Palomar Transient Factory

The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) was an automated survey designed to find and report transients. The equipment consisted of a wide-field survey camera on the Palomar 48 Inch Telescope at Palomar Observatory plus automated data reduction and filtering, e.g., to exclude aircraft. It was designed to report in "real time" to aid follow-up. The survey collected data from 2009 to 2012. Discoveries include supernovae and near-Earth asteroids. The PTF Orion Project was a sub-project to search for YSOs within the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex.

In 2013, the PTF's successor, the Intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF) began surveying on the same telescope, replaced again in 2018 replaced by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF).