Related papers: A Luminous Red Nova in M31 and its Progenitor Syst…

We present the first characterization of the statistical relationship between a large sample of novae in M31 and their progenitor stellar populations in the form of a delay time distribution. To this end, we leverage the spatially resolved…

The M 31 nova M31N 2008-12a was recently found to be a recurrent nova (RN) with a recurrence time of about 1 year. This is by far the fastest recurrence time scale of any known RNe. Our optical monitoring programme detected the predicted…

Nova Sagittarii 1943 (V1148 Sgr) was an 8th-mag optical transient that was unusual in having a late-type spectrum during its outburst, in striking contrast to the normal high-excitation spectra seen in classical novae. Unfortunately, only…

Using Hubble Space Telescope (HST) photometry to measure star formation histories, we age-date the stellar populations surrounding supernova remnants (SNRs) in M31 and M33. We then apply stellar evolution models to the ages to infer the…

We present optical light curves of twenty-nine novae in M31 during the 2009 and 2010 observing seasons of the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF). The dynamic and rapid cadences in PTF monitoring of M31, from one day to even ten minutes,…

The study presents a simplified method to identify potential bright red nova progenitors based on the amplitude of the light curve and infrared (J-H) colour of a contact binary system. We employ published criteria for contact binary orbital…

We present the results of our monitoring campaigns of the luminous red novae (LRNe) AT 2020hat in NGC 5068 and AT 2020kog in NGC 6106. The two objects were imaged (and detected) before their discovery by routine survey operations. They show…

We have obtained snapshot images of an X-ray nova in M31 from Chandra ACIS-I and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The Chandra position of the X-ray nova was R.A.=00:44:06.68 +/- 1.74", Dec.=+41:12:20.0 +/-…

We constrain the properties of the progenitor system of the highly reddened Type Ia supernova (SN) 2014J in Messier 82 (M82; d ~ 3.5 Mpc). We determine the SN location using Keck-II K-band adaptive optics images, and we find no evidence for…

The Andromeda Galaxy recurrent nova M31N 2008-12a had been observed in eruption ten times, including yearly eruptions from 2008-2014. With a measured recurrence period of $P_\mathrm{rec}=351\pm13$ days (we believe the true value to be half…

Classical nova outburst has been suggested for a number of extragalactic symbiotic stars, but in none of the systems has it been proven. In this work we study the nature of one of these systems, LMC S154. We gathered archival photometric…

The upper region of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram is populated by massive stars in a diversity of evolutionary stages, and the classification of these stars is often based on observed characteristics exclusively in the optical spectral…

The positions of more than 1300 nova eruptions in M31 catalogued through the end of calendar year 2025 have been compared in order to identify recurrent nova candidates. The work extends the study of Shafter et al. (2015) who identified a…

Luminous red novae (LRNe) are transients characterized by low luminosities and expansion velocities, and are associated with mergers or common envelope ejections in stellar binaries. Intermediate-luminosity red transients (ILRTs) are an…

An increasing number of non-terminal eruptions are being found in the numerous surveys for optical transients. Very little is known about these giant eruptions, their progenitors and their evolutionary state. A greatly improved census of…

The abundant population of "Little Red Dots" (LRDs)-compact objects with red UV to optical colors and broad Balmer lines at high redshift-is unveiling new insights into the properties of early active galactic nuclei (AGN). Perhaps the most…

Recent photometric surveys with JWST have revealed a significant population of mysterious objects with red colours, compact morphologies, frequent signs of active galactic nucleus (AGN) activity, and negligible X-ray emission. These 'Little…

We present the first X-ray and UV/optical observations of a very bright and fast nova in the disc of M31, M31N 2013-01b. The nova reached a peak magnitude $R\sim$15 mag and decayed by 2 magnitudes in only 3 days, making it one of the…

The stars that end their lives as supernovae (SNe) have been directly observed in only a handful of cases, due mainly to the extreme difficulty in identifying them in images obtained prior to the SN explosions. Here we report the…

We present a catalogue of 3,305 H$\alpha$ emission-line point sources observed with the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) in the vicinity fields of M31 and M33 during September 2011 and January 2016. The…