STDWeb: Simple Transient Detection pipeline for the Web

TL;DR

STDWeb is a user-friendly, web-based tool that streamlines the process of photometry and transient detection in astronomical images, supporting automated workflows and easy deployment for robotic telescopes.

Contribution

It introduces a simple, self-contained web platform for comprehensive transient detection and photometry, integrating multiple analysis steps into an accessible interface.

Findings

Supports automatic image calibration and object detection

Enables image subtraction with templates for transient identification

Facilitates integration into robotic telescope data pipelines

Abstract

We present a simple web-based tool, STDWeb, for a quick-look photometry and transient detection in astronomical images. It tries to implement a self-consistent and mostly automatic data analysis workflow that would work on any image uploaded to it, allowing to perform basic interactive masking, do object detection, astrometrically calibrate the image, and build the photometric solution based on a selection of catalogues and supported filters, optionally including the color term and positionally varying zero point. It also allows you to do image subtraction using either user-provided or automatically downloaded template images, and do a forced photometry for a specified target in either original or difference images, as well as transient detection with basic rejection of artefacts. The tool may be easily deployed allowing its integration into the infrastructure of robotic telescopes or data archives for effortless analysis of their images.