Gaia science alerts and the observing facilities of the Serbian-Bulgarian mini-network telescopes

Abstract

The astrometric European Space Agency (ESA) Gaia mission was launched in December 19, 2013. One of the tasks of the Gaia mission is production of an astrometric catalog of over one billion stars and more than 500000 extragalactic sources. The quasars (QSOs), as extragalactic sources and radio emitters, are active galactic nuclei objects (AGNs) whose coordinates are well determined via Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) technique and may reach sub-milliarcsecond accuracy. The QSOs are the defining sources of the quasi-inertial International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF) because of their core radio morphology, negligible proper motions (until sub-milliarcsecond per year), and apparent point-like nature. Compact AGNs, visible in optical domain, are useful for a direct link of the future Gaia optical reference frame with the most accurate radio one. Apart from the above mentioned activities, Gaia has other goals such as follow-up of transient objects. One of the most important Gaia's requirements for photometric alerts is a fast observation and reduction response, that is, submition of observations within 24 hours. For this reason we have developed a pipeline. In line with possibilities of our new telescope (D(cm)/F(cm)=60/600) at the Astronomical Station Vidojevica (ASV, of the Astronomical Observatory in Belgrade), we joined the Gaia-Follow-Up Network for Transients Objects (Gaia-FUN-TO) for the photometric alerts. Moreover, in view of the cooperation with Bulgarian colleagues (in the frst place, SV), one of us (GD) initiated a local mini-network of Serbian { Bulgarian telescopes useful for the Gaia-FUN-TO and other astronomical purposes. During the next year we expect a new 1.4 m telescope at ASV site. The speed of data processing (from observation to calibration server) could be one day. Here, we present an overview of our activities in the Gaia-FUN-TO which includes establishing Serbian { Bulgarian mini-network (of five telescopes at three sites, ASV in Serbia, Belogradchik and Rozhen in Bulgaria), the Gaia-FUN-TO test observations, and some results.