NRAO/Socorro Colloquium Series

Shri Kulkarni

Caltech


Charting the Transient Sky: The Palomar Transient Factory


The study of explosive transient sources and variable stars was a major focus of astronomy which over time yielded a trove: RR Lyrae, Cepheid variables and supernovae. This area is undergoing a renaissance due to wide field optical surveys. The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) was designed to explicitly to chart the transient sky. With its innovative two-telescope architecture it achieves both high cadence and large areal rate of coverage. PTF achieved first light at the beginning of the year and entered routine operation in June. PTF is now finding an extragalactic transient every 20 minutes and a Galactic (strong) variable every 10 minutes. Our first two major accomplishments are the discovery of a new class of ultra-bright supernovae (dubbed spasmanova) and UV spectroscopy of local Ia supernovae.






October 29, 2009
11:00 am

Array Operations Center Auditorium

All NRAO employees are invited to attend via video, available in Charlottesville Room 230, Green Bank Room 137 and Tucson N525.

Local Host: Dale Frail