ZTF Summer School 2026 - Scanning and coordinated follow-up with SkyPortal and ACROSS

In this tutorial, we walk through evaluating transient candidates on a Fritz/SkyPortal source page — deciding whether a candidate is real and scientifically relevant, recording scanning and classification decisions, and determining whether photometric or spectroscopic follow-up is warranted. We also introduce ACROSS (the Astrophysics Cross Observatory Science Support initiative), a NASA-led, open-source system for coordinating rapid, unified follow-up of astrophysical events across observatories. Lecturer/tutor: Michael Davis (UMN) This lecture is part of the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) summer school, which took place on 27-31 July, 2026 at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. The school is organized and run by ZTF partner Michael Coughlin (UMN). ZTF is an international consortium of academic and research institutions led by Caltech. ZTF runs an integrated set of robotic telescopes at the Palomar Observatory, producing large surveys of the transient universe for forefront science in time-domain astronomy. To learn more about ZTF, visit http://ztf.caltech.edu.