New spectra, images, and transient catalog of the PESSTO public survey (DR4)

A new release of the Public ESO Spectroscopic Survey for Transient Objects (PESSTO) is available, including spectra and images from its ePESSTO extension, and the delivery of a new transient catalogue, globally covering 7 years of observations, from April 2012 to April 2019, for a total of 45GB.

This new release brings to 2323 the number of observed supernovae and optical transients, with calibrated 1D spectra for 2314 of them, doubling the number of objects previously published (1168 in the previous version). Also doubled is the number of selected key targets (now 337) that were scheduled for follow-up time-series EFOSC2 optical spectroscopy, so to monitor the supernovae at the extremes of the known population e.g. the most luminous, the faintest, the fast declining, etc. The total number of spectra for the key targets is 3748, including the SOFI spectra taken for the brightest ones. SOFI imaging (broad-band JHKs) was nearly always taken when SOFI near infra-red spectra were taken.

Data are available via the ESO Science Portal or programmatically. For more details on the observing strategy, the data reduction, calibration, and quality, along with a table of the selected key targets, and the description of the catalogue, please refer to the comprehensive release description.

Note: an updated version of the PESSTO multi-epoch photometry catalogue published in DR3.1 is expected by the summer.