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DREAMS telescope

All-sky infrared time domain surveys are a powerful tool for probing transient events in dusty regions with high optical extinction, and for detecting cool stars that are bright at these wavelengths. Infrared surveys also allow us to place constraints on different astronomical phenomena, one example case involves core-collapse supernovae as their luminosity functions and extinction distributions are currently poorly constrained, and therefore a near-infrared survey, where extinction is less of an issue, can place better constraints on the core-collapse supernovae rate.

The Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics has developed the Dynamic REd All-sky Monitoring Survey (DREAMS), a near-infrared all-sky time-domain survey for Siding Spring Observatory. As part of this project, you will contribute to development of the survey and data-reduction pipeline as well as working with time-domain datasets.

This project will allow you to gain skills in different computing languages (including Python and C++), learn how to develop software pipelines, various data reduction and analysis techniques, and working with telescopes and instrumentation.

Depending on your interests this project can be expanded to include complimentary topics revolving around:

• Stellar evolution and missing stellar populations due to extinction. (Luca Casagrande)

• Analysing the infrared light curves of supernovae. (Chris Lidman)
• Placing constraints on gravitational wave events. (Lilli Sun)

For more information on this potential research project or to discuss other related research areas, please contact either Jamie Soon (jamie.soon@anu.edu.au) or Tony Travouillon (tony.travouillon@anu.edu.au).