Skip to main content

Questions tagged [time-domain-astronomy]

For questions relating to the study of how and why objects in the cosmos change on timescales from seconds to decades, both in photometric and spectroscopic datasets. Not for questions about the nature of time. There may be a more specific tag, such as variable stars or supernovae

22 votes
1 answer
595 views

Multi-messenger astronomy: what is the potential of simultaneous detection of gravitational waves and neutrinos from a supernova?

Thanks to the efforts of the aLIGO team, gravitational wave astronomy is a reality. At the same time, neutrino detectors like Hyperkamiokande are becoming much more sensitive. My question is: what ...
ProfRob's user avatar
  • 156k
21 votes
4 answers
3k views

Can you see something active in the sky apart from satellites? Can there be amateur time-domain astronomy?

What I mean is an event unfolding that is viewable by naked eye or telescopes, and doesn't take comparing days of footage to see moving pixels. Apart from satellites, is there something that moves or ...
Firsh - justifiedgrid.com's user avatar
13 votes
2 answers
4k views

Why is the L3 Lagrangian point not perfectly stable? And why is the Earth-Sun L3 point a bit less than one A.U.?

I suppose the answer might involve general relativity, but still.... The L4 and L5 points are considered, theoretically, long-term stable, but not L3, on the exact opposite side of the Sun... And it ...
Kurt Hikes's user avatar
  • 5,307
7 votes
2 answers
220 views

How close are we to observing all of the sky all of the time?

I was musing on how amateur astronomy is still a heavy contributor to the overall field, and how on any given night there will be plenty of small telescopes pointing into the void and capturing the ...
Ingolifs's user avatar
  • 4,165
7 votes
2 answers
179 views

Observing eclipsing binaries

In a matter of weeks, I will be performing my first observation using a 25-cm Newton telescope (+CCD camera) and would be grateful for advice regarding an otherwise basic research that I have decided ...
Spikes's user avatar
  • 71
6 votes
1 answer
585 views

Intuitive connection between the periods of oscillation of Betelgeuse and the elemental concentrations at its core? (Betelgeuse; Saio et al. (2023))

Preamble (yes it's long, but it's part of this question's premise, so need to spell it out) Dr. Becky's recent video New study claims Betelgeuse supernova IMMINENT (decades not centuries!) | Night Sky ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 30.7k
5 votes
1 answer
514 views

Is "magnetars don't last long — just a year to a few years" really true? Is it a misquote or perhaps taken out of context?

NASA's Two Sides of the Same Star discusses the relationship between pulsars and magnetars and contains a video also linked below. At 02:13 it quotes "Tom ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 30.7k
4 votes
1 answer
506 views

Can a Nova occur outside of a binary star system?

With the T Coronae Borealis nova likely to erupt soon, it got me thinking if novas could occur outside of a binary star system. On the wiki page titled Nova: All observed novae involve white dwarfs ...
Shawn Lim's user avatar
  • 385
4 votes
1 answer
538 views

Has the new type II supernova SN 2023ixf's subtype been determined yet, and is a tentative light curve possible? Is it still getting brighter?

Wikipedia's article on SN 2023ixf begins: SN 2023ixf is a type II (core collapse) supernova located in the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101). It was first observed on May 19, 2023 by Koichi Itagaki and ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 30.7k
4 votes
2 answers
83 views

Are chirped gravitational wave events generally first identified by searching through libraries of chirps?

Comments below What does "GPU-accelerated butterfly matched filtering over dense bank of time-symmetric chirp-like templates" mean? (GW170817) suggest that for this technique a library of ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 30.7k
4 votes
1 answer
73 views

How much time do I have left to easily spot the recently brightened Recurrent Nova RS Ophiuchi with binoculars and mild light pollution?

Excellent answers to Binocular-friendly star map to find the Recurrent Nova RS Ophiuchi? provide some helpful maps for circa 8° FOV binoculars, but due to spatial and potential meteorological ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 30.7k
4 votes
1 answer
264 views

How to derive gravitational-wave frequency vs time from strain vs time

Suppose I have a time-series of the gravitational-wave strain amplitude as a (discrete, i.e., an array of numbers) function of time. The figure below is just illustrative. I am not using measured LIGO/...
Daddy Kropotkin's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
156 views

If a Milky Way supernova were to happen, how long would it take for astronomers to be notified?

If a Supernova were to happen in the Milky Way, how long would it take for astronomers to be notified? How long would it take for the people running the gravitational wave and neutrino detectors to ...
blademan9999's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
196 views

Do ASKAP and ALMA have "fast dump" interferometric modes? Can they see and perhaps report Fast Radio Bursts in real time?

Chatterjee et al 2017 The direct localization of a fast radio burst and its host nicely shows a VLA detection of a repeating FRB in 5 millisecond steps nicely demonstrating the dispersion slope ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 30.7k
3 votes
1 answer
769 views

Automated (and hopefully free) systems I can subscribe to sending email or SMS text message when the T Coronae Borealis Nova becomes visible?

My earlier question about predicted potentially observable events Has a gravitational microlensing event ever been predicted? If so, has it been observed? is limited to microlensing. Now I have just ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 30.7k

15 30 50 per page