The Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT) is an automated telescope used in the search for

supernova A supernova (: supernovae or supernovas) is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. A supernova occurs during the last stellar evolution, evolutionary stages of a massive star, or when a white dwarf is triggered into runaway nuclear fusion ...

e. The telescope had a first light in 1998, and is a noted robotic telescope. It had first recorded data in August 1996, and was formally dedicated late that year. It was used for the Lick Observatory Supernova Search. The KAIT is a computer-controlled

reflecting telescope A reflecting telescope (also called a reflector) is a telescope that uses a single or a combination of curved mirrors that reflect light and form an image. The reflecting telescope was invented in the 17th century by Isaac Newton as an alternati ...

with a 76 cm

mirror A mirror, also known as a looking glass, is an object that Reflection (physics), reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror forms an image of whatever is in front of it, which is then focused through the lens of the eye or a camera ...

and a CCD

camera A camera is an instrument used to capture and store images and videos, either digitally via an electronic image sensor, or chemically via a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. As a pivotal technology in the fields of photograp ...

to take pictures. It is located at the

Lick Observatory The Lick Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by the University of California. It is on the summit of Mount Hamilton (California), Mount Hamilton, in the Diablo Range just east of San Jose, California, United States. The ...

near

San Jose, California San Jose, officially the City of San José ( ; ), is a cultural, commercial, and political center within Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area. With a city population of 997,368 and a metropolitan area population of 1.95 million, it is ...

. KAIT can take close to 100 images per hour and observe about 1000

galaxies A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar Sys ...

a night. The Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope is a robotic telescope designed to look for supernova. The telescope uses 76 cm (30 inch) diameter mirror that feeds a CCD imager with 20 slot filter wheel. The telescope is also supported by an electronic weather station, that can feed data to the robotic telescope control system. Several computers run software that controls the telescope and take in the data from the sensors. The telescope's development was funded by the NSF at private donors since 1989, turning 30-inch (~760 mm) telescope in a computer controlled super nova huntress. The telescope can also monitor the brightness of

variable star A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth (its apparent magnitude) changes systematically with time. This variation may be caused by a change in emitted light or by something partly blocking the light, so variable stars are ...

Observations and research

KAIT discovered its first supernova in 1997, SN 1997bs. The next year (1998) twenty supernova were found after improvements to the telescope, and in 1999 forty supernova were discovered. The telescope has been noted for discovering the supernova SN 1999em. This super nova was in the spiral galaxy NGC 1637, and was observed later by telescope such as the VLT (4x8.2m). Another example of KAIT discovery was SN 1999ec, a type Ib supernova that was discovered in the interacting galaxy NGC 2207 on October 2, 1999. In 2011, KAIT was one of six telescopes used for the Lick AGN Monitoring Project. Between 1998 and 2013, KAIT had discovered 900 supernova. In 2013, the supernova 2013ej was discovered by KAIT in the galaxy Messier 74; it was noted for being as bright as 10th magnitude. In 2014, KAIT helped determine the age of a supernova found in the galaxy M83, because it had images of that region of the sky from just a few days prior to its discovery, establishing it had not brightened at that time. In 2016, KAIT spotted the super nova SN 2016coj in NGC 4125, thought to be a

Type Ia supernova A Type Ia supernova (read: "type one-A") is a type of supernova that occurs in binary systems (two stars orbiting one another) in which one of the stars is a white dwarf. The other star can be anything from a giant star to an even smaller white ...

. In 2019, KAIT was one of the telescopes whose data was used in a study on Blazars.

Discoveries

References

External links

The Lick Observatory Supernova Search with the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope
(2001) {{Portal bar, California, Astronomy, Stars, Spaceflight, Outer space, Solar System, Education, Science Reflecting telescopes Robotic telescopes Lick Observatory Supernovae

Observations and research

Discoveries

See also

References

External links