Astrophysics (Index)About

PESSTO

(Public ESO Spectroscopic Survey of Transient Objects)
(NTT survey following up on transients)

PESSTO (for Public ESO Spectroscopic Survey of Transient Objects) has been a survey of follow-up observations of transients. It has been carried out on the New Technology Telescope (NTT) using instruments EFOSC2 (optical) and SOFI (near infrared), including some low-resolution spectrography. It classifies reported transients into supernova types, or AGN activity, variable stars, tidal disruption events, supernova impostors, or other optical transients (or solar system objects). Thousands of transients have been classified. The original PESSTO ran from 2012-2017 followed by an extension (ePESSTO) running into 2019, their SSDR 4 (spectroscopic survey data release 4) with 7 years' data was published in 2021. Following has been ePESSTO+, an additional extension to continue the program. The announced plan was ePESSTO+ would continue as long as the instruments were in operation, and with the 2025 installation of SOXS (Son of X-shooter), SOFI is now gone. One purpose of SOXS is to carry out the same kind of transient follow-up, but I'm not sure if a PESSTO name will still be used for the efforts.


(survey,transients,ESO)
Further reading:
http://www.pessto.org/
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015A%26A...579A..40S/abstract
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014htu..conf..131F/abstract
http://www.eso.org/rm/api/v1/public/releaseDescriptions/174
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023TNSAN.112....1Y/abstract
https://www.eso.org/sci/publications/announcements/sciann17587.html
https://www.eso.org/sci/meetings/2018/GW2018/Botticella_ePESSTO.pdf
https://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/news/first-light-achieved-new-soxs-spectrograph

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