Prompt searches for optical signal from gravitational wave transients with Pi of the Sky

Pi of the Sky is a robotic telescope project dedicated to observations of short time astrophysical phenomena, especially for optical counterparts of GRBs. Two observation sites are located on both hemispheres, one in Chile and one in Spain, covering the field of view of 400 deg^2 and 1600 deg^2, respectively. Images are taken with time resolution of 10s. Such a wide field of view system can also be very useful in searched for other optical transients.

An observation of an astrophysical event in both gravitational and optical band might bring very significant scientific results and could be the first step toward the direct detection of gravitational waves. The main aim of the LoocUp project, initiated by LSC and Virgo collaborations and several other electromagnetic (EM) observation teams, was to try to find such a coincidence by doing an electromagnetic follow-up of the most promising GW event candidates selected by the low-latency analysis of LIGO and Virgo detector data.

During the future joint GW-EM observations, a new Pi of the Sky telescope unit, could image more than 1/3 of GW candidate probability maps in less than 10 minutes taking many pictures of the same observation field. The system could automatically recognize optical transients and perform follow-ups of interesting events. The aim of the talk is to show methods used by Pi of the Sky team to search for optical counterparts of GW event candidates as part of the future LookUp and usefulness of large field of view telescopes in such searches.