
Proceedings Paper
In memory of Bohdan PaczyńskiFormat | Member Price | Non-Member Price |
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$17.00 | $21.00 |
Paper Abstract
Sessions XIV and XV of the XXth Wilga Symposium were devoted to the Pi of the Sky project, aimed at massive
automated photometry of celestial objects. The original goal of the project was early detection of optical afterglows
from gamma-ray bursts, but it soon expanded into a general survey of all kinds of fast astronomical phenomena
occurring above a certain limiting magnitude. The idea stems from two ingenious suggestions by late Professor Bohdan
Paczynski: that gamma bursts are extragalactic phenomena (therefore, they are extremely energetic and equally
extremely interesting), and that the classical observational approach (big telescopes, long exposures, small areas of the
sky) should be supplemented by "massive photometry", with many small telescopes quickly repeating observations of
large areas of the sky (in a desirable limit - of the whole sky). Paczynski was not personally involved in Pi of the Sky,
but as the spiritual father of the project, and as one of the greatest contemporary astrophysicists, he certainly deserves to
be remembered here.
Paper Details
Date Published: 28 December 2007
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 6937, Photonics Applications in Astronomy, Communications, Industry, and High-Energy Physics Experiments 2007, 693701 (28 December 2007); doi: 10.1117/12.784562
Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6937:
Photonics Applications in Astronomy, Communications, Industry, and High-Energy Physics Experiments 2007
Ryszard S. Romaniuk, Editor(s)
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 6937, Photonics Applications in Astronomy, Communications, Industry, and High-Energy Physics Experiments 2007, 693701 (28 December 2007); doi: 10.1117/12.784562
Show Author Affiliations
Michał Różyczka, Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Ctr. (Poland)
Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6937:
Photonics Applications in Astronomy, Communications, Industry, and High-Energy Physics Experiments 2007
Ryszard S. Romaniuk, Editor(s)
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