The detection of obscured supernovae ( SNe ) in near-infrared monitoring campaigns of starburst galaxies has shown that a significant fraction of SNe is missed by optical surveys .
However , the number of SNe detected in ground-based near-IR observations is still significantly lower than the number of SNe extrapolated from the FIR luminosity of the hosts .
A possibility is that most SNe occur within the nuclear regions , where the limited angular resolution of ground-based observations prevents their detection .
This issue prompted us to exploit the superior angular resolution of NICMOS-HST to search for obscured SNe within the first kpc from the nucleus of strong starbursting galaxies .
A total of 17 galaxies were observed in SNAPSHOT mode .
Based on their FIR luminosity , we expected to detect not less than \sim 12 SNe .
However , no confirmed SN event was found .
From our data we derive an observed nuclear SN rate < 0.5 SN/yr per galaxy .
The shortage of SN detections can be explained by a combination of several effects .
The most important are : i ) the existence of a strong extinction , A _ { V } \gtrsim 11 ; ii ) most SNe occur within the first 0.5 \arcsec ( which corresponds in our sample to about 500pc ) where even NICMOS is unable to detect SN events .