Program: GN-2008A-Q-86

Title:Preparing for large time-domain surveys: unravelling the nature of faint blue transients in SDSS
PI:Boris Gaensicke
Co-I(s): John Southworth, Danny Steeghs, Tom Marsh

Abstract

A number of deep large-scale time-domain surveys will soon add a new dimension in the parameter space of astronomical objects: Skymapper and PanSTARRS/PS1 will begin operations relatively soon in the southern / northern hemisphere, and will be followed in the intermediate future by the mother of all time-domain surveys, LSST. As an on outlook what these surveys might unleash upon us, we have used the Data Release 6 of SDSS to search for transiting blue objects with large (>2mag) amplitudes in all bands. A total of 12 objects was found with typical quiescent g~20.5-21.5. While the most likely nature of these objects are either galactic accreting binaries or AGN they may include gravitational lensing events, or some truly new type of transients. We request here a small amount of Gemini North time to provide a spectroscopic identification of the three objects visible in 08A.

Publications using this program's data