Telescope in Spain opens with a Burst

 A new telescope for Global-Rent-a-Scope in Nerpio, Spain has just gone online.

Global-Rent-A-Scope: G7,  PlaneWave CDK 17" F6.8, Nerpio, Spain

And just then an alert for a Gamma Burst (GRB 100906A) was received. Gamma bursts are flashes of gamma rays associated with extremely energetic explosions in distant galaxies.

Three Finnish astronomers were quick to react - Veli-Pekka Hentunen, Markku Nissinen and Tuomo Salmi (left to right)  used the Spanish G-7 telescope to follow this magnificent event.

The Gamma Burst observations lasted for about 90 minutes and an amazing combined (3 x 600s)  image was produced (Magnitude 19.8). The optical afterglow lasted for about 12 hours and after the observation with G7 the glow decayed rapidly.

Veli-Pekka and Markku have already been successful supernova hunters since 2007 when they made their first discovery with SN 2007ae, which was rapidly followed by further 7 supernovae!