🚀 Astro-COLIBRI v2.24.0 is Here! New Supernova Features & More!

Helpdesk + feature requests
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Hello everyone,

We’re excited to announce the release of Astro-COLIBRI version 2.24.0! This update brings a host of powerful new features, with a major focus on improving how you discover, filter, and track supernovae. We’ve also packed in many other improvements and fixes based on your feedback.

Let’s dive into what’s new!

:star: Supernova Handling Supercharged

Thanks to great contributions by @andrea.simongini, we’ve completely overhauled our supernova tools to give you more customizability.

  • Advanced Filtering: You can now pinpoint the events that matter most to you.

    • Filter by Type: Select individual supernova types (e.g., Ia, II, Ib/c).

    • Filter by Physics: Filter events by their redshift or the time difference from their peak brightness.

    • “Extraordinarily Nearby” Filter: This special filter automatically selects the nearest 5% of SNe (and the top 1% for Types Ia and II). This is perfect for finding the most promising follow-up candidates, delivering about 25 prime targets per year on average.

  • Smarter Notifications: Stay ahead of the curve with our new notification options.

    • You can now set up alerts for specific supernova types.

    • A brand-new notification stream has been added exclusively for very nearby supernovae, ensuring you never miss a major event in our cosmic neighborhood.

  • Longer Lightcurve Updates: We’ve extended the duration for which we update photometric data and lightcurves, so you can track events for longer.

    • All optical transients: updated daily for 15 days.

    • Classified transients (SNe, novae, TDEs, etc.): updated daily for 50 days.

    • The “extraordinarily nearby” SNe: updated daily for a full year!

  • A new figure: putting every new SN detection into its archival context by comparing the magnitude at detection and especially its redshift. We highlight those events with the same type and illustrate the selection of “extraordinarily nearby” events by a vertical dashed line. An example of the figure for SN 2025mb, a nearby type IIb supernova:

    Astro-COLIBRI_SN2025mb_SN_IIb_created2025-09-28
    Astro-COLIBRI_SN2025mb_SN_IIb_created2025-09-281065×739 176 KB

:hammer_and_wrench: Technical & Observing Improvements

  • Target of Opportunity (ToO) Requests:

    • We’ve added a VERITAS ToO Request Button and widget, which creates an automatically filled email to streamline requests by members of the VERITAS collaboration.

    • HESS ToO requests have been adjusted for the correct GitHub format.

  • Photometry & API Enhancements:

    • The photometry process is now more complete, with new columns (mjd_nerr and mjd_perr) for averaged ATLAS data added to the CSV data downloads. We’ve also optimized our backend to reduce duplicate requests to large optical surveys.

    • For API users: All transient event endpoints (/event, /cone_search, etc.) now return a consistent set of parameters. Please note that gw_contours and map_areas are no longer provided by default but can be easily included via an option in your query.

:sparkles: Quality of Life Updates & Fixes

We’ve also made a number of smaller, but important, improvements across the platform:

  • Updated Catalogs: The TeVCat Catalog has been updated to its latest release.

  • Better Search: We’ve improved the search functionality for events in SIMBAD and fixed the search for Astronomer’s Telegrams (ATels).

  • Spectroscopic Info: Classified optical transients now include a direct link to the WISeREP database for easy access to spectroscopic data.

  • Improved Mobile View: The documentation page is now better optimized for small screens and smartphones.

  • Performance: We’ve made improvements for users on slow internet connections and implemented various behind-the-scenes optimizations for a smoother experience.

We hope you enjoy these new features! As always, your feedback is invaluable to us. Please explore the new version and let us know what you think in the comments below.

Clear skies!

The Astro-COLIBRI Team

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@FredDJN reported a changed behaviour of the /event endpoint that was unfortunately introduced with this release. Details and upcoming fixes are discussed here: API help.