Dr. Masao Sako

University of Pennsylvania


"The SDSS-II Supernova Survey"

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II has just completed a time-domain survey, involving repeat imaging of a 300 square-degree region of the sky every other night to detect and obtain multi-band light curves of supernovae and other transients. Spectroscopic follow-up observations were coordinated on many different telescopes around the world to confirm the nature of the SNe and to measure accurate redshifts. During its three 3-month campaigns, over a thousand SN spectra were measured, including nearly 500 unique SNe Ia in the redshift interval of 0.05 < z < 0.4. I will describe the mechanics of the survey and highlight a few results from the program.


Back to Spring 2008 Astrophysics Seminars

Received April 8, 2008