\ Palomar Transient Factory

The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) is a fully-automated, wide-field survey aimed at a systematic exploration of the optical transient sky.

Spectroscopically confirmed supernova discoveries (as of today)
Access public spectra (WISEASS)

All SNe SNe Ia SNe Ibc SNe II
1529 1039 73 363

PTF papers

41 (list of papers)
 

Recent News

September 2011: Come to Caltech and see a supernova with your own eyes!

September 2011: PTF11kly on PBS Newshour!

August 2011: PTF11fzx is the centrepiece of the Galaxy Zoo forum's Object of the Day - PTF10ops is also discussed here.

August 2011: PTF11kly is the Astronomy Picture of the Day

August 2011: PTF11kly, the new M101 supernova, in the news: BBC, Telegraph, Nature News, Popular Science, Sky and Telescope, New Scientist, MSNBC, Slashdot, and many others.

August 2011: PTF11kly, the nearest Type 1a supernova seen in decades:

August 2011: Bad Astronomy blog on PTF11kyl.

August 2011: A new supernova in M101! Finding chart is here (North up, East left, crosshairs show supernova).

June 2011: PTF in the news for finding a new class of supernovae: MSNBC, National Geographic, CBC, LA Times, New Scientist, and many others.

June 2011: New PTF Nature paper: Hydrogen-poor superluminous stellar explosions (Quimby et al.)

June 2011: New PTF images

May 2011: Several new papers, including The Subluminous and Peculiar Type Ia Supernova PTF 09dav

Previous news items


The PTF Project

The program is centered on a 12Kx8K, 7.8 square degree CCD array (CFH12K) re-engineered for the 1.2-m Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory by COO (Rahmer et al. 2008). Photometric followup is undertaken by the automated Palomar 1.5-m telescope (Cenko et al. 2006) and other facilities provided by consortium members.

PTF uses eighty percent of the 1.2-m and fifty percent of the 1.5-m telescope time. With an exposure of 60-s the survey reaches an approximate depth of m_R=20.5 and m_g'=21.

Two major transient detection experiments are planned for the five-year project:

1) a 5-day cadence supernova search

2) an exotic transient search with cadences between 90 seconds and 1 day.

PTF provides automatic, realtime transient classification and followup, as well as a database including every source detected in each frame.

PTF is a collaboration of Caltech, LBNL, IPAC, Berkeley, LCOGT, Oxford, Columbia and the Weizmann Institute.


Previous news

Jan 2011: Two new papers: PTF 10bzf (SN 2010ah): a broad-line Ic supernova discovered by the PTF and Real-Time Detection and Rapid Multiwavelength Follow-up Observations of a Highly Subluminous Type II-P Supernova from the PTF

Jan 2011: PTF at the AAS

Dec 2010: PTF conference proceedings from Cool Stars 16: PTF/M-dwarfs: A Large New M-dwarf Planetary Transit Survey; The Age-Rotation-Activity Relation: From Myrs to Gyrs; Ultracool Dwarf Science from Widefield Multi-Epoch Surveys

Nov 2010: News about the Supernova Zoo PTF Key Project: Wired.com; Universe Today;The Physics arXiv Blog

Nov 2010: Two new papers: Evidence for an FU Orionis Outburst from a Classical T Tauri Star (ApJ submitted), and An Outbursting Class I Protostar in the Pelican/North American Nebula (ApJ submitted)

Oct 2010: Two new papers: Hubble Space Telescope Studies of Nearby Type Ia Supernovae (ApJL submitted) and Galaxy Zoo Supernovae (MNRAS submitted).

Sep 2010: Rapidly Decaying Supernova 2010X: A Candidate ".Ia" Explosion ApJL submitted

Sep 2010: Palomar Transient Factory Discovery of 5 New Supernovae (ATel #2835)

August 2010: Discovery follow-up of a broad-line type Ic supernova (ATel #2817)

August 2010: PTF Discovery of Three Type II Supernovae (ATel #2802)

August 2010: The early Type Ia Supernovae PTFqjq and PTFqjl (ATel #2776)

July 2010: PTF Discovery of PTF10llv (ATel #2765)

July 2010: PTF discovery of PTF10myz, a type II supernova (ATel #2757)

July 2010: Discovery of a Luminous Supernova, PTF10hgi (ATel #2740)

July 2010: The Early Type Ia Supernovae PTF10nlg and PTF10ndc (ATel #2735)

July 2010: PTF discovery of PTF10ksq, a type II supernova (ATel #2723)

July 2010: The early SN Ia PTF10mwb (ATel #2718)

June 2010: PTF discovery of PTF10htz, a type II supernova (ATel #2685)

June 2010: PTF discovery of PTF10hny, a type II supernova (ATel #2678)

June 2010: PTF discovery of PTF10jop, a strongly interacting supernova (ATel #2676)

June 2010: PTF discovery of PTF10jkx, a type II supernova (ATel #2675)

June 2010: Discovery of Three New Supernova by the Palomar Transient Factory (ATel #2657)

May 2010: PTF discovery of PTF10hif, a type IIn supernova (ATel #2649)

May 2010: Discovery of PTF10heh, a Luminous Type IIn Supernova (ATel #2634)

May 2010: PTF discovery of PTF10hcw, a type Ib supernova (ATel #2631)

May 2010: PTF discovery of a type II SN (ATel #2621)

May 2010: PTF10fqs: A Luminous Red Nova in the Spiral Galaxy Messier 99 (submitted to ApJ)

May 2010: PTF & ROTSE find a young core-collapse supernova (ATel #2603)

May 2010: PTF discovers, follows-up, and spectroscopically classifies a possible super-Chandrasekhar mass supernova, all in the same night! (ATel #2600)

Apr 2010: PTF discovers a Luminous Red Nova in the spiral galaxy M9 (ATel 2590)

Apr 2010: PTF discovers and classifies a Type 1a supernova 13 days before peak brightness (ATel 2580)

Apr 2010: Core-Collapse Supernovae from the Palomar Transient Factory: Indications for a Different Population in Dwarf Galaxies (submitted to ApJ)

Mar 2010: PTF discovers twin supernovae: a core-collapse & a 1a in the same galaxy.

Mar 2010: PTF discovers an extremely young SN 1a (ATel 2453)

Mar 2010: Palomar Transient Factory discovers a young, broad-line Type Ic supernova (ATels 2470, 2471)

October 2009: Mysterious transients unmasked as the bright blue death throes of massive stars submitted to Nature (embargoed for discussion in the press).

August 2009: PTF in the news: 1,2,3,4

29 June 2009: Two new papers: a detailed description of the PTF project and the commissioning results (astro-ph/0906.5350) and a study of the science planned for PTF (astro-ph/0906.5355).

23 May 2009: Discovery, Photometric and Spectroscopic Follow Up Of Another Fifteen Optical Transients (ATel #2055)

28 Apr 2009: The Palomar Transient Factory Discovers a Possible super-Chandrasekhar Type Ia Supernova (ATel #2037)

2 Apr 2009: Another 25 transient detections and followups from PTF (ATel #2005)

22 March 2009: Eleven more transient detections from PTF (ATel #1983)

11 March 2009: The first PTF transient detections! (ATel #1964)

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