Define targets

There are two ways to select and store targets on the GOATS interface. Each stored target gets a dedicated page.

  1. Brokers: This may be mostly relevant for users conducting time-domain and multimessenger follow-up observations. Users can select and store targets from a broker available in GOATS. In particular, we provide enhanced support for NOIRLab’s ANTARES broker, whereby users can directly leverage the ANTARES portal to search and select targets and transfer the information with the click of a button. This is made possible via our browser extension, antares2goats. Currently, antares2goats is available for Chrome and Firefox browsers. Follow the video below for installing (a one-off process) and using this extension to select a target and transfer its information from ANTARES to GOATS for Firefox.

Note

For further information, including installation for the different browsers, refer to the antares2goats documentation.


  1. Create targets manually: Users can also manually input the target information to store it on GOATS or upload a CSV file in case of multiple targets. Additionally, one can also retrieve the target information from a catalog, such as SIMBAD, NED, JPL Horizons, or Transient Name Server.


As can be seen in the videos, the target detail page has multiple tabs for various operations:

  • Observe for triggering follow-up of this target on telescope facilities, in particular, Gemini, LCO and SOAR

  • Observations for listing triggered observations as well as to add any other existing observations of the target

  • Manage Data for listing data from all observations of the target as well as uploading additional data files

  • Manage Groups for listing the group(s) that the target belongs to (if the user has grouped it with other targets)

  • Photometry for viewing photometry data of the target

  • Spectroscopy for viewing spectroscopy data of the target