Optical spectroscopic classification of 35 hard X-ray sources from the Swift-BAT 70-month catalogue

The nature of a substantial percentage (about one fifth) of hard X-ray sources discovered with the BAT instrument onboard the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory (hereafter Swift) is unknown because of the lack of an identified longer-wavelength counterpart. Without such follow-up, an X-ray catalogue is of limited astrophysical value: we therefore embarked, since 2009, on a long-term project to uncover the optical properties of sources identified by Swift by using a large suite of ground-based telescopes and instruments.