Towards an automatic processing of CCD images with CPCS 2.0

TL;DR

The paper introduces CPCS 2.0, an automated tool for rapid photometric calibration of CCD images in time-domain astronomy, enhancing data processing speed and multi-instrument integration for transient event observations.

Contribution

It presents the development and improvements of CPCS 2.0, enabling automatic, rapid, and multi-instrument photometric calibration for transient astronomy.

Findings

CPCS 2.0 can process data from multiple telescopes and instruments.

It provides science-ready photometric data within minutes.

The tool has been used to calibrate around 130,000 observations.

Abstract

We present a new automatic tool for time-domain astronomy - the Cambridge Photometric Calibration Server 2.0 - developed under OPTICON H2020 programme. It has been designed to respond to the need of automated rapid photometric data calibration and dissemination for transient events, primarily from Gaia space mission. CPCS has been in operation since 2013 and has been used to calibrate around 130 000 observations of hundreds of transients. We present the status of this tool's development and demonstrate improvements made in the second version. The tests present the ability to combine CCD imaging data from multiple telescopes and a whole variety of instruments. New tool provides science-ready photometric data within minutes from observations in the automatic manner.