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Information on the observation and analysis of stars and other objects that are sources of x-rays and gamma rays. |
67 | 301 | By Bikeman 3 months ago |
News from Neutrino scientists: M77 could be interesting, after all :-)
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg3395
Cheers
HB
As can be seen in recent AAVSO data, the classic blazar BL Lac has become active again. As recently as Sep 25 it was down at V ~14.2, but is now bouncing around V ~12.5. Two recent ATels report activity in the visible and at gamma-rays:
https://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=15684
https://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=15688
This activity is not unusual, but a potential precursor to an outburst.
I wonder whether someone here managed to observe the afterglow of GRB 221009A, which apparently had a really bright optical signal.
https://twitter.com/swift_phil/status/1579485506475544576
CS
HB
A preprint posted to astro-ph on Monday describes the upcoming flare event for the much-observed blazar OJ 287. This is predicted for 2022 October, so folks interested should watch for this in the pre-dawn sky. Details here:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.08360
\Brian
SNEWS (SuperNova Early Warning System) is exactly what its name implies: it is a system that can give us an early warning about a certain type of supernova happening in our own galaxy (and neighborhood) when a massive star ends its life and collapses into a neutron star or even a black hole. When it happens, neutrino detectors will detect the signature of the collapse even before we can see the event in optical spectrum because the collapse will take some time to propagate to the layers of the star that are transparent to optical wavelengths.
GCN, the network that brodcasts real-time information on newly identified Gamma Ray Bursts and other transients, is planning massive changes to it's technology.
Here is a presentation on it:
https://nasa-gcn.github.io/gcn-presentation/
Hi, folks,
GX 339-4 is in outburst. We will be observing it with JWST on September 10 from 00:42:23 to 3:03:17 UT. It's currently about 16.5 mag in V, and it's likely to be getting brighter.
The goal of the JWST program is to look at the rapid variability, so sub-second timescale time series photometry would be especially valuable for anyone who has that capability, but any time series photometry with accurate timestamping would be useful.
The HEN webpage now includes a section for members interested in time domain astrophysics. This includes Gamma Ray Bursts/GRB afterglows, galactic supernova, and gravitational wave detection. All of these time domain phenomena will require optical followup by AAVSO members and other observers. Members of the HEN are currently involved in projects in all of these three research areas, as discussed in the link. Time domain astrophysics is a new and exciting research area in high energy phenomena.
There have been two Neil-Gehrels-SWIFT triggers coming from the direction of SCO X-1 in the past 2 days.
https://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/other/1108021.swift
https://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/other/1108208.swift
Does anyone know what's up there? Should we observe Sco X-1 in the optical more often? This would be most interesting for observers in Australia I guess.
If I am trying to capture photometry for a SuperNova event, one of my fears would be over exposing the images. That would be sad: to be on target for the event but then capturing nothing of value.
What if the DSLR was put into a video mode? Is there experience with video-to-fits? That way you could stack your fits images to any SNR you would like.
George
