_version_ 1866917211298332672
author Song, Xuan
Wang, Xiaofeng
Zhu, Jin
Li, Jian
Guo, Jincheng
Xiang, Danfeng
Li, Xin
Liu, Cheng
Ning, Yuanhang
Ge, Zhishuai
Shao, Zhenzhen
Zheng, Xiaochen
Yang, Yi
Zhang, Lei
Shi, Yaqing
Zhao, Dongyao
Zeng, Xiangyun
Mo, Jun
Song, Tengfei
Fan, Yufeng
Liu, Yu
Wang, Jingxing
He, Shousheng
Wangdui, Ciren
Zhang, Jujia
Zhang, Xuefei
Ye, Kai
Bai, Jinming
Jiang, Xiaojun
Zhang, Xiaoming
Qiu, Peng
Zhang, Jicheng
author_facet Song, Xuan
Wang, Xiaofeng
Zhu, Jin
Li, Jian
Guo, Jincheng
Xiang, Danfeng
Li, Xin
Liu, Cheng
Ning, Yuanhang
Ge, Zhishuai
Shao, Zhenzhen
Zheng, Xiaochen
Yang, Yi
Zhang, Lei
Shi, Yaqing
Zhao, Dongyao
Zeng, Xiangyun
Mo, Jun
Song, Tengfei
Fan, Yufeng
Liu, Yu
Wang, Jingxing
He, Shousheng
Wangdui, Ciren
Zhang, Jujia
Zhang, Xuefei
Ye, Kai
Bai, Jinming
Jiang, Xiaojun
Zhang, Xiaoming
Qiu, Peng
Zhang, Jicheng
contents The R2Pub telescope, built by the Beijing Planetarium, is a 60 cm equatorial binocular telescope located at the Daocheng site of Yunnan Observatories in China, at an altitude of about 4700 m. This paper presents an overview of the R2Pub telescope system, including its design, instrumentation, and survey capabilities, and reports an initial evaluation of its system performance. R2Pub is a prime-focus binocular system, with each optical tube covering a field of view of approximately 18 square degrees. It is designed to detect a wide range of transient and variable sources in the local universe, such as variable stars, eclipsing binaries, supernovae, gamma-ray burst afterglows, tidal disruption events, active galactic nuclei, and other unknown transients. The observatory infrastructure, including the dome, equatorial mount, optical tubes, and associated subsystems, has been fully constructed and installed, and the system has entered the commissioning phase. Benefiting from the high-altitude location, good seeing conditions, and dark sky background at the Daocheng site, performance tests during commissioning show that the R2Pub system can reach a 5-sigma limiting magnitude of about 18.7 mag in the Pan-STARRS r' band with a 60 s exposure. Ongoing observations with R2Pub are expected to contribute to studies of variable and transient phenomena and to enhance public outreach in astronomy. The binocular design enables simultaneous dual-band observations, providing instantaneous color information for transient sources and improving the classification and physical characterization of their properties and evolution.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_13587
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The R2Pub Telescopes for Surveying: An Overview and Performance Evaluation of the System
Song, Xuan
Wang, Xiaofeng
Zhu, Jin
Li, Jian
Guo, Jincheng
Xiang, Danfeng
Li, Xin
Liu, Cheng
Ning, Yuanhang
Ge, Zhishuai
Shao, Zhenzhen
Zheng, Xiaochen
Yang, Yi
Zhang, Lei
Shi, Yaqing
Zhao, Dongyao
Zeng, Xiangyun
Mo, Jun
Song, Tengfei
Fan, Yufeng
Liu, Yu
Wang, Jingxing
He, Shousheng
Wangdui, Ciren
Zhang, Jujia
Zhang, Xuefei
Ye, Kai
Bai, Jinming
Jiang, Xiaojun
Zhang, Xiaoming
Qiu, Peng
Zhang, Jicheng
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
The R2Pub telescope, built by the Beijing Planetarium, is a 60 cm equatorial binocular telescope located at the Daocheng site of Yunnan Observatories in China, at an altitude of about 4700 m. This paper presents an overview of the R2Pub telescope system, including its design, instrumentation, and survey capabilities, and reports an initial evaluation of its system performance. R2Pub is a prime-focus binocular system, with each optical tube covering a field of view of approximately 18 square degrees. It is designed to detect a wide range of transient and variable sources in the local universe, such as variable stars, eclipsing binaries, supernovae, gamma-ray burst afterglows, tidal disruption events, active galactic nuclei, and other unknown transients. The observatory infrastructure, including the dome, equatorial mount, optical tubes, and associated subsystems, has been fully constructed and installed, and the system has entered the commissioning phase. Benefiting from the high-altitude location, good seeing conditions, and dark sky background at the Daocheng site, performance tests during commissioning show that the R2Pub system can reach a 5-sigma limiting magnitude of about 18.7 mag in the Pan-STARRS r' band with a 60 s exposure. Ongoing observations with R2Pub are expected to contribute to studies of variable and transient phenomena and to enhance public outreach in astronomy. The binocular design enables simultaneous dual-band observations, providing instantaneous color information for transient sources and improving the classification and physical characterization of their properties and evolution.
title The R2Pub Telescopes for Surveying: An Overview and Performance Evaluation of the System
topic Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.13587