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SALT transient science with TOMs

One aspect of the SALT X-ray transient program is the identification of SALT observation time that overlaps with scheduled X-ray satellite observations. This is particularly relevant to the optical study of X-ray transients. Since SALT is a fixed elevation telescope, the target visibility is restricted to a circular annulus on the sky covering a total of 1 380 square degrees. In order to identify satellite targets that overlap with SALT visibility, a custom Python program was developed to scrape daily schedules of a number of satellites, and calculate the SALT annulus visibility period of the satellite targets to find overlapping observation time between the satellites and SALT. If a target observation time overlaps in visibility, the relevant information is published to a web page, as well as summarised in an email for dissemination by a mailing list. Transient alerts by email is an old established method, but it clogs inboxes and requires time during the day to evaluate for scheduling — followed by an independent process to request or submit a target for observation to a telescope. It also requires a human in the loop, which will become increasingly challenging as the frequency of alerts increase over time. To streamline the process, from evaluation to submission, SALT (and by extension the SAAO intelligent observatory) is in the midst of developing a prototype TOM for the X-ray transient observations. The aim of the prototype development is to identify and implement the components that will make SALT observations more easily undertaken for the transient community using TOMs1 for target management and observation. The current SALT X-ray transient email alert software, Xsats, contains all the components necessary to migrate to a TOM transient alert interface. Additionally, because the current email alerts have been running for a while, user needs and requirements are already folded into the code; thereby permitting a straight-up mapping onto new technology, using the existing system as independent verification. This paper presents the overall design describing the migration process, as well as application-based development that will be required.