The BlackGEM telescope array I: Overview
Creators: name: Groot, Paul J.
name: Bloemen, S.
name: Vreeswijk, P.
name: van Roestel, J.
name: Jonker, P. G.
name: Nelemans, G.
name: Klein-Wolt, M.
name: Poole, R. Le
name: Pieterse, D.
name: Rodenhuis, M.
name: Boland, W.
name: Haverkorn, M.
name: Aerts, C.
name: Bakker, R.
name: Balster, H.
name: Bekema, M.
name: Dijkstra, E.
name: Dolron, P.
name: Elswijk, E.
name: van Elteren, A.
name: Engels, A.
name: Fokker, M.
name: de Haan, M.
name: Hahn, F.
name: ter Horst, R.
name: Lesman, D.
name: Kragt, J.
name: Morren, J.
name: Nillissen, H.
name: Pessemier, W.
name: de Rijke, A
name: Raskin, G.
name: Scheers, L. H. A.
name: Schuil, M.
name: Timmer, S. T.
name: Amaral, L. Antunes
name: Arancibia-Rojas, E.
name: Arcavi, I.
name: Blagorodnova, N.
name: Biswas, S.
name: Breton, R.
name: Dawson, H.
name: Dayal, P.
name: De Wet, S.
name: Duffy, C.
name: Faris, S.
name: Fausnaugh, M.
name: Gal-Yam, A.
name: Geier, S.
name: Horesh, A.
name: Johnston, C.
name: Wijnands, R. A. D.
name: Modiano, D.
name: Katusiime, G.
name: Kelley, C.
name: Kosakowski, A.
name: Kupfer, T.
name: Leloudas, G.
name: Mogawana, O.
name: Munday, J.
name: Paice, J. A.
name: Patat, F.
name: Pelisoli, I.
name: Ramsay, G.
name: Ranaivomanana, P. T.
name: Ruiz-Carmona, R.
name: Schaffenroth, V.
name: Scaringi, S.
name: Stoppa, F.
name: Street, R.
name: Tranin, H.
name: Uzundag, M.
name: Valenti, S.
name: Veresvarska, M.
name: Vuckovic, M.
name: Wichern, H. C. I.
name: Wijers, R. A. M. J.
name: Zimmerman, E.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The main science aim of the BlackGEM array is to detect optical counterparts to gravitational wave mergers. Additionally, the array will perform a set of synoptic surveys to detect Local Universe transients and short time-scale variability in stars and binaries, as well as a six-filter all-sky survey down to ~22nd mag. The BlackGEM Phase-I array consists of three optical wide-field unit telescopes. Each unit uses an f/5.5 modified Dall-Kirkham (Harmer-Wynne) design with a triplet corrector lens, and a 65cm primary mirror, coupled with a 110Mpix CCD detector, that provides an instantaneous field-of-view of 2.7~square degrees, sampled at 0.564\arcsec/pixel. The total field-of-view for the array is 8.2 square degrees. Each telescope is equipped with a six-slot filter wheel containing an optimised Sloan set (BG-u, BG-g, BG-r, BG-i, BG-z) and a wider-band 440-720 nm (BG-q) filter. Each unit telescope is independent from the others. Cloud-based data processing is done in real time, and includes a transient-detection routine as well as a full-source optimal-photometry module. BlackGEM has been installed at the ESO La Silla observatory as of October 2019. After a prolonged COVID-19 hiatus, science operations started on April 1, 2023 and will run for five years. Aside from its core scientific program, BlackGEM will give rise to a multitude of additional science cases in multi-colour time-domain astronomy, to the benefit of a variety of topics in astrophysics, such as infant supernovae, luminous red novae, asteroseismology of post-main-sequence objects, (ultracompact) binary stars, and the relation between gravitational wave counterparts and other classes of transients
description: Published in PASP