QUOTE (Christian @ Jan 28 2008, 03:47 PM)
As far as i found out, Voyager 2 observed Supernova 1987A using its UVS Instrument in July 1987. Could someone please let me know, where i can find these Data, e. g. a Graph of the Spectrum of the Supernova as observed by Voyager?
I checked with Jay Holberg, who has been the custodian of the deep-sky data archive for the UVS. He and Ron Polidan did set up some observations (from memory, using Voyager 2). The spacecraft were in cruise mode with multi-week automatic sequences running, so it took several days to get pointed - with null results. They followed the supernova for some months, since some predictions called for a delayed UV brightening, but there was no detection from any of these observations. In hindsight, this fits with the longer-wavelength UV behavior, from IUE and Astron, which show that the deep UV flux drops precipitously with time immediately after the outburst. The Astron folks put up a nice plot of the SN's UV spectral evolution, easiest found from
this mirror.