GOTO and its citizen scientists feature in tonight’s episode of BBC Four’s The Sky at Night, “La Palma: Gateway to the Universe” (Monday 9th November, 10pm).
The episode tours the telescopes of the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma, including GOTO-N, which scans the northern sky every night (weather permitting) for transients. It then visits the University of Warwick, where presenter Maggie Aderin joins Kilonova Seekers volunteers and students, and talks to Dr Lisa Kelsey (University of Cambridge), who co-leads Kilonova Seekers with Dr Tom Killestein (University of Warwick), about how volunteers on Zooniverse find new transients in our survey images, often within hours of the data being taken.
Since launching in July 2023, Kilonova Seekers volunteers have contributed more than 270 reports to the transient name server, two Astronomer’s Telegrams, and two refereed papers, among them the discovery of GOTO0650, a cataclysmic variable, published in A&A with volunteers as co-authors. Kilonova Seekers received the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship Public Engagement Award in 2025.
Watch on BBC Four at 10pm or on iPlayer (UK only): https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00343sn
Join the project: kilonova-seekers.org
