Hotwiring the Transient Universe

Orbiting satellites & giant astronomical surveys are monitoring much of the sky regularly, detecting vast numbers of variable astronomical objects, some with exciting and energetic astrophysics such as blazar eruptions, cataclysmic variables & supernovae; some much closer, perhaps discovery of a potentially Earth-impacting asteroid. A VOEvent is a message about an astronomical event: a change in brightness or position in the sky. The message can be sent to other observers for follow-up observations, or it can be added to other data about the event to aid understanding. Many existing & future surveys are using VOEvent for rapid event noti¬fications, including CRTS, GCN (Fermi and SWIFT), LIGO, LOFAR, LSST, MOA, OGLE, PTF & SVOM. This book explores transient surveys & classification, what VOEvents mean & how to build them, the rich structure of the VOEvent 2.0 standard, working with the Virtual Observatory infrastructure, & ideas on an interoperable transport network. http://hotwireduniverse.org