems, software tools unavailable locally, and the ability to utilize assets far more efficiently, thereby enabling science on a world-wide scale. In this paper we will look at the evolution of these independent networks into the worlds first heterogeneous telescope network and where this may take astronomy in the future. We will also examine those key elements necessary to providing universal communication between diverse astronomical networks. Keywords: robotic telescope, communication, interc onnection, network, servers, clients.

Linking ground based telescopes with astronomical satellites, and using the emerging field of intelligent agent architectures to provide crucial autonomous decision making in software, we have combined data archives and research class robotic telescopes along with distributed computing nodes to build an ad-hoc peer-to-peer heterogeneous network of resources. The eSTAR Project* uses intelligent agent technologies to carry out resource discovery, submit observation requests and analyze the reduced data returned from a meta-network of robotic telescopes. We present the current operations paradigm of the eSTAR network and describe the direction of in which the project intends to develop over the next several years. We also discuss the challenges facing the project, including the very real sociological one of user acceptance.

The robotic ROTSE-III telescope network detected prompt optical emission contemporaneous with the gamma-ray emission of Swift events GRB051109A and GRB051111. Both datasets have continuous coverage at high signal-to-noise levels from the prompt phase onwards, thus the early observations are readily compared to the Swift XRT and BAT high energy detections. In both cases, the optical afterglow is established, declining steadily during the prompt emission. For GRB051111, there is evidence of an excess optical component during the prompt emission. The component is consistent with the flux spectrally extrapolated from the gamma-rays, using the gamma-ray spectral index. A compilation of spectral information from previous prompt detections shows that such a component is unusual. The existence of two prompt optical components - one connected to the high-energy emission, the other to separate afterglow flux, as indicated in GRB051111 - is not compatible with a simple ``external-external'' shock model for the GRB and its afterglow., Comment: ApJ accepted. 32 pages (in preprint form), 5 tables, 5 figures

We present XMM-Newton and Chandra X-ray observations of the middle-aged radio pulsar PSR B0355+54. Our X-ray observations reveal emission not only from the pulsar itself, but also from a compact diffuse component extending ~50'' in the opposite direction to the pulsar's proper motion. There is also evidence for the presence of fainter diffuse emission extending ~5' from the point source. The compact diffuse feature is well-fitted with a power-law, the index of which is consistent with the values found for other pulsar wind nebulae. The morphology of the diffuse component is similar to the ram-pressure confined pulsar wind nebulae detected for other sources. The X-ray emission from the pulsar itself is described well by a thermal plus power-law fit, with the thermal emission most likely originating in a hot polar cap., Comment: 9 pages (uses emulateapj.cls), 8 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ

We present a proper motion mini-survey of 35 fields in the vicinity of Baade window, (l, b) = (1 deg, -4 deg), sampling roughly a 5 x 2.5 deg region of the Galactic bar. Our second epoch observations collected with the ACS/HRC instrument on board the Hubble Space Telescope were combined with the archival WFPC2/PC images. The resulting time baselines are in the range of 4 - 8 years. Precise proper motions of 15,863 stars were determined in the reference frame defined by the mean motion of stars with magnitudes between I_F814W = 16.5 - 21.5 along the line of sight. We clearly detect small gradients in proper motion dispersions (sigma_l, sigma_b) ~ (3.0, 2.5) mas/yr, and in the amount of anisotropy (sigma_l/sigma_b ~ 1.2). Both the longitude dispersion sigma_l and its ratio to the vertical motion sigma_b increase toward the Galactic plane. The decline of the anisotropy ratio sigma_l/sigma_b toward the minor axis of the bulge is mostly due to increasing sigma_b. We also find, for the first time, a significant negative covariance term in the transverse velocity field sigma_lb/(sigma_l*sigma_b) ~ -0.10. Our results extend by a factor of ~15 the number of the Galactic bar fields with good proper motion dispersions., Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS

We report the successful performance of the Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment (ROTSE) to promptly‐disseminated Swift GRB triggers. ROTSE‐III is a worldwide network of 4 unfiltered 0.45m optical telescopes. The telescopes operate robotically, automatically responding to GRB position triggers with a preset observations sequence. Including weather and other downtime, ROTSE‐III can immediately respond to ∼40% of Swift trigger positions, with shutter open within approximately 6–8 seconds from the trigger dissemination. We discuss improvements made possible in the automated response the the small, accurate Swift error boxes. We report ROTSE‐III’s general results, including OTs discovered or confirmed, the distribution of imaging start times relative to the GRB duration, and an overview of OT lightcurves.