The Deeper, Wider, Faster program - Sign-up Form
The Deeper, Wider, Faster program (DWF) coordinates over 100 major telescopes operating at all wavelengths and messengers located on every continent and in space to detect and study fast transients (milliseconds-to-days duration). Twice a year, for 6 consecutive days, DWF coordinates 10-15 of the world's most sensitive wide-field radio, mm, infrared, optical, UV, X-ray, gamma-ray telescopes and high-energy particle detectors to take deep, wide-field, fast-cadenced observations of the same fields at the same time. These data are processed and analysed for transients in real-time (seconds-to-minutes) in our Mission Control room to trigger DWF-program rapid-response follow-up deep spectroscopy and imaging at various wavelengths on 8m-class optical telescopes, radio telescope arrays, and space telescopes. Conventional (hours to days later) spectroscopy and imaging are also triggered. Finally, and importantly, the fields are monitored globally intra-day and over several weeks for luminosity and colour evolution, as some fast transients are associated with slower-evolving events (for example, supernova shock breakouts).
The latter capability would greatly benefit from amateur observations. Although our real-time optical observations are quite deep (performed with CTIO DECam or Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam and reach depths of m ~ 23-24 in the 20-30s exposures taken continuously during the night) and a bright object saturation of about m ~ 15, we also detect brighter transients and transients early in their evolution that become brighter later on. Amateur optical telescope capability for the program brighter events, however, would still need to be ~0.4m diameter telescopes or larger. Amateurs with infrared detectors would be highly welcome as well. DWF radio observations have been with Parkes, ASKAP, MeerKAT, VLA, Molonglo, and MWA. Amateur radio participation is unlikely, as single dish telescopes would need to have fast radio burst detection capabilities.
