AAS 201st Meeting, January, 2003
Session 111. Super Machos and Supernovae: Astrophysics in the Time Domain
Invited, Thursday, January 9, 2003, 8:30-9:20am, 6AB

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[111.01] SuperMacho and Supernoave: Astrophysics in the Time Domain

C. Stubbs (U. Washington)

A number of forefront astrophysical investigations involve the study of variability in flux, position, or both. Recent developments in frame subtraction image analysis allow for the robust detection of rare transient events. I will describe two ongoing NOAO survey programs that exploit this technique: 1) the SuperMacho project is a survey that monitors sources in the LMC to search for the transient brightening that is the signature of gravitational microlensing, and 2) the ESSENCE survey, which aims to detect and monitor hundreds of supernovae to measure the equation of state parameter ``w'' of the Dark Energy. The real-time image analysis pipelines, the discrimination/object classification techniques, and the database representations used in projects such as these can serve as important stepping stones towards the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). I will describe the scientific goals, status and techniques used in the SuperMacho and ESSENCE proejcts.


The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: stubbs@astro.washington.edu

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