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RESEARCH PRODUCT

The Multi-frequency Robotic facility REM: first results

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The REM Observatory, recently installed and commissioned at la Silla Observatory Chile, is the first moderate aperture robotic telescope able to cover simultaneously the visible-NIR (0.45-2.3 microns) wavelength range. Due to its very fast pointing and its full robotization REM is conceived for fast transients observation. The high throughput Infrared Camera (REMIR) and the Visible imaging spectrograph (ROSS), simultaneously fed by a dichroic, allow to collect high S/N data in an unprecedented large spectral range on a telescope of this size. The REMobservatory is an example of a versatile and agile facility necessary complement to large telescopes in fields in which rapid response and/or target pre-screening are necessary. This paper describes the principal Characteristics and operation modes of the REM observatory and gives on overview of the preliminary results obtained during the commissioning phase. (© 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)