Overview 

The Zadko Telescope plays a niche role in Australian astronomy, as it is the only
metre class facility in Australia dedicated to automated follow-up imaging of alerts
or triggers received from different external instruments/detectors spanning the
entire electromagnetic spectrum. 

The location of the facility at a longitude not covered by other metre class
facilities provides an important resource for time critical projects.

The core science projects active in 2014-2016, include:

• Automated rapid follow-up of gamma ray burst (GRB) optical afterglows
• Optical follow-up of gravitational wave candidates from the LIGO and Virgo
  gravitational wave observatory network
• Searching for optical counterparts (possible supernovae) from neutrinos detected
  from the ANTARES neutrino observatory
• Very low latency follow-up of fast radio bursts triggered by Parkes radio telescope.
• Follow-up of slow transient candidates from the “Deeper Wider Faster” project
  supernovae searches in nearby galaxies
• Near Earth and Solar System Projects
• Photometry of rare (Barbarian) asteroids, to determine their shape and formation
  history
• Quasar photometric monitoring for the ESA Gaia mission
• Space debris monitoring (pilot projects planned)

Collaborators

We have a number of research collaborators, both nationally and internationally:

National collaborators

• Ozgrav
  Ozgrav is the ARC Centre of Excellence
  for gravitational wave discovery.
• Swinburne Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing
• The Australian International Gravitational Research Centre (AIGRC)

International collaborators

• Observatoire de Haute-Provence, France
• Observatoire de Cote d’Azur
• The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)

Project Links

• Gaia - Astrometric Satellite (ESA)
• Antares - Undersea Neutrino Telescope (France)
• LIGO - Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (USA)
• DWF - Deeper, Wider, Faster transient survey (Australia)