Type: Talk
Session: Transient and Variable Star Science I
Author: Manisha Shrestha

Abstract: Timely follow-up of transients is essential in improving our understanding of these events. LSST will increase the number of transients discovered by two orders of magnitudes. However, rapid spectroscopic follow-up of these discoveries, which is essential to improving our understanding of these events, is lagging. To fill this gap, we have developed a Python package, PyMMT, which allows the user to trigger the spectrographs on MMT, a 6.5m class telescope at Mt. Hopkins, Arizona with the click of a button. This feature is crucial to performing rapid spectroscopic follow-up of transients from our surveys (e.g. DLT40, SAGUARO) and others (e.g. ATLAS, ZTF) and will be utilized when LSST comes online. PyMMT has been integrated into Searches After Gravitational-waves Using Arizona Observatories (SAGUARO), a newly designed web-based target and observation manager, built using the TOM Toolkit that coordinates a survey such as LSST with observations from other facilities. PyMMT can be integrated by other groups for their own transient searches. In addition, we have developed interfaces to report observations and transients to the GW Treasure Map and the Transient Name Server, interactive visualizations of GW localization regions using Aladin Lite, and tools for administering a time-domain survey. I will present the infrastructure we have developed for GW, supernovae, and other interesting transients which are at the core of the science cases of the LSST Transients and Variable Stars collaboration.