Oral Presentation

The SED Machine - Fast Classification of Transient Objects

Andreas Ritter (NCU, Taiwan) Nick Konidaris (Caltech, USA) Robert Quimby (University of Tokyo, Japan) Chow Choong Ngeow (NCU, Taiwan) Sagi Ben-Ami (The Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel)

The field of time-domain astronomy is expected to enjoy a golden age during this decade.
However, the traditional method for the classification of transient candidates using spectra
obtained with medium- to large-aperture telescopes is extremely time consuming and struggling
to keep up with the discovery rate. The Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) Machine uses a new
approach in order to overcome this shortcoming. It employs a lenslet-based Integral-Field Unit
(IFU) with a Field-of-View (FoV) of 26"x26" and 3,600 hexagonal ~0.675"
spaxels, as well as a 4-colour Rainbow Camera (RC) for flux calibration. The nearly constant
resolution of R~100 over an extremely wide wavelength range 370-920 nm is sufficient
to effectively classify transients. The SED Machine is scheduled to start operation at the Palomar
60-inch (P60) telescope later in 2013.