Through my work on Eta Carinae I became interested in supernova impostors. This led to a collaborative NSF grant (AST 1108890) to study supernova impostors that included observing better light curves for these types of objects. I directly experienced the obvious: it was difficult for a single telescope in an average site to observe a well sampled light curve for an extra-galactic transient on its own.
Rather than give up, I thought about better ways to do this. Joe Patterson developed an excellent network of observers known as the Center for Backyard Astrophysics. I studied what he successfully built and combined that with my own experience with non-professional astronomers. The result is this effort where I enlist the help of anyone anywhere with a telescope, standard filter, and camera to collaborate on observing the light curves of targets I think are interesting.
Right now I am interested in supernova impostors (outbursts as visually as bright as supernova that do not destroy the progenitor) and their possible association with Type IIn and other unusual SNe. I am open to suggestions for campaigns on other types of transients.
Most non-professionals have access to telescopes with apertures and sky condition that make it difficult to measure objects fainter than 17th magnitude. So I restrict my crowd sourced campaigns to brighter SNe, within about 100 million light years of Earth.
None currently
SN 2013cj (17 04 53 +12 55 10)
ASASSN-14il (00 45 33 -14 15 33)
ASASSN-15lf (12 06 45 +67 09 47)
These are objects that have displayed some potential supernova-impostor like behavior and may be bright enough in full eruption to run a campaign on. Continued monitoring of these targets in quiecence is encouraged.
In NGC 2770
SNHunt 275 (09 09 34 +33 07 24)
In NGC 2748
PSNJ09132750+7627410
In NGC 4559
Gaia16ada (12 35 52 +27 55 56)
In UGC 5460
SN 2011ht (10 08 11 +51 50 57)
In NGC 5806
SNHunt 248(15 00 00 +01 53 29)
In NGC 5837
SN 2015Z (15 04 41 +12 37 44)
Var C in M33
There are a few promises I make to collaborators:
Your data is always yours. You can measure your own photometry and submit it to the AAVSO, VSNET, or anywhere else you please. I have no requirement that you keep your data proprietary or embargoed.
You are welcome to come and go as you please. I hope your reward for sticking around and being active on a project with me is that you enjoy yourself and get what you want out of it. But if life unexpectedly or otherwise takes you a different direction, I will support your choice to stop working on a project. There will be no pressure, no guilt, and no hard sell.
You will get credit for your work. If you contribute data you will be a coauthor on papers that use it. As a coauthor I will include you in the writing process (to the extent you want to be) when we write a paper. At the conclusion of a project, I will give you the data neatly packaged in a from you can easily upload to the AAVSO International Database under your user-name.
I maintain a list of interested people who I infrequently contact when I start to get interested in a target or consider starting a campaign. Send me an email (jmart5 -at- uis.edu) if you would like to be included on that list.
Whenever I am starting a new campaign I always announce it on the "Campaigns" forum on the AAVSO web site. Anyone is welcome to contact me an join up when I announce efforts there.
Last Updated: UT December 18, 2016