EFTE-Rocks, a framework to discriminate fast optical transient phenomena from orbital debris

Wide-field telescopes like the Evryscope enable all-sky searches for fast optical transient events such as kilonovae, optical counterparts to fast-radio-bursts and other exotic events. To further understand these phenomena, we need infrastructure with the capability to monitor and quickly analyze these events. The Evryscopes are an allsky system with a total field of view of 16,512 sq. deg. that, coupled with the Evryscope Fast Transient Engine (EFTE), can catalogue fast optical transients down to g=16. In the past two years, EFTE has seen millions of transients across the sky including hundreds of flaring events from cool stars and a population of millisecond glints produced by Earth-orbiting objects that appear morphologically similar to transient astrophysical phenomena. In order to further characterize these events, the Evryscope and other all-sky optical surveys, such as the upcoming Argus Pathfinder and Argus Optical Array, require a framework to discriminate between this fog of imposter transients and real astrophysics. EFTE-Rocks is an automated orbit determination pipeline that takes short-duration transients from EFTE and associates them into tracklets based on an initial trajectory. Here we present a framework to characterize which orbital debris produce glints seen by fast, wide-field telescopes; lessons learned; and future software improvements. We also discuss its applications to upcoming surveys that are capable of probing for fainter objects at faster cadences.