Hi, folks,
Is there anyone out there who has capabilities to observe with better than 5 second time resolution on a relatively large telescope? If so, what might typical magnitude limits be for this kind of observation on your scope?
I'd be interested in trying to organize a campaign to get higher cadence searches for Type I X-ray bursts using optical data than what can be done in the X-rays. These bursts are thermonuclear explosions on the surfaces of neutron stars. The basic physics is quite similar to what classical novae do on the surfaces of white dwarfs, but they are much faster and produce mostly X-rays. The X-rays can then heat the outer accretion disk in the system and produce optical emission which is slightly delayed and lasts a bit longer. It's really hard to just stare at objects in the X-ray band. TESS can sort of do this, but its time resolution isn't great, plus some of the interesting objects are in crowded regions where TESS doesn't do well, or right at the equator where TESS doesn't take data.