Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Swift SN Timeline

Here is a timeline of Swift SN observations through mid-2012.  It demonstrates the continuity of our program, with the light curves of individual SNe being well sampled in time and multiple SNe being followed up at any given time.  The dynamic range for our observations in uvw1 is about 11 (the saturation point) down to a limiting magnitude of 21 for reasonable exposure times and typical galaxy contamination.

Swift Supernovae -- What are bad targets?

Which supernovae make good candidates for Swift observations is a very science-dependent question and has different answers to different people.  So I will start with things that make SNe poor targets for Swift as they are independent of the science.