Have you ever wondered how astronomers share information between telescopes about rapidly evolving sources? Do you want to track gamma-ray bursts and stellar flares as they happen, maybe even point your telescope at them? Then you might be interested in VOEvents, and our new Python toolbox for dealing with them…

[Update April 2015: This post gives a gentle introduction to VOEvents. If you just want the technical details, see the new page about our VOEvent broker and how to connect to it.]

The VOEvent protocol can be used for passing alerts around a distributed, decentralized network of nodes.
Image reproduced from J. Swinbank, Comet: A VOEvent broker, Astronomy and Computing, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ascom.2014.09.001

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