The ZTF Alert Stream: Lessons from the First Six Months of Operating an LSST Precursor
Contributors
Abstract
The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF; Bellm et al. 2019) is an optical time-domain survey that is currently generating about one million alerts each night for transient, variable, and moving objects. The ZTF Alert Distribution System(ZADS; Patterson et al. 2019) packages these alerts, distributes them to the ZTF Partnership members and community brokers, and allows for filtering of the alerts to objects of interest, all in near-real time. This system builds on industry-standard real-time stream processing tools: the Apache Avro binary serialization format and the Apache Kafka distributed streaming platform. ZADS routinely transports 0.6 to 1.2 million alerts per night (amounting to 70GB/night), and has handled peaks of over 2 million alerts/night with no technical issues.
Additional Information
© 2019 Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Based on observations obtained with the Samuel Oschin Telescope 48-inch and the 60-inch Telescope at the Palomar Observatory as part of the Zwicky Transient Facility project, a scientific collaboration among the California Institute of Technology, the Oskar Klein Centre, the Weizmann Institute of Science, the University of Maryland, the University of Washington, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the TANGO Program of the University System of Taiwan. Further support is provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant No. AST-1440341. M. Juric acknowledges the support of the Washington Research Foundation Data Science Term Chair fund, and the UW Provost's Initiative in Data-Intensive Discovery. E. Bellm is supported in part by the NSF AAG grant 1812779 and grant #2018-0908 from the Heising-Simons Foundation. M. Patterson, E. Bellm, and M. Juric acknowledge support from the University of Washington College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Astronomy, and the DIRAC Institute. University of Washington's DIRAC Institute is supported through generous gifts from the Charles and Lisa Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences, and the Washington Research Foundation.Additional details
Identifiers
- Eprint ID
- 100129
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20191202-090857012
Funding
- NSF
- AST-1440341
- Washington Research Foundation
- NSF
- AST-1812779
- Heising-Simons Foundation
- 2018-0908
- University of Washington
- DIRAC Institute
- Charles and Lisa Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences
Dates
- Created
-
2019-12-02Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2019-12-02Created from EPrint's last_modified field
Caltech Custom Metadata
- Caltech groups
- Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC), Zwicky Transient Facility
- Series Name
- Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series
- Series Volume or Issue Number
- 523