Jusr wondering how many ACP users are doing SN surveys? Up to now I've been primarily concerned with minor planet research. I've been planning a SN survey for some time and only just got really going a couple of weeks back.

Just thought I'd post a couple of my thoughts on the subject and see if anyone else has info to add.

ATM I'm managing to cover around 150-200 targets in approx 6 hours imaging. Given 60 - 120 second exposures depending on the target galaxies magnitude. I wrote a target selection database which picks out the targets based on criteria such as magnitude, angular size, morphology etc. I've also added some extra logic to the useractions to log data into a local mysql database with the intention of building a more complete tool to log note and report on the results.

Thanks to John Winfield's excellent DSS blink tool, examining the images is a snip. Eventually though I plan to use my own ref images rather than dss, sometimes the dss plates can show galaxies overexposed at the core and thus its impossible to confirm anomalies sometimes.

My system (C14, AP1200, ST8) gets down to approx mag 18.5 to 19.5 depending on the exposures. I think this should be good enough to catch the majority of relatively bright SN.

No luck so far but then due to weather I've only managed a tad under 700 targets. I read somewhere that on average it takes 1400 - 3000 targets to bag one new SNe.

I'm doing a bit of thinking about optimising the data collection process to improve overall efficiency. I had the pointing exposure updates down to the bare minimum on which I can get reliable results. Next thing is to get the pointing corrector running properly. I've never had any luck with that for some reason! Also I'm thinking about logic to minimise the slew distance between targets to maximise the amount of time actually spent imaging rather than slewing. ATM I just sort the targets by RA but I really need to also arrange them in some sort of a Z pattern to minimise dec slews.

So other SN hunters out there whats your story? Have you come across any killer techniques. Also if anyone wants to swap details for follow up of suspect candidates then please drop me a message.