REM

REM

Rapid Eye Mount – Notre Dome de La Silla

SHORT DESCRIPTION

REM (Rapid Eye Mount) is a Italian 60 cm diameter fast reacting telescope located in the La Silla premises of the ESO Chilean Observatory on the edge of the Atacama Desert, 600 km north of Santiago de Chile and at an altitude of 2400 meters above sea level.

It is equipped at the Nasmyth focus with two cameras: one working in the visible and one in the infrared and is the only robotic telescope with a working infrared camera. This makes it particularly suitable for some types of science that would otherwise typically be the preserve of larger telescopes, with more important instrumentation.

REM‘s main feature is that it is fast (hence the “R” in its name). Its motors are powerful and directly connected to the movement of the telescope. Within 30 seconds of a satellite alert, REM is already observing the object that is indicated. It is therefore very fast and was conceived, designed and built to find the optical and infrared counterpart of the afterglows of Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) in “collaboration” with the Swift satellite. GRBs were the main objective of the telescope, which however was offered to the Italian community to also make other observations, through six-monthly calls, together with TNG and LBT. Since it is located in Chile, the Chilean community is also entitled to a 10 percent share of the observation time. All these programs end up in the belly of its robotic scheduler and gradually the objects that are at the moment of maximum visibility are observed. But the GRB alert is a priority: if it arrives, REM stops observing what it is observing and points to the coordinates indicated by the satellite. Over the years, the community’s interest in quickly following GRBs has gradually waned and REM has observed other extremely interesting celestial objects such as active galactic nuclei, stellar objects, exoplanets, etc.

ROLE OF THE OBSERVATORY

REM is managed on behalf of INAF by a group of people located in different institutes (the so called d’REM Team). Several researchers and technicians from our observatory are part of this team that is responsible for the good functioning of the REM Observatory, has technical tasks and has the final decision on the planning of the objectives. The team mainly includes the people who have designed, built and managed REM and the cameras since the beginning.

OBSERVATORY STAFF INVOLVED

Emilio Molinari – Director, Dome, Telescope – emilo.molinari AT inaf.it
Stefano Covino – Observing software – stefano.covino AT inaf.it
Dino Fugazza – Observation Software, VIS data acquisition – dino.fugazza AT inaf.it
Giuseppe Malaspina – IT System manager, network – giuseppe.malaspina AT inaf.it

TIMELINE

2003 –

WEBSITE

REM

CONTACT

CREDITS

Web page content: E. Molinari