Events at Physics |
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The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF), an innovative 2-telescope system, was designed to explicitly to chart the transient sky with a particular focus on events which lie in the nova-supernova gap. PTF is now finding an extragalactic transient every 20 minutes and a Galactic (strong) variable every 10 minutes. Extensive spectroscopy and photometry allowed us: to identify an emerging class of ultra-luminous supernovae, discover luminous red novae, undertake UV spectroscopy of Ia supernovae, discover low budget supernovae, clarify sub-classes of core collapse and thermo-nuclear explosions, map the systematics of core collapse supernovae, identify a trove of eclipsing binaries and the curious AM CVns.<br>
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