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Coming Soon

Document Version: 1.9 | Last Updated: March 2026

Transient Alert System

A transient alert ingestion, filtering, and follow-up system is under active development in a separate repository. Once integrated with the Science Scheduler, it will enable automated and coordinated follow-up of astronomical transients across connected observatories.

What It Does

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory began issuing public alerts in February 2026, detecting hundreds of thousands of changes in the sky each night — supernovae, cataclysmic variables, asteroids, and unknown phenomena. The transient alert system bridges the gap between these alert streams and your observatory's observation queue.

Key Capabilities (In Development)

  • Multi-broker alert ingestion — Ingests and normalizes alerts from ALeRCE, Fink, Lasair, ANTARES, and TNS (Transient Name Server for spectroscopic classifications)
  • Multimessenger events — NASA GCN (Kafka stream) integration for gamma-ray bursts, gravitational wave counterparts, and neutrino events
  • Intelligent scoring — Three-axis evaluation engine combining science value, urgency (time-decay models for 25+ transient types), and observability from your location
  • Cross-matching — Deduplication across brokers with 2-arcsecond radius matching and priority rules (TNS name > Rubin dia_object_id > position)
  • Observation planning — Template-based exposure plans by transient type and brightness, with recommended filters and cadence
  • Tonight's Queue — A dashboard showing the highest-priority targets observable tonight, with altitude plots, light curves, and classification breakdowns
  • Explorer — Filterable alert browser for discovering and researching transient candidates

Planned Integration

The transient system is designed to integrate with the Science Scheduler as an automated target source. When connected, it will be able to:

  • Submit follow-up observations directly to the scheduler queue
  • Coordinate multi-observatory follow-up for time-critical events
  • Track observation completions and update transient records with results

Current Status

The system is in active development (Phase 6) with core broker ingestion, scoring, observation planning, and a web dashboard substantially complete. Integration with the Science Scheduler will be documented here when available.

For a history of all documented features and changes, see the Changelog.

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