Every night the Rubin (LSST) and ZTF telescopes image the sky and flag anything that changed since last time: a supernova going off, a star flaring, an asteroid passing through. Each flag is an alert. The Fink broker classifies them, and this site shows what they are and where.
Pages
- Dashboard: how many alerts and objects arrived in a window, what kinds, where on the sky, and the brightest new supernova candidates.
- Sky: the map. Most of what follows is about it.
- Objects: the same objects as a table you can sort, filter by the broker's label or TNS type, and page through; click one for its light curve and images.
- Tonight: a planner for your telescope. Pick your site and telescope, and it lists the supernovae, novae and new objects seen this week that are above your horizon while it is dark and bright enough to see, sorted by when each is best placed, with finder charts, a CSV export and a printable list.
Search
- An object id (
ZTF26abvkmbu, a Rubin id, or the first few characters), a TNS name (SN 2026abc), coordinates (35.71 -4.75 or 02:22:50 -04:45:00, add r=10' for a radius), a deep-drilling field (COSMOS), a class (SN Ia, EclBin) or any name astronomers use (M31).
On the map: zoom to go deeper
- Whole sky (wider than 20°): a heatmap of how many objects were seen in each patch of sky.
- Region (1°–20°): a finer heatmap plus numbered badges. The number is the count of objects, the color is their most common class, and a white ring means something new in the last night.
- Objects (under 1°): one dot per object. A white ring means it was seen last night, and a white center means it has been detected only once so far. Click a dot for its light curve, classification and images.
Drag to pan, scroll or pinch to zoom, or click a badge to zoom into it.
Filters
- Window: how far back to look, from last night to a year.
- Active / new: objects detected in the window, or only those first seen in it.
- Class: most alerts are solar-system objects (asteroids). Pick Non-Solar System to hide them and see what else is out there.
- Brightness (≤ 20, ≤ 18, ≤ 16): only objects at least that bright. Smaller magnitudes are brighter. An object marked faded was last seen fainter than in the survey's reference image, so it has no brightness of its own and counts only under any mag.
- History (2+ nights, …): only objects seen on several nights, which filters out one-off artifacts.
Observing from your site
- Your site: an observatory from the list, or your latitude and longitude (typed, or Use my location). A position is rounded to half a degree, and the site is remembered in this browser only.
- Object panel: when the object is up tonight, its altitude through the night with the moon, the next 60 nights, and a Finder chart with a link to AAVSO's comparison stars.
- Objects: Visible from… keeps what is above your limit in tonight's dark window, with when and how high.
- Sky: Observer… shades what is below your horizon at a time you pick; the counts do not change.
Dark means the sun more than 12° below the horizon (18° if you choose). Positions ignore refraction and precession, a few tenths of a degree: enough to plan, not to point.
Classes
- SN candidate
- AGN / nuclear
- Variable star
- Solar system
- Cataloged
- Unknown
- Low reliability
- Other
The data is refreshed nightly. Every view is a link: on the map the URL records the position, zoom, filters and selected object, so Copy link shares exactly what you see.
Made by jgriz
