Cripes. We get no GRBs for two weeks, and now we get five in three days. I've spent half my time at work reading burst alert emails and scrambling to keep up with who's observing which burst so I can update that page.

Sheesh. <GLP>It's like we're under attack or something</GLP>. 8)

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Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer
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Eeeep, and here I am without my tinfoil hat to protect me, arrrrghhhhh!

#-o :roll: 8-[

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Howling from the Shadows

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Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Well, now I know why my Acme Scintillation Counter™ has been lighting up the workshop the last few days.

Seriously, except for the one burst (GRB 050709A) that might be associated with an unidentified galaxy (which is also suspected re an earlier burst) and isn't part of your three-day group (having occurred on the 9th), any other correspondences to known optical objects yet?

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8) Very cool website, good design and cool graphics.

We have the same problem in industry, the only thing worse than business being slow is business is buzy. Its all part of that "be careful what you wish for, it might come true" stuff.

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Pretty cool. I just read this thread and went to the sonoma website. After refreshing the screen 2, maybe 3 times. POW! GRB 050715A shows up. Nice timing, or dumb luck, your choice. :wink:

Time for BA to start scrambling again. 8)

Already on 15A. Not much to say yet... except that, to within positional uncertainty, it's smack dab on the celestial equator.

lol, maybe GBR is a group thing

hey you there, I'm bored, lets pull a GBR shall we?

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~Jorge Schrauwen

My boss today joked that all these GRBs are the Universe's revenge for us smacking a comet. :-)

So they are picking a fight? I don't dare to think what we should do to answer that! Annihilate our galaxy with anti-matter? :wink:

lets smack a big lomp of lead on the closes one, that will tell them not to mess with us *mhahahahahahahaha*

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GCS/S d(+) s+:+ a--- C++(+++)>$ W+++>$ L>+ M+>++ w++ P+>++ tv@ PS b+ DI+ G e-> h! r-- !z+

~Jorge Schrauwen

Its now gone up to six in 4 days. The attack continues! :wink:

And if the pattern holds I guess we may expect to see a slew of earthquakes pretty soon.

Gsquare

And I for one welcome our new GRB overlords.

Yikes! We're up to eight in the last four days! #-o
http://grb.sonoma.edu/

Good thing I'm wearing my leaded underwear and polarized sun glasses!
Gsquare

wait till hoagland (sp?, never cared to learn how to spell it lol) hears about this.

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GCS/S d(+) s+:+ a--- C++(+++)>$ W+++>$ L>+ M+>++ w++ P+>++ tv@ PS b+ DI+ G e-> h! r-- !z+

~Jorge Schrauwen

I'm not sure the last one (050717B) is real. I haven't seen any follow-up yet, and the data for it look suspicious. Sometimes these turn out to be false alarms.

Wait a few hours, and then check the description field on that page. I fill those out when I get solid info on the burst. Nothing so far on this last one.

__________________
Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer
http://www.badastronomy.com
badastro@badastronomy.com

you mean you need to do this completly manually?

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~Jorge Schrauwen

Thanks for the info; I'll be waiting for it.

Another thing I thought strange is that in the previous 7 GRB's (prior to this last one --7117B), four of them had a duration of exactly 70 seconds. Makes me wonder (what are the odds against that?) . Are these simply estimates, or maybe there is a reason for the correlation? --- :-k

Gsquare

Let me review-- no, that will take too long. Let me sum up.

When a GRB goes off, it may be detected by one of several satellites. When they detect it, they send an automatic alert to a "central command", if you will. This then automatically parses the info (strips out the observing satellite, where the burst is, and other pertinent info), and then sends out that alert to people who subscribe to the service.

Our web page is one of those subscribers. It listens for incoming alerts, then grabs the info it needs. Within seconds of the alert being sent, the GRB is on our page.

Later, usually in a few minutes or hours, updated notices are emailed by scientists who analyze the satellite data. There are also follow-up observations, and emails are sent about them. I read those, and then sum them up on the site. Swift will also make light curves, but those can take quite some time because they are done by hand by a guy at Goddard Space Flight Center. He sends them to me and I put them on our server for the page as well.

Phew. And I left a lot of details off, too!

Your kidding right?

Seems like a lot of work, but very interesting.

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~Jorge Schrauwen

Does this have anything at all to do with the distribution of galaxes being not particularly uniform?

GRBs occur in very young galaxies, right? I mean, if black hole in our galaxy "ate" something, it would of course give off lots of radiation, including gamma rays, but it wouldn't produce a GRB. Right?

Or do I misunderstand something.