Transient Astronomy: The Technology and the Techniques
One of the most rapidly advancing fields in modern astrophysics is the
detection and exploitation of explosive transients, thanks to the
impact of surveys such as iPTF, PanSTARRS, ASAS-SN, MASTER and Gaia.
This topic encompasses a wide variety of source types observed across
the electromagnetic spectrum, and is of fundamental importance to
cosmology, stellar evolution and high energy astrophysics. As we move
into the next era of transient astronomy, new generation of facilities
focused on electromagnetic and multi-messenger observations such as
LSST and aLIGO/AdVirgo will fundamentally change our analytical
approaches and open new windows upon the time variable sky.
This session will build on the successful sessions we have run on this
theme at previous NAMs. We will aim to bring together researchers from
around the transient community to report new results, and discuss the
facilities, instrumentation and techniques required as we prepare for
the observational challenges and opportunities associated with the
new, data-rich era.
Chris Copperwheat
Monday Sessions 1 and 2; LT 12, Wilberforce building