[Previous] | [Session 9] | [Next]
M. Modjaz, W. D. Li, A. V. Filippenko, R. R. Treffers (U.C. Berkeley)
We present some results from the Lick Observatory Supernova Search (LOSS), which is being conducted with the 0.75-m Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT) and achieved successful operation in mid-1998. Since the commissioning of KAIT in 1996, significant improvements have been made to the software and hardware (such as installation of an AP7 CCD camera). A list is given of the roughly 60 nearby (z < 0.1) supernovae (SNe) discovered with LOSS, together with their spectral types and other relevant properties. We present well-sampled multi-color light curves of a selection of SNe out of a pool of about 30 SNe monitored within the past 2 years. We emphasize the importance of light-curve analysis of Type Ia and Type II SNe, since the detailed study of nearby SNe is crucial to establishing SNe as cosmological distance indicators. We also discuss preliminary conclusions derived from the surprisingly high rate of peculiar Type Ia SNe and from comparisons of their light curves. Projects which attempt to use our data for statistical analysis and for studies of bulk flows are underway.
KAIT and its associated science have been made possible with funding or donations from NSF, NASA, the Sylvia and Jim Katzman Foundation, Sun Microsystems Inc., the Hewlett-Packard Company, Photometrics Ltd., AutoScope Corporation, and the University of California.
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to http://astro.berkeley.edu/~bait/kait.html. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the Web site for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back comand on your browser.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: modjaz@ugastro.berkeley.edu