![]() | All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae | ![]() |
Our discoveries, ASASSN-14li and ASASSN-18ey, are in the news (January 2019). Extreme heartbeat star characterized using ASAS-SN and TESS (January 2019). Our Kepler-field supernova ASASSN-18bt is in the news (November 2018). New ASAS-SN telescope, named Tian Shan, has been deployed in China! (November 2018). Our ASAS-SN Sky Patrol now serves both V-band and g-band light curves (September 2018). We have added 300,000+ light curves to ASAS-SN Variable Stars Database (September 2018). With 150 bright SNe discovered in 2018 so far, we are doubling our SN discovery rate (June 2018). ASAS-SN was awarded a grant from OSU Women & Philanthropy to support our research (May 2018). ASASSN-18fv: Very bright and mysterious transient near the Carina Nebula (March 2018). ASASSN-18ey: Exciting Galactic Transient Discovered by ASAS-SN (March 2018). ASAS-SN Variable Stars Database is now public (57,000+ bright variables) (January 2018). See more ASAS-SN News here.
South Africa
We are also supported by
ASAS-SN expansion was also possible with support from:
Peking University We thank George Skestos for his generous gift to Prof. Kochanek, partially used to expand ASAS-SN.
ASAS-SN currently consists of 24 telescopes, distributed around the globe. ASAS-SN first unit, known as "Brutus", which also happens to be the name of the Ohio State mascot, comprises of four robotic 14-cm telescopes deployed at the Hawaii station of the Las Cumbres Observatory. ASAS-SN second unit, named "Cassius", also consists of four 14-cm telescopes deployed in Chile. In 2017, with support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation grant GBMF5490, we deployed additional 8 telescopes at two other LCO sites: "Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin", deployed in South Africa, and "Henrietta Leavitt", deployed in Texas. In addition, using a combination of funds from Mt. Cuba Astronomical Foundation, the Chinese Academy of Science South America Center for Astronomy (CASSACA), and the Villum Foundation (Denmark), in September 2017 the 5th ASAS-SN unit, "Bohdan Paczyński", was deployed in Chile. Finally, using funds from the Peking University and the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (KIAA), in November 2018 the 6th ASAS-SN unit, "Tian Shan", was deployed in China. All these telescopes allow us to survey the entire visible sky every night, and are making our network much less sensitive to weather conditions. We are discovering numerous bright supernovae in both hemispheres: see below where our SNe are located on the sky (bigger symbols - smaller distance) ![]() See below our sky coverage plot for the last 365 days - we are frequently observing the entire sky!
![]() At this point we are focused on discovering bright, nearby supernovae, but we like all kinds of variable objects, so if there is an object with g,V-band magnitude between g,V~9 and g,V~18 that we might have in our data, send us an e-mail (ben.shappee@gmail.com) and we will check what we have (see our Sky Patrol service first).
ASAS-SN Team: At Ohio State: Jon Brown, Tharindu Jayasinghe, Chris Kochanek, Josh Shields, Kris Stanek, Patrick Vallely, John Beacom, Todd Thompson, Johnny Greco, David Will; Ben Shappee, Anna Payne, Michael Tucker, Kyle Hart (IfA, Hawaii); Tom Holoien (Carnegie Observatories); José Luis Prieto (Universidad Diego Portales; MAS); Grzegorz Pojmanski (Warsaw University Observatory); Joseph Brimacombe (Coral Towers Observatory); David Bersier (LJMU); Subo Dong, Ping Chen, Subhash Bose, Xiaowei Duan (KIAA-PKU); Emilio Falco (CfA); Przemek Wozniak (LANL); Maximilian Stritzinger, Simon Holmbo (Aarhus); Nidia Morrell (Carnegie Observatories, Las Campanas Observatory); Laura Chomiuk, Jay Strader (MSU); Anna Franckowiak (DESY); Ondřej Pejcha, Michał Pawlak (Charles University); Xinu Dai (University of Oklahoma); David Martinez-Delgado (Heidelberg); Katie Auchettl (DARK); Robert Mutel, Tyler Roth (Iowa Robotic Telescope); Gáspár Bakos (Princeton). We thank Las Cumbres Observatory and its staff for their continued support of ASAS-SN: we truly could not do this without your help. And here are some "alumni" of our project: Diego Godoy-Rivera, an OSU Astronomy graduate student, worked with us on this paper; Udit Basu, a local (Ohio) high school student who worked with us for 3 years, is now an undergrad at Princeton Astrophysics. An important part of our project is the follow-up effort with bigger telescopes to get confirmation imaging (our images have ~8" pixels). We are fortunate to have a number of "unpaid professional astronomers" working with us on ASAS-SN "ad hoc" SN confirmation effort, including G. Bock (BOSS), E. Conseil (Association Francaise des Observateurs d'Etoiles Variables, France), I. Cruz (Cruz Observatory, USA), J. M. Fernandez (Observatory Inmaculada del Molino, Spain), S. Kiyota (Variable Star Observers League in Japan), R. A. Koff (AntelopeHills Observatory), G. Krannich (Roof Observatory Kaufering, Germany), P. Marples (BOSS), G. Masi (Virtual Telescope Project, Ceccano, Italy), L. A. G. Monard (Klein Karoo Observatory, Western Cape, South Africa), B. Nicholls (Mt. Vernon Obs., New Zealand), J. Nicolas (Groupe SNAUDE, France), R. Post (Post Astronomy), G. Stone (Sierra Remote Observatories), W. Wiethoff (University of Minnesota, Duluth, USA). You can see from many joint Astronomer's Telegrams we have published that it is a very fruitful collaboration - we have confirmed together more than 400 supernovae! A large number of professional astronomers have also contributed their effort and telescope time to ASAS-SN, which we most appreciate. You can see the names of our collaborators on ASAS-SN results annouced so far on ASAS-SN papers and ATels. So when you get an e-mail from us, asking to collaborate on a new exciting ASAS-SN target, we hope you will say "yes"! |