New Millennium Observatory

Advanced Research in Observational Astrophysics

 

Home Up

Supernova Search
Astrometry Supernova Search Comets

 

 

Occasionally, a large star reaching the end of its life collapses in on itself, then explodes very violently. So violently, in fact, that for a few weeks the star can out shine its parent galaxy. This type of explosion is called a Supernova.

One of the main goals of the New Millennium Observatory is the Supernova search.

 

The Valhalla Supernova Search

The Valhalla Supernova Search is in progress

This is one of the most amazing research work of the New Millennium Observatory. This research is one of the main reasons that brought me to build a personal observatory.

The name of this project, Valhalla, comes from the name of Paradise of Vikings: most of the galaxies I am monitoring has a very high declination, therefore close to the Northern sky latitude.

The program started in August 2005, after some moths of project to define the strategy and the catalog of galaxies to monitor. At the present (September 2005) I am monitoring about 100 galaxies every clear night from a sample of about 10000 galaxies.

The Valhalla Catalog has been extracted from the HYPERLEDA I Catalog of galaxies (Paturel+, 2003). I am selected a particular sub-sample of this catalog on the base of the performance of my telescope.

Technically speaking, now I am use a 50 seconds exposure for each frame with 2x2 binning. If all the systems work well, I can shot about 100 galaxies in less than 3 hours with a limit magnitude around 17.5-18.0.

In November 2006, I redefined my catalog Valhalla I that now has 9331 entries.
 

 

 

 

For any information about the New Millennium Observatory or this web page, please send an e-mail to  Dr. Elia Cozzi
Latest update: 13-09-10