On the left Tom Holoien, OSU Astronomy graduate student and DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellow, describes his paper Six Months of Multi-Wavelength Follow-up of the Tidal Disruption Candidate ASASSN-14li and Implied TDE Rates from ASAS-SN". ASASSN-14li was found by us only 90 Mpc away, the closest TDE ever discovered in optical light. It is worth noting that ASAS-SN found roughly 1 TDE for every 70 Type Ia supernovae in 2014, a rate that is much higher than that of other surveys. Watch the video and read the paper for more details.

Ben Shappee, one of the ASAS-SN "builders" and now a Hubble, Carnegie-Princeton Fellow, summarizes results for his paper "The Young and Bright Type Ia Supernova ASASSN-14lp: Discovery, Early-Time Observations, First-Light Time, Distance to NGC 4666, and Progenitor Constraints." This paper uses prediscovery photometry (with a detection less than a day after first light) and extensive ultraviolet through near-infrared followup observations to rule out a red giant secondary in the progenitor system of ASASSN-14lp. This is another exciting discovery from "Assassin", see the paper for more details.

Both ASASSN-14li and ASASSN-14lp were discovered in late 2014, but as you can see from our papers, we have observed them extensively for several months afterward, and in fact we are still observing ASASSN-14li, so most likely we will write another paper about that fascinating event. As always, stay tuned!

Finally, we had yet another very exciting discovery last week, but we can't write about it :)