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Determining Precise Positions of Supernovae

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William S. Penhallow

Quonochontaug Observatory, Physics Department, The University Of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI 02881

Abstract

A 0.25m/0.32m lenseless Schmidt camera mounted piggyback on the University of Rhode Island (URI) astrometric reflector (Penhallow 1978) is used to determine the positions of supernovae within 0.1 second of arc. Measurable 15.5 magnitude images can be obtained on hypered Kodak SR-5 x-ray film in 4 minutes under favorable conditions. Five exposures with about 16 reference stars are normally used.