Notwithstanding the power of LSST, simple physics implies that NIR observations are needed beyond ~ z = 7.5.

HET and SALT can't be on a target for more than ~ 1 hour at a time, which is probably not good enough for faint high-z bursts (independent of iunstrument capability).

Furthermore, both are survey telescopes which will, with high probability, not be doing targeted (and especially rapid) follow-up observations at all.

What we need are dedicated 2-3m class robotic scopes (like the RoboNet telescopes) equipped with GROND-like cameras. With GRB 080913, which had a quite faint afterglow (I mean intrinsically, after correcting for the distance), GROND showed it can discover even such "mediocre" GRBs at high redshift.

MIR observations of GRBs from the ground (e.g. with VLT VISIR) are not feasable, even 8m class telescopes do not go deep enough, sky background is way too high. Perhaps when we get the 30m class beyond 2015…

Second point is that time dilation spreads the GRB out by a factor 1+z. If the redshift is nine, a 60 second long GRB becomes 10 minutes long, while at the same time becoming much fainter due to distance too. Swift can surmount this in part by using image triggers, which take long exposure (10 seconds, or 60, or even 10 minutes) shots and compare them with earlier gamma-ray images, looking for new point sources.

But no one says it's easy.

@Helio George. Good question. To my knowledge, there is no MIR/FIR mission flying or in design phase that is somehow conceptualized to react reasonably rapidly to transient events (like XMM Newton, which can observe GRBs within a few hours, whereas Chandra or HST take several days). JWST has MIR capabilities but may be as sluggish as HST. And no idea about Herschel, the upcoming (February 2009, keep your fingers crossed) FIR/Submm mission.

This is actually a pity, as the characteristic frequency (the frequency at which the most flux is emitted) lies in exactly this hole of coverage. So GRBs are actually pretty bright in this regime, but then, so is the dust in the Milky Way surrounding us. So you will be getting background problems even from space…

Thanks, that is newsworthy in itself.

What is the hole filler then? The James Webb? Or will Spitzer get freed, eventually, for such things?

I also believe in the data, like you.

But scientific methods imply also a look at the less obvious.

It is also very interesting what you do, i really admire your job.

Evidence for (long) GRBs being linked to the deaths of massive stars is very solid. Evidence linking at least some short GRBs to a process that does not need recent star formation is also very solid. That they come from neutron star mergers is a good working model, but we have no smoking gun evidence (specific gravitational wave signal) yet.

There's nothing wrong with being a sceptic. All scientists are sceptical by Nature. On the other hand, we "believe" in the data. And there's a lot of data on GRBs and quasars, and we have models that describe this data very well. Of course, there's devils in the details, and science is about eternally tweaking the models to encompass all observations.

But just going out and saying it's all nonsense, all the mainstream is wrong… Well…

If you have ATM ideas, why not present them in the ATM forum at BAUTforum and see how they fare?

@ Don Alexander
I was a bit muddled at first with the article, but crystal clear now, thanks for the clarifications!

No, i do not know for certain how GRB's are produced and i make a lot of mistakes.

And i am a complete noob comparing to somebody like you.

Also sorry – I tend to go sometimes off topic, no offence.

But how sure are you about the nature of GRB's as well about the nature of Quasar's?

I think even the model of an atom is something discussable. How do you explain static friction for example. Seeing an atom as a different space-time conjunction could explain this imho much better.
But I am in no way your's equal scientifically, just someone sceptical.

@Helio George: Well, Spitzer's spectral window is pretty wide… So, no. Problem is, Spitzer has, like HST, a rather long reaction time (several days) and afterglows are faint. There've been a few successful afterglow detections with Spitzer (e.g., Heng, K. et al. 2008) but it has been very rarely used, and only for IRAC photometry. MIR observations of GRBs is an as yet uncharted field, the last big hole, actually. Everything from gammas (except extremely hard ones, think TeV) to NIR is fully covered, and then you have many observations from (sub)millimeter to radio. Just not MIR/FIR (for afterglows, at least).

Where does this dust come from? This takes time or the source is very nearby the black-hole.

Is it illogical to assume the dust comes from the source itself (black-hole) itself?

Matter-energy conversion is normal, energy-matter conversion is very unlikely.

But is it impossible?

Couldn't find a project website that really gives details…

But Google for JANUS GRB SMEX.

@Hex: That would seriously violate the Copernican principle, and there is no reason at all for that to happen…

@Invader Xan: Err… Yes? Dozens and dozens of them? I mean, where else would we get the redshifts from?

@Chuck Lam: Well, depends on what you mean with "out of sight". If you just mean "out of the visible spectrum", then yes, that's exactly what's happening, but that's also what I stated above. If you mean "into some kind of total invisibility", then of course not, the most redshifted radiation we see is the CMB from a redshift of roughly 1250, which is way before the first stars.