All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN or "Assassin")
Abstract
Even in the modern era, only human eyes scan the entire optical sky for the violent, variable, and transient events that shape our universe. The "All Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae" (ASAS-SN or "Assassin") is changing this by surveying the extragalactic sky roughly once a week, and within a year ASAS-SN will triple in size. We began running our real-time search for variable sources in late April 2013 with our first unit, "Brutus". Brutus presently consists of two telescopes on a common mount hosted by Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network in the Faulkes Telescope North enclosure on Mount Haleakala, Hawaii. Each telescope consists of a 14-cm Nikon telephoto lens and has a 4.47 by 4.47 degree field-of-view. On a typical clear night, it can survey 5000+ square degrees. The data are reduced in real-time, and we can search for transient candidates about an hour after the data are taken using an automated difference imaging pipeline. We are now meeting, and frequently exceeding, our current depth goal of 16 mag, corresponding to the apparent brightness at maximum light of core-collapse SNe within ~30 Mpc and SNe Ia out to ~100 Mpc. Brutus will shortly expand to have four cameras instead of two, and a second unit, "Cassius", with two cameras, should commence operations in early 2014 on Cerro Tololo, Chile. With these expansions, ASAS-SN will be able to observe the entire extragalactic sky every 2-3 nights. ASAS-SN has already discovered 10+ nearby SNe, 100+ outbursts from CVs and novae, 15+ M-dwarf and other stellar flares, and AGN outbursts which have resulted in 35+ ATel and CBET telegrams and 3 publications. In particular, ASAS-SN discovered one of the most extreme M-dwarf Flares ever detected (delta 9 mag). Furthermore, after triggering on an outburst in NGC 2617 we found that the AGN had changed from a Type 1.8 into a Type 1 Seyfert. After monitoring the transient with Swift and ground-based telescopes for 70 days, we clearly determined that the X-rays drove the variability with the UV-NIR emission showing delays in their response that increased with wavelength. ASAS-SN is an ongoing survey which, judging by its current success and future expansion, promises to be prolific for years to come.
- Publication:
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American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #223
- Pub Date:
- January 2014
- Bibcode:
- 2014AAS...22323603S