We announce the Southern Photometric Local Universe Survey (S-PLUS: https://www.splus.iag.usp.br/) Transient Extension Program (STEP), a time-domain survey using nightly griz imaging taken on the robotic 86-cm telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. S-PLUS imaging is obtained with a 1.4 deg x 1.4 deg camera, reaching approximately i=21 mag for each survey field. Most fields are visited only once but over a 1.5 hour period with 3x33 seconds in g, 3x40 seconds in r, 3x46 seconds in i, and 3x56 seconds in z following the S-PLUS survey strategy (Mendes de Oliveira et al., 2019, MNRAS, 489, 241).
We reduce all imaging for STEP using photpipe (Rest et al., 2005, ApJ, 634, 1103), including image subtraction with templates from the Dark Energy Camera or Pan-STARRS 3pi survey. All transient discoveries are vetted in photpipe for moving objects and against minor planets from the Minor Planet Center (https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/). We visually vet all transient discoveries for extragalactic sources, which will be reported to TNS.
Imaging for STEP has been reduced from April, 2022 and will continue to run as new fields from S-PLUS are imaged.
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