Abstract:

Supernovae are the explosive deaths of massive stars. Despite their rarity, recent large-scale surveys have been able to discover them en masse due to their extreme luminosity, which enable us to study them from across intergalactic distances. Unfortunately, studying their progenitors is very difficult due to the distances involved. In this talk, I will discuss an example showing what is currently possible to discern about supernovae progenitors, highlight the role that Australia's can play in upcoming large scale surveys, and present work done in developing a new instrument to provide rapid cadence observations of these transient events.