Difference: Oct18Daily ( vs. 1)

Daily cosmology program tasks

The goal of the Oct run is to obtain spectroscopy of all SNIa-like transients that peak above 19.5. This is one magnitude fainter than the nominal RCF program, although they typically go a little bit deeper. This requires a number of steps to be carried out each day. We are trying to build tools such that the integrated time this takes will be quite small.

Scan for candidates in the marshal

Yes, we do not want to do this but we first need to build a sufficient sample so we can show it is not necessary. So, at some point after 3pm (European time) the new candidates should be visible in the AMPEL test Marshal scanning page. At the top of this page, select as follows: Alerts ingested during the last 24h (should actually have been done around 3pm), Science program "AMPEL test", then set the "Show previously saved candidate" to the last item "For all your science programs" (otherwise you will not see candidates randomly selected by other people). We typically find between 100 and 400 candidates each day.

All candidates that seem to be continuously and smoothly rising and are brighter than 19.5 you can save to the AMPEL test program. TPD: You can ignore candidates that are nuclear and are already noted as being an AGN as well as very likely CVs (2 day risetime, smooth decline in crowded field).

Trigger spectroscopy

For now, we do this through the MARSHAL report page. Choose the AMPEL test program and alerts ingested within the last 20 days. Now go through these lists looking for SNe that fulfill the following criteria:

• No Type listed in the marshal column.
• It looks like the transient is at peak and this peak is fainter than 18.5 OR the transient previously peaked brighter than 18.5 but is now fading below this limit.
• Galactic latitude?
• No spectroscopic redshift above z 0.1

The remaining candidates considered are logged (how?), as should the decisions below be.

• If it is brighter than 19, request SEDM with prio 3 (subject to confirmation)
• If it is brighter than 19.5, request SEDM with prio 2 (subject to confirmation) If it is not looking like a promising cosmology SNIa (no I-band, no good rise-time coverage, ...) you can halt discussion of this transient here (and log this). Otherwise there are other options to consider:
• If visible form the south, the candidate can be made public on the TNS (all data in the AMPEL test stream should be public) and we can then request ePESSTO observations. (We should add the ePESSTO dates here).
• If within a week prior to a SNIFS night the candidate can be added to this target list. Please also do this for very well-observed SNe close to peak for which we might be able to do twins. (We should add the SNIFS dates here).
• If it looks unlikely to be typed by any of the above (SEDM spectrum too noisy and no ePESST/SNIFS nights), trigger LCO.

Confirm typing

Confirm spectroscopic typing of last night:

• Go through the slack channel showing the typed data (hopefully from all sources).
• Targets for which you can verify the automatic SNID typing are immediately done.
• Where you are not sure, contact someone...
• Where the typing fails, not this in the log and consider whether it is worth requesting more observations.

-- JakobNordin - 05 Sep 2018