Goddard Robotic Telescope (GRT)

Since it is not possible to predict when a Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) occurs, the follow-up ground telescopes must be distributed as uniform as possible all over the world in order to collect simultaneous data with the Swift detections. Based on the three-year operations of Swift, however, we noticed the distinct gap in follow-up coverage in the eastern U.S. region (Figure 1). This fact motivated us to construct a fully automated optical telescope here at GSFC.