🚀 Astro-COLIBRI v2.30.0: Automated GRB Afterglows, Observation Reports & ORCID Sign-in

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Hi everyone,

We are excited to announce the release of Astro-COLIBRI v2.30.0! This update is all about the optical follow-up of transients: automatic, AI-assisted extraction of GRB afterglow photometry from GCN circulars, a brand-new system for observatories and observation reports, and ORCID sign-in, alongside the usual round of improvements.

Here are the highlights of this version:

:shooting_star: GRB Optical Afterglow Lightcurves

Photometric follow-up of gamma-ray bursts is now collected and visualised automatically:

  • AI-assisted extraction: Magnitudes, filters, and observation times reported in GCN circulars are parsed by a new AI/NLP pipeline and converted to a common Rc band.
  • Archival context: A new lightcurve figure places each GRB afterglow in the context of a large archival sample (Kann et al., 2024).
  • Fit & extrapolate: Fit the afterglow decay with a broken power-law and extrapolate its brightness to your planned observation time, directly from the interface.
  • Documentation: A new documentation page describes the follow-up reports and the AI-based data extraction.

:telescope: Observatories & Observation Reports

You can now contribute your own observations to the community:

  • Register your observatory: Create an observatory and manage its members and administrators.
  • Submit & browse reports: Submit, edit, and browse observation reports from web and mobile, with filter choices matched to your observatory’s instruments. Reports cover photometry, spectroscopy, and redshift measurements.
  • Unified overview: All follow-up reports, from GCN circulars and from users, appear together in one filterable overview for each event.
  • Contact observers: Reach out to everyone who reported observations of a transient, whether via GCN circular or a direct Astro-COLIBRI report, to coordinate further follow-up, perform joint analyses or publish your results.

:id_button: Sign in with ORCID

  • New login option: Register or log in to Astro-COLIBRI with your ORCID account, in addition to Google, Apple, and email.

:hammer: Other Notable Improvements

  • Update reminders: Astro-COLIBRI now tells you when a newer version is available, showing your installed version next to the latest one with a one-tap link to update on Google Play / the App Store.
  • VOTable bulk download: Download all selected events in IVOA VOTable format (individual VOEvents), in addition to the Astro-COLIBRI JSON format, optionally including your watchlist events. Thanks to @FredDJN for the reminder to implement this!
  • Tilepy usage: Scheduling requests via tilepy.com are now tied to your Astro-COLIBRI account with a daily usage limit.
  • Event stacks: Events sharing a common association are now grouped into stacks of event cards.
  • Custom events: Improved handling, download your own custom events and include them in cone searches and event downloads.
  • Faster & smoother: Reduced figure sizes for faster loading, updated image-sharing options, a refreshed documentation website (consistent across web and mobile), and a fix for tooltips blocking some taps on mobile.

As always, this update includes a range of additional bug fixes and behind-the-scenes improvements.

We look forward to hearing your feedback!

Clear skies,
The Astro-COLIBRI Team

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