Related papers: The benefit of simultaneous seven-filter imaging: …

We describe the construction of GROND, a 7-channel imager, primarily designed for rapid observations of gamma-ray burst afterglows. It allows simultaneous imaging in the Sloan g'r'i'z' and near-infrared $JHK$ bands. GROND was commissioned…

Afterglows of GRBs are, in general, well described by the fireball model. Yet, deducing the full set of model parameters from observations without prior assumptions has been possible for only a handful of GRBs. With GROND, a 7-channel…

A dedicated gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglow observing program was performed between 2007 and 2016 with GROND, a seven-channel optical and near-infrared imager at the 2.2m telescope of the Max-Planck Society at ESO/La Silla. In this first of…

We report on follow-up observations of 20 short-duration gamma-ray bursts performed in g'r'i'z'JHKs with the seven-channel imager GROND between mid-2007 and the end of 2010. This is one of the most comprehensive data sets on GRB afterglow…

(Abridged) We consider the scientific case for a large aperture (10-12m class) optical spectroscopic survey telescope with a field of view comparable to that of LSST. Such a facility could enable transformational progress in several areas…

GRB absorption spectroscopy opened up a new window in the study of the high redshift Universe, especially with the launch of the Swift satellite and the quick and precise localization of the afterglow. Eight-meter class telescopes can be…

After more than six and half years in orbit, the ESA space observatory INTEGRAL has provided new, exciting results in the soft gamma-ray energy range (from a few keV to a few MeV). With the discovery of about 700 hard X-Ray sources, it has…

Prompt or early optical emission in gamma-ray bursts is notoriously difficult to measure, and observations of the dozen cases show a large variety of properties. Yet, such early emission promises to help us achieve a better understanding of…

ESO and ESA agreed to establish a number of Working Groups to explore possible synergies between these two major European astronomical institutions. This Working Group's mandate was to concentrate on fundamental questions in cosmology, and…

We present science highlights and performance from the Swift X-ray Telescope (XRT), which was launched on November 20, 2004. The XRT covers the 0.2-10 keV band, and spends most of its time observing gamma-ray burst (GRB)afterglows, though…

We present the La Silla Schmidt Southern Survey (LS4), a new wide-field, time-domain survey to be conducted with the 1 m ESO Schmidt telescope. The 268 megapixel LS4 camera mosaics 32 2k$\times$4k fully depleted CCDs, providing a $\sim$20…

The robotic 2m Liverpool Telescope, based on the Canary island of La Palma, has a diverse instrument suite and a strong track record in time domain science, with highlights including early time photometry and spectra of supernovae,…

AstraLux is the Lucky Imaging camera for the Calar Alto 2.2-m telescope and the 3.5-m NTT at La Silla. It allows nearly diffraction limited imaging in the SDSS i' and z' bands of objects as faint as i'=15.5mag with minimum technical effort.…

The new 1-m f/4 fast-slew Zadko Telescope was installed in June 2008 about 70 km north of Perth, Western Australia. It is the only metre-class optical facility at this southern latitude between the east coast of Australia and South Africa,…

It is now more than 40 years since the discovery of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and in the last two decades there has been major progress in the observations of bursts, the afterglows and their host galaxies. This recent progress has been…

We present results from our two year study of ground-layer turbulence as seen through the 6.5-meter Magellan Telescopes at Las Campanas Observatory. The experiment consists of multiple, moderate resolution, Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors…

At present, the ground-based astronomy of very high energy (VHE) (E>100 GeV) gamma-rays experiences the challenging transition phase caused by the substantial upgrading of its observational instrumentation. Recently the HEGRA collaboration…

Starting in the 1970s, the Arecibo 305m telescope has made seminal contributions in the field of extragalactic spectroscopy. With the Gregorian upgrade completed in the late 1990s, the telescope acquired a field of view. Population of that…

Integral-field spectroscopy is the most effective method of exploiting the superb image quality of the ESO-VLT, allowing complex astrophysical processes to be probed on the angular scales currently accessible only for imaging data, but with…

Ground-based observations at terahertz (THz) frequencies are a newly explorable area of astronomy for the next ten years. We discuss science cases for a first-generation 10-m class THz telescope, focusing on the Greenland Telescope as an…