An insistent beeping from your cell phone wakes you up.  It's 2 A.M.  Ugh.  You recall the email you received yesterday with a reminder that you and a fellow FBAC member are on "alert" tonight.  The message also contained the combination to the gate at Brazos Bend State Park.  A push of your phone's button and you see the short message:  RA 14 34 12, DEC +11 08 47.   

Minutes before, the HETE-2 spacecraft spotted the  x-ray afterglow of a gamma-ray burst.  The spacecraft relayed the coordinates to ground stations on the earth, which sent the message to a computer at AAVSO headquarters, which passed the alert to your cell phone.

You peek out the window and see stars.   A quick check on a planisphere shows that the object is visible.  You call your teammate with the news.  Clothes, flashlight, and observing notebook are already laid out.  Ten minutes later you're traveling down deserted roads, on your way to the George Observatory.

As you pull up, you see your teammate's car already in the lot.  The dome is open and the CCD camera is cooling down.  You take the keys and go into the offices downstairs.  Bringing up the AAVSO's web site, you print off a chart of the burst's location.  The error circle will easily fit in one CCD frame.

Back up the stairs with the charts.  Ten minutes latter, you have the field and begin your first exposure.  Now you both anxiously scan your image, comparing it with the chart.  Your heart skips a beat as you notice a 17th magnitude star that's not on the chart.  You take more images.  Blinking the first image with your last, you notice that the object is fading.  You got it!  Now to let others know.  You run Astrometrica to get a precise position on the object, then send an email off to the AAVSO's GRB mailing list.

You've done your part.  The eastern sky is showing the first hints of morning twilight.  Thousands of miles to the West, on the big island of Hawaii, the

ten-meter Keck is slewing to your coordinates, spectroscope at the ready….

* * * *

I hope the fictional account above will come to pass some time in the next year.  At the May meeting, I discussed highlights from the High-Energy Astrophysics Workshop in Huntsville, and asked if there would be interest in forming a team that would be ready to send pairs of observers out on short notice to try to catch the optical afterglow of a gamma-ray burst.

Many bursts will occur on cloudy nights here.  Some bursts will occur when the Supernova, Asteroid, or Peculiar Galaxy teams are on-site.  This is our best chance to "interrupt regularly scheduled programming" and catch a burst early.  But existing teams are usually packing it in around midnight during the week, and for almost two weeks from first quarter to last, our club's telescope sits idle.

The purpose of the new team is to fill the gap in observing coverage.  We had seven or eight members present at the May meeting who expressed interest.  If you would like to participate, send me an email at:  bdillon@houston.geoquest.slb.com.
I've also started a web page with team related information at: 

www.geocities.com/amicustellarum/grbet.html

The HETE-2 spacecraft is scheduled for launch at the end of this month.  The FBAC will be ready.
                                         
-- Bill Dillon