The R2Pub Telescopes for Surveying: An Overview and Performance Evaluation of the System

TL;DR

The paper provides an overview and initial performance evaluation of the R2Pub telescope system, highlighting its design, survey capabilities, and potential for transient and variable source detection at a high-altitude observatory.

Contribution

It introduces the R2Pub telescope system, detailing its design, instrumentation, and initial performance metrics, which are novel for its high-altitude binocular survey capabilities.

Findings

Achieved a 5-sigma limiting magnitude of 18.7 in 60s exposures.

System successfully installed and entered commissioning phase.

Binocular design enables simultaneous dual-band observations.

Abstract

The R2Pub telescope, built by the Beijing Planetarium, is a 60 cm equatorial binocular telescope located at the Daocheng site of Yunnan Observatories in China, at an altitude of about 4700 m. This paper presents an overview of the R2Pub telescope system, including its design, instrumentation, and survey capabilities, and reports an initial evaluation of its system performance. R2Pub is a prime-focus binocular system, with each optical tube covering a field of view of approximately 18 square degrees. It is designed to detect a wide range of transient and variable sources in the local universe, such as variable stars, eclipsing binaries, supernovae, gamma-ray burst afterglows, tidal disruption events, active galactic nuclei, and other unknown transients. The observatory infrastructure, including the dome, equatorial mount, optical tubes, and associated subsystems, has been fully constructed and installed, and the system has entered the commissioning phase. Benefiting from the high-altitude location, good seeing conditions, and dark sky background at the Daocheng site, performance tests during commissioning show that the R2Pub system can reach a 5-sigma limiting magnitude of about 18.7 mag in the Pan-STARRS r' band with a 60 s exposure. Ongoing observations with R2Pub are expected to contribute to studies of variable and transient phenomena and to enhance public outreach in astronomy. The binocular design enables simultaneous dual-band observations, providing instantaneous color information for transient sources and improving the classification and physical characterization of their properties and evolution.