- DDOTI Observations and Detection of GRB 180914B
- DDOTI First Science Observations
- DDOTI C0 Failure
- DDOTI Engineering Run
- DDOTI Open after the Winter Break
DDOTI Observations and Detection of GRB 180914B
18 September 2018
DDOTI observed the Fermi/LAT GRB 180914B, detecting it on the nights of 16 and 17 September 2018 and confirming fading from w = 19.5 to w = 20.3. We reported our results in a GCN Circular
DDOTI First Science Observations
6 March 2018
We took our first science data with DDOTI last night, observing the field of the LAT GRB 180305A (Axelsson et al. 2018).
We achieved a 10σ limiting magnitude of about w = 20.1 in about three hours during twilight and bright time. This was not enough to detect the afterglow, which was at about r = 22.0 according to our simultaneous RATIR observations (Troja et al. 2018). We observed about 18 hours after trigger and during twilight and bright time, so our non-detection is not too surprising. Nevertheless, these observations show that we are making good progress and are achieving useful sensitivity for younger and brighter afterglows.
DDOTI C0 Failure
13 February 2018
We’ve had two failures with C0 at DDOTI: the shutter is intermittently not closing completely and there has been some sort of failure in the focus mechanism and we can’t focus. We hope to fix these when Carlos is next at the observatory from 21 March.
In the meantime we are observing with C1.
DDOTI Engineering Run
26 January 2018
Alan Watson and Fernando Quirós installed new network and control hardware at DDOTI to better handle the quantity of data produced by the large-format CCDs. Alan Watson and Carlos Tejada repaired, cleaned, and aligned C1, the second telescope and CCD.
Carlos with the C1 Telescope Corrector Plate.
DDOTI Open after the Winter Break
8 January 2018
The OAN has resumed operations after the winter break. DDOTI has opened again.
DDOTI Presented at “Deciphering the Violent Universe”
14 December 2017
Rosa Becerra-Godínez gave an oral presentation on DDOTI (and COATLI) at the “Deciphering the Violent Universe” conference.
DDOTI Closed for the Winter Break
14 December 2017
The OAN ceases operations for three weeks over Christmas and New Year. DDOTI closed today and will reopen in the week of 8 January 2018.
DDOTI Can Now Close in the Cold
7 December 2017
We believe we have finally fixed a problem that caused the DDOTI enclosure to fail to close at low temperatures.
The DDOTI enclosure was mistakenly shipped with standard oil in the gearboxes and small capacitors on the motors. This caused it to fail to close below +10 C. We replaced the oil with a local low-temperature oil and larger capacitors, but the enclosure would still fail to close below +5 C. This obviously caused significant restrictions on robotic operations and impeded commissioning.
Over the last few days, we installed special low-temperature oil and special larger capacitors sent by the manufacturer, and tonight were able to successfully close at −6 C! We hope the problem is now solved.
DDOTI Optical Alignment
26 October 2017
We have aligned one of the tubes of DDOTI using a prototype tip-tilt adapter designed by Alex Farah. This is necessary because the telescope beam is fast (f/2.2) and the detector is large (37 mm square). The tube now gives uniform images with 2 pixel FWHM (4 arcsec) over the whole field of view. To demonstrate this, we show below a 60 second image of the Andromeda Galaxy M31 and its satellite galaxies M32 and M110.
M31 and its satellites M32 and M110 imaged by DDOTI after optical alignment.
DDOTI in Nature News
13 October 2017
Davide Castelvecchi has written a Nature News article on DDOTI and other telescopes dedicated to the search for the optical counterparts of gravitational wave events.
DDOTI First-Light
30 June 2017
We gave a press conference to announce first-light with DDOTI! DDOTI was operating with only two tubes, but even so the combined field was about 23 square degrees.
The first-light image with DDOTI showing M87 and other galaxies in the Virgo Cluster. This image was taken with two tubes, each with a field of 3.4 degrees to a side. The final imager will have a field that is three times larger. The moon is shown to give an idea of the scale.
The two DDOTI tubes at about the time of first light.
The DDOTI tower at about the time of first light.
First-light was the result of the work of many people, including: Fernando Ángeles, Rosa Becerra, Tülin Bedel, Nathaniel Butler, Alejandro Farah, Manuel González, Josef Huber, William Lee, Liliana Figueroa, Fernando Quirós, Carlos Román-Zúñiga, Carlos Tejada, and Alan Watson.
For more details (in Spanish), see:
First-light was reported by the Mexican press, including:
DDOTI Installation
6 June 2017
Members of the DDOTI team, along with Josef Huber and Tülin Bedel of ASTELCO Systems GmbH, have begun the installation of the DDOTI tower, enclosure, mount, and first two tubes.