[vsnet-chat 626] Re: False alarms, ISN & Co.

[Taichi Kato <tkato@kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp>]

Dear Steve, Mirko, Stefano, the ISN and other Supernovae Enthusiasts:

Steve H. Lucas wrote:

> By aligning with professional verifiers, and observatories (as
> we did in the eighties), or by creating our own spectroscopic verification
> (as has been previously mentioned) network is of paramount importance for
> this process to be successful. But it is sometimes not always the answer
> for one reason or another. Picture the well-known Australian professional
> astronomer who had three faint SNe discoveries (August, 1996) where no
> spectrographic work, or follow-up was accomplished by anyone! (message to
> Novanet, December 18, 1996).

   I was one quite interested in reading this Novanet message.  I have
tried to pick up that message for possible citation, but could not find
it in the log of the corresponding date.  Wouldn't it be a bit older message
as I remember?

   Anyway, the fact was that this message was issued after announcements
in IAUCs of the discovories of these possible supernovae, and the discoverer
complained that none of these SNe were studied (at least seen in IAUCs)
spectroscopically.  This was thus not the responsibility of the Novanet
that these discovories were left seemingly neglected.  There was no
apparent message responding to this; apparently no one there showed special
interest in these objects.

   Discoverers also should realize that the professional community does
not always pay equal attention to every "new" objects.  As discoverers do
for new objects from less important objects, scientists also filter new
discoveries to meet their scientific purposes from those discoveries of
less importance.  This procedure may depend on the aspect of the science
each scientist is aiming at: some aims may appear as an evident form to
the public soon after ths discovery, but other aims (like SNe statistics)
usually appear years after.

   Discoverers should not be disgusted at such a delay of researcher's
interest, and should also pay attention to long-term follow-up works.
The apparent problem seems to also reside in discoverer's side: they are
too often only interested in discovery itself, and not so interested in
long-term follow-up studies.  This is one of the serious problems frequently
met in my country (esp. at public observatories and amteurs) -- every
observer try to rush at new information and to take the opportunity
of getting the very first observation.  Yes, the very first observation
is very important in terms of science, but they seldom make observations,
or even refuse to do when requested, of some month-old novae of SNe, even
if they are just showing spectacular changes.  This kind of attitude seems
to be a potential cause of some serious professional astronomers being
less willing to be touched with amateur's works, which may otherwise might
provide a wealth of timely targets deserving their potential studies.
The usage and prevalance of alert networks both in amateurs and serious
professionals must at least overcome this long-standing problem, or even
discord.

Best regards,
Taichi Kato

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