about project

BOOTES-IR is the extension of the BOOTES experiment, which has been operating in Southern Spain since 1998, to the near-infrared (nIR). The goal is to follow up the early stage of the gamma ray burst (GRB) afterglow emission in the nIR, as BOOTES does already at optical wavelenghts. The scientific case that drives the BOOTES-IR performance is the study of GRBs with the support of spacecrafts like HETE-2, INTEGRAL and SWIFT (and GLAST in the future).

Given that the afterglow emission in both, the nIR and the optical, in the instances immediately following a GRB, is extremely bright (reached V = 8.9 in one case), it should be possible to detect this prompt emission at the nIR wavelengths too. Combined observations by BOOTES-IR and BOOTES-1 and BOOTES-2 since 2006 can allow for real time identification of trustworthy candidates to have a ultra-high redshift (z > 6). It is expected that, few minutes after GRB, the nIR magnitudes be H ~ 10-15, hence very high quality spectra can be obtained for objects as far as z = 10 by much larger ground based telescopes.

A significant fraction of observing time will be available for other scientific projects of interest, objects relatively bright and variable, like Solar System, brown dwarfs, variable stars, planetary nebulae, compact objects in binary systems and blazars.

BOOTES-IR team

A. J. Castro-Tirado (1), J. Gorosabel (1), A. de Ugarte Postigo (1), M. Jelínek (1), S. Vítek (1), P. Kubánek (2), R. Cunniffe (1), S. Castillo-Carrión (3), T. J. Mateo Sanguino (3), A. Riva (4), P. Conconi (4), V. di Caprio (4), F. Zerbi (4), P. Amado (1), C. Cárdenes (1), A. Claret (1), S. Guziy (), S. Martín-Ruiz (1), M. A. Sánchez (1), P. García Teodoro (5), J. Castro Cerón (), J. Díaz Verdejo (5), R. Hudec (2), J. M. López Soler (5), J. Á. Berná Galiano (7), J. Casares (8), J. Fabregat (9), P. Páta (10), C. Sánchez-Fernández (11), M. D. Sabau-Graziati (12), J. M. Trigo-Rodríguez (13) and F. Vitali (14)

  1. Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC), P.O. Box 03004, E-18080, Granada
  2. Área de Ingenería Telemática (DETC), Universidad de Granada, Spain
  3. Real Instituto y Observatorio de la Armada (ROA) - San Fernando-Naval (Cádiz), Spain
  4. Escuela Politécnica Superior (DFITS-EPSA), Universidad de Alicante, Spain)
  5. Grupo de Astronomía y Ciencias del Espacio (GACE), Universidad de Valencia, Spain
  6. Fakulta Elektrotechnická, ÈVUT Praha, Czech Republic
  7. INTEGRAL Scientific Operations Centre, ESAC, Villafranca de Castillo, Madrid, Spain
  8. Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aerospacial (INTA), Torrejón de Ardoz, Madrid, Spain
  9. Instituto de Ciancias des Espacio (CSIC), Campus UAB, Bellaterra (Barcelona), Spain
  10. Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma
  11. INTEGRAL Scientific Data Center, Versoix, Switzerland
  12. Kalinenkov Astronomical Observatory, Nikolaev, Ukraine
  13. DARK Cosmology Center, Copenhagen, Denmark
  14. Institut d'Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC), Barcelona, Spain

last results

4.9.2006
The 0.6m BOOTES-IR and 1.5m telescope, located at IAA-CSIC Observatorio de Sierra Nevada in Granada (Spain), observed the SWIFT error box for GRB 060904B ..., full GCN report
25.8.2006
The BOOTES-IR 0.6m telescope, located at IAA-CSIC Observatorio de Sierra Nevada in Granada (Spain), observed the SWIFT error box for GRB 060825 (Sato et al. GCNC 5471) starting at 03:26 UT in R-band..., full GCN report
4.2.2006
We imaged the error box of Swift GRB060204C (Grupe et al. GCN 4663) with the 1.5m telescope at Observatorio Sierra Nevada. We do not detect any new or variable source..., full GCN report
4.2.2006
Observing of GRB060204C (Grupe et al. GCN 4663). The telescope slewed automatically within 3m5s after recieving the GCN alert and immediately started the observation. We do not see any optical transient in the GRB errorbox ..., full GCN report.

last publications