Supernova 2011by

[george7378]

I haven't seen it for a few nights now due to the weather, but the AAVSO graph shows it to be about 12.9 at the moment - it seems to be levelling off too. I hope the weather clears up this weekend so I can get another good look at it!

 

[Gerdih]

how much can it take?

 

[george7378]

how much can it take?

How do you mean? If you mean how bright can it get, it may reach mag. 12.5 or brighter.


I took a picture of it with the Bradford Robotic Telescope (http://www.telescope.org/) at 02:59 BST on Saturday 7th May - you can see NGC 3972 and surrounding galaxies, plus the bright supernova - it has brightened far above the 13.5 star now - I'd put it at around mag. 13:

The image is copyrighted to the BRT, and processed by me in GIMP.

 

[Gerdih]

I mean how much it can take to not be able to see with a home telescope

 

[Rtyh-12]

I mean how much it can take to not be able to see with a home telescope

Unfortunately, it's only going to get to a magnitude of around 12.5, as George posted earlier. The smaller the number, the brighter the star is, and unfortunately you can only see stars with a magnitude of 6... this assuming you have very good eyes.

 

[fireballs619]

Out of curiosity, what magnification where you guys using when you spotted the Galaxy and supernova? If it's clear out tonight, I'm gonna see if I can spot it also, but I want to know if I have the right power magnification right now.

 

[george7378]

You could probably see it at pretty much any magnification (as long as it's not too high) - I saw it with 48X when I first spotted it, and did my drawings at 120X. I viewed it at 240X too.

 

[stephen_bennett]

I should point out specifically - With my naked eye I saw massive interstellar activities that led up to this Supernova, not the Supernova as it is now.

 

[george7378]

I should point out specifically - With my naked eye I saw massive interstellar activities that led up to this Supernova, not the Supernova as it is now.

Can you be sure of that? I think it was probably something else like a satellite, meteor, or maybe some kind of visual trick. You don't just see massive interstellar events flashing off and then ending in a split second with nothing remaining. Also, supernovae don't flare up to naked eye visibility and suddenly recede again before they explode.

 

[Yoda]

I should point out specifically - With my naked eye I saw massive interstellar activities that led up to this Supernova, not the Supernova as it is now.

Are you sure you weren't seeing the bottom of a bottle right before you seen the "inter-stellar activity" ?? :rofl:

Sorry, couldn't help myself; been in astronomy for 30 years and NEVER heard of this !

 

[Wishbone]

Could be GCR hitting the eye...

 

[fireballs619]

I took a shot at seeing it tonight, but no cigar. I think my problem was with a lack of magnification coupled with a somewhat bright moon about 30 miles from a major city. In other words, not great conditions.

 

[tblaxland]

I took a shot at seeing it tonight, but no cigar. I think my problem was with a lack of magnification coupled with a somewhat bright moon about 30 miles from a major city. In other words, not great conditions.

Increasing magnification won't help you see dimmer objects, in fact it will most likely make it harder. This page has some really interesting reading about such things, including a calculator to help determine magnitude gain from your scope and the optimum range of eyepieces for it. If the eyepiece is too high power (shorter focal length and smaller exit pupil) you may be making it harder for yourself:

Experienced observers have found that using eyepieces which deliver Exit Pupils in the range of 2-4mm usually give the best images, especially when observing faint objects. Indeed, diffuse, low brightness objects may sometimes be seen within this range, and invisible outside of it.

Light pollution is probably your biggest problem. Where I live I can normally only see down to about mag 3 with my naked eye when the Moon is out, and about mag 8 through the scope. I can improve that by a couple of magnitudes when I am visiting my inlaws who live in a small town.

 

[stephen_bennett]

Are you sure you weren't seeing the bottom of a bottle right before you seen the "inter-stellar activity" ?? :rofl:

Sorry, couldn't help myself; been in astronomy for 30 years and NEVER heard of this !

No problem. Understand I am just reporting what I saw. If you choose to believe it or not that is your own choice. I am very happy I had the opportunity to witness a massive interstellar event personally, capturing what was a very powerful and very rare event with the naked eye makes for a very special night of astronomy for me!

 

[stephen_bennett]

Pre Supernova 2011by observations might be a bit presumptuous. On analysis NGC3972 is too high in the sky. On the nights what I saw was definitely below Alkaid.

 

[stephen_bennett]

I wonder was this what I saw?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13539914

BTW times and dates mentioned above are in BST.

 

[Yoda]

Simple answer, No it wasn't ; anybody would know that this is WAY to far out to reach the human eye.......
If the swift observatory could barely see it at "the edge of the observable Universe", YOU could definatively not see it.
Simple logic............
:facepalm:

 

[stephen_bennett]

Simple answer, No it wasn't ; anybody would know that this is WAY to far out to reach the human eye.......
If the swift observatory could barely see it at "the edge of the observable Universe", YOU could definatively not see it.
Simple logic............
:facepalm:

You are right GRB 090429B happened in 2009. Lol!

I understand your skepticism about my observations. I have lived in the countryside with the night skies and the stars all my life and I too have never seen anything like I saw on the nights I observed these activities. Nothing in the textbooks fits the phenomenon.

 

[george7378]

You do see a lot of weird things in the sky, especially now that we have all kinds of satellites, aircraft and other flying objects up there - satellites can make some very weird flashes (I saw the NanoSail-D pulsing in a very irregular and weird way once) - that could explain what you saw. The scales in the sky are much too big for flashes and flares to be connected with things on interstellar scales - even supernovae take days to flare up to their peak brightness, and they are the most violent explosions we know of! It's a good idea to write down exact times and to do a drawings of the locations of transient events you see - then you can look at websites like Calsky which tell you what was overhead at those times, complete with sky maps.

Keep looking up!

 

[stephen_bennett]

It's a good idea to write down exact times and to do a drawings of the locations of transient events you see - then you can look at websites like Calsky which tell you what was overhead at those times, complete with sky maps.

Keep looking up!

Thanks for the tip! :thumbup: