TAROT-South robotic observatory

TAROT (Télescope à Action Rapide pour les Objets Transitoires, "Quick-action telescope for transient objects") is a project of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) aimed at rapidly reacting to particular data from other astronomical surveying facilities to monitor for and registering fast changing astronomical objects and phenomena. The target of this particular project is so-called gamma-ray bursts (GRB).

The TAROT-South facility is a 25 cm very fast moving optical robotic telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. Able to accelerate at $120 °$ to a top speed of $80 °$, it can begin observing within 1–1.5 seconds of being notified by a gamma-ray telescope that a gamma-ray burst is in progress and can provide fast and accurate positions of transient events within seconds.

In addition to its own observations, an important purpose of the telescope is to find an accurate source location. With its wide field of view, it can take an approximate location (±1°) from a gamma-ray detector and produce a location accurate to 1″ within a minute, for the benefit of follow-on observations by larger telescopes with longer reaction times.

It is a duplicate of the original TAROT telescope located at the Calern observatory, in France.