Astro-COLIBRI

TOMs and observing services

Overview
Astro-COLIBRI hands events and observations over to the follow-up tools of the community, with your own accounts:
- Target and Observation Managers (TOMs) such as BHTOM: send an event as a target.
- The Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) network: request observations of an event and follow their state.
- SkyPortal instances such as ICARE of the GRANDMA collaboration: save an event as a source.
- The Gravitational-Wave Treasure Map: report the pointings of your follow-up of gravitational-wave events, and see everybody's pointings on the Astro-COLIBRI sky map.
- Virtual Observatory desktop tools such as TOPCAT, Aladin Desktop and DS9, via SAMP: send an event from the web interface to the applications on your computer.
All connections are managed in the app under Account settings > Observatory & TOM access. A green button means the connection is active; press it again to replace or remove the connection. Once connected, the services appear as cards in the follow-up section of each event (in the web interface in science mode, press "Start follow-up campaigns: click here" above the links).

Your credentials. The Astro-COLIBRI servers check the API token or login you enter and keep it with your account. It is only used for the actions you start, never shown to other users, and deleted when you disconnect. You can also revoke a token at any time on the service itself.

Running an observatory or a collaboration? Besides these services, Astro-COLIBRI runs dedicated, private integrations with a variety of observatories and collaborations, for example to request follow-up observations directly from an event. They are accessible only to the members of these collaborations. If you would like to set up such an integration for your observatory or collaboration, contact us at astro.colibri@gmail.com.

Target and Observation Managers (TOMs)
TOMs built with the TOM Toolkit, such as BHTOM, keep the targets of an observing team.
1. Under Observatory & TOM access, choose a TOM from the list (BHTOM and the TOMs published by other users), or add the address of a new one.
2. Log in with your account on that TOM.
3. On an event, press the TOM's card in the follow-up section to send the event as a target. If it is already there, the card opens it on the TOM.

Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO)
With time on an LCO proposal, you can request imaging of an event's position on the LCO network. Connect with the API token from your Observation Portal profile.
1. On an event, press "Request observations of the event" on the LCO card.
2. Choose the proposal, the imager (Sinistro, QHY600, or the SOAR and Blanco imagers your proposal covers), the filters, the exposures, the observation window and the maximum airmass.
3. Choose the observation type. Time-critical and rapid-response requests need time of that type on the proposal; rapid-response requests start right away and end within 24 hours.
LCO checks visibility and time allocation and explains a refusal field by field.

Following the requests. "State and data of your requests" on the LCO card lists the event's requests on your proposals, newest first, with their state (pending, completed, window expired, failure limit reached or cancelled). Each links to its page in the Observation Portal with the observations and data; completed requests show the number of reduced frames in the LCO archive. Pending requests can be cancelled there.

SkyPortal (ICARE)
SkyPortal is the data platform behind several follow-up collaborations. ICARE, the SkyPortal instance of the GRANDMA collaboration, is available without any setup.
1. On your SkyPortal profile page, create an API token with the Upload data permission, and Comment so that the sources link back to Astro-COLIBRI.
2. Under Observatory & TOM access > SkyPortal instances, choose ICARE (or another instance) and paste the token.
3. On an event, press the instance's card and choose the groups that should see the source.
Another SkyPortal instance can be added with its name and https:// address. You can access it right-away and it will become available to other users after the Astro-COLIBRI team has reviewed it.

Gravitational-Wave Treasure Map
The Gravitational-Wave Treasure Map collects the planned and completed pointings of all observatories following up gravitational-wave events, so that the localization is covered efficiently. Connect with the API token from your Treasure Map profile page. Your instrument must be registered on Treasure Map; if it is missing, submit it there.

Reporting pointings Everything happens in one Treasure Map dialog with two tabs: "Report" for new pointings and "My pointings" for the ones you already reported for the event. It opens from the Treasure Map card in the follow-up section ("Report or update your pointings") and from "Report to Treasure Map" under a tilepy schedule.
- A tilepy schedule: after computing an observation schedule for a gravitational-wave event, press "Report to Treasure Map" under the table of pointings. The instrument of the scheduled observatory (e.g. H.E.S.S.) is preselected.
- A single pointing: from the Treasure Map card of a gravitational-wave event, of one pointing of a tilepy schedule (with its scheduled time) or of a custom event. For a custom event, enter the GraceDB ID of the gravitational-wave event you followed up (e.g. S250818k).
Planned pointings need an instrument, a position and a time; completed ones also need a band and a depth.

Completing or cancelling them. As Treasure Map asks, report your planned pointings as completed once observed, and cancel those you will not observe so that others know the fields are free. In the "My pointings" tab, which the dialog shows after each report, select the planned pointings, then enter band and depth and press "Report completed", or press "Cancel pointings".

Everybody's pointings on the sky map. For gravitational-wave events, the "Treasure Map pointings" button draws all reported pointings on the Astro-COLIBRI sky map with the footprints of the instruments, completed ones solid and planned ones fainter. No Treasure Map account is needed. The legend switches instruments and the completed and planned pointings on and off.

Virtual Observatory desktop tools (SAMP)
The web interface sends events to the Virtual Observatory applications running on your computer, such as TOPCAT, Aladin Desktop and DS9, with the IVOA SAMP protocol. No account or connection setup is needed.
1. Start TOPCAT or Aladin Desktop on your computer: they open a SAMP hub.
2. In the web interface in science mode, press the send button next to "Download the event" in the details of an event.
3. The first time, accept the connection request from Astro-COLIBRI in TOPCAT or Aladin Desktop. If your browser asks for permission to access devices on your local network, allow it.
Astro-COLIBRI sends the position of the event, on which Aladin Desktop and DS9 centre their view, and the event as a VOTable, which TOPCAT and Aladin Desktop load. The VOTable comes from the public API endpoint /get_event_as_votable, which you can also use directly. Custom events are sent as a position only.

SAMP works in Chrome and Firefox. Safari cannot connect to a SAMP hub on your computer.

Astro-COLIBRI

Menu

TOMs and observing services

Overview

Target and Observation Managers (TOMs)

Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO)

SkyPortal (ICARE)

Gravitational-Wave Treasure Map

Virtual Observatory desktop tools (SAMP)