Alpy 200, what minimum size scope for supernova ID?

[John Coffin]

Hi, I guess this is a question for Robin Leadbeater. I’m interested in spectroscopy of faint objects with the Alpy 200 which is now available commercially. I know Robin has a 11 inch SCT, mine is a 8 inch and it’s a Celestron Edge for which only a 0.7 x reducer is available.

Would my telescope be suitable for identifying new supernovae?

Thanks. John

• This topic was modified 7 months ago by John Coffin.

[Robin Leadbeater]

Hi John,

I would say 8 inch would be enough to break into this game. Claudio Balcon who is now the leading amateur in this area started successfully using a 0.2m aperture with his similar home built 200l/mm grism slit spectrograph, though he uses a larger 0.4m aperture now.
https://www.wis-tns.org/search?&page=1&classifier=Claudio%20Balcon
(The ones before August 2023 are all with the 8 inch)

I work down to around mag 17.5 normally but there are quite a few candidates that get to around say mag 15.5-16.5 before being classified which should be within reach provided your skies are not too badly light polluted. An 8 inch at f7 is a similar focal length as my C11 running with as standard 0.63 reducer at f5.5 so if your seeing is similar it should match the same 23um slit I am using.

These are my classifications, most with the ALPY200. I tend to do more follow ups than initial classifications these days but the most recent 2 are official classifications, one at ~mag 17 and another ~mag 15.5 with strong contamination from the galaxy
https://www.wis-tns.org/search?&classifier=leadbeater

You’ve probably already seen it but I did a Youtube presentation on it for Shelyak when they brought out the commercial version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L6LLn9HjUY&ab_channel=ShelyakInstrumentsTV

Cheers
Robin

[John Coffin]

Hi Robin, thanks for the reply. Yes, I did see your presentation on Shelyak’s YouTube webinar. That’s what inspired me to look into the possibility of using an Alpy 200. Now to save up some pennies!
John

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