The Angstrom Project Alert System: Real-Time Detection of Extragalactic Microlensing

The Angstrom Project is undertaking an optical survey of stellar microlensing events across the bulge region of the Andromeda galaxy (M31) using a distributed network of 2 m class telescopes. The Angstrom Project Alert System (APAS) has been developed to identify candidate microlensing and transient events in real time, using data from the Liverpool and Faulkes North robotic telescopes. This is the first time that real-time microlensing discovery has been attempted outside of the Milky Way and its satellite galaxies. The APAS is designed to enable follow-up studies of M31 microlensing systems, including searches for gas giant planets in M31. Here we describe the APAS, and we present a few example light curves obtained during its commissioning phase that clearly demonstrate its real-time capability to identify microlensing candidates as well as other transient sources.