First Results from the Catalina Real-time Transient Survey

Understand

We report on the results from the first six months of the Catalina Real-time Transient Survey (CRTS).

• In order to search for optical transients with timescales of minutes to years, the CRTS analyses data from the Catalina Sky Survey which repeatedly covers twenty six thousand of square degrees on the sky.
• The CRTS provides a public stream of transients that are bright enough to be followed up using small telescopes.
• Since the beginning of the survey, all CRTS transients have been made available to astronomers around the world in real-time using HTML tables, RSS feeds and VOEvents.