Supernova Impostors

This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under grant number 1108890 to study the terminal phases in the evolution of stars that are hundreds of times the mass of our own sun. Here is a link to that NSF award in their database. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).

We are using the 20-inch and 16-inch telescopes to monitor the brightness fluctuations of massive Luminous Blue Variable stars in nearby galaxies M31 and M33. We are also following the long-term light fluctuations of supernova impostors discovered by supernova searches. As of the awarding of this NSF grant in 2011 only a hand full supernova impostors had been identified and studied. Those that we did know about had little in common with each other rather than the defining characteristics of their pedigree. With our collaborators at the University of Minnesota we aim to significantly increase the size of this sample and discern trends that will give clues to the physics behind this phenomenon.

Fields Imaged

Last Updated June 8, 2016 UT

Here is our page devoted to SN 2009ip

Here is our page devoted to SN 2014G

Here is our page devoted to SN 2016bkv

(*) UT date expresses as two digit year, two digit month, and two digit day. i.e. March 13, 2012 = 120313