Supernova 2011by

[george7378]

There's a relatively bright, new supernova in Ursa Major, in the galaxy NGC 3972, called SN 2011by. It's a bit brighter than 14th magnitude at the moment, but considering the fact that it's only 4 days old (discovered 26th April) it is likely to get much brighter in the coming weeks. I'm going to try and see it tonight, and keep a close watch on it - if you've never seen a supernova, now's your chance to get your scope trained on an exploding star in another galaxy!

http://www.supernovae.net/

---------- Post added at 14:42 ---------- Previous post was at 12:53 ----------

Here are some finder charts - the galaxy is quite close to the bright star Phad, so it shouldn't be too hard to find (I hope). I'll have a go tonight, and try and do a little drawing of it too:

 

[Izack]

Heh, I was just searching for more info on that, and found a post by you in Stargazer's Lounge. Small world. :hello:

 

[Scruce]

Of course, the intresting thing is that it happened millions of years ago.

 

[statickid]

WOW AWESOME!!!! THANKS I'M STOKED! ALWAYS WANTED TO SEE A SUPERNOVA!

 

[george7378]

My scope's out and ready - I just hope it's bright enough to be seen (assuming I can actually find the galaxy!) - the weather's perfect here.

---------- Post added 01-05-11 at 12:07 ---------- Previous post was 30-04-11 at 20:06 ----------

I (think!) I found the galaxy and saw the Supernova - my best estimate would put it at about 13.5, although the photometry puts it at 13.8 still. I did a drawing (just to make sure I actually was looking at the right dot among the thousands I must have surfed through).

The galaxy was actually quite hard to find - luckily it is very close to two other galaxies. I found the 11th magnitude NGC 3998 first, and then the 12th magnitude NGC 3982, and then began to move around the region until the dimmer NGC 3972 became visible. I was confident I was looking at the right galaxy when I saw that it had a cigar-type shape to it, just like in the pictures.

It was very dim and hard to see - I could only see it properly when I looked to the side using averted vision to let the photons fall on the most sensitive part of my eye. I printed off a map of the region and found some of the star patterns on the map. The Supernova was actually much easier to see than the galaxy itself - I could see it without averted vision, but I needed to look around a bit to see the small and dim galaxy.

Here's my drawing of it - the SN was sitting nicely in the outside of the galaxy:

 

[JEL]

Which one is the supernova? The dot you marked with 2 lines at NGC 3972 on the second picture?

 

[george7378]

JEL: Yep, that's the one.

I saw it again last night (01/05/11) and here's my report:

I waited for it to get dark, and at about 22:30, I started my search to find it again. It was easy to find the bright star Phad (my scope was pointing straight up - the supernova actually crossed the point right above my head during the night, putting it in the perfect place to observe it) and then hop to the bright galaxies NGC 3998 and NGC 3982, and finally find the faint smudge of the host galaxy NGC 3972. The conditions were better tonight, and I could also see NGC 3990 - the companion to 3998, and I sometimes glimpsed the very faint NGC 3977 just under the supernova's host galaxy.

Once I found the galaxy, I could easily see the supernova in its outskirts - just like another star in the sky. It would be impossible to tell it apart from one of the much closer foreground stars if it wasn't for the star maps.

I waited until about 22:55 to take a guess at its brightness, just to make sure it was properly dark. There is a mag. 13.5 star just next to the galaxy (see map in original post) and I looked for a couple of minutes, and it looked pretty much the same, so my guess for the 1st May 2011 at 22:55 BST is 13.5, +/- 0.1 magnitudes. After writing down the time, estimated brightness and comparison stars, I took the time to admire it.

This is one of those things that reminds me just how incomprehensibly powerful the universe we live in is - my mind just can't grasp how powerful and distant that single point of light is - I have to keep reminding myself what I'm seeing - a single star visible among hundreds of billions in a very distant galaxy - one star, shining proudly from tens of millions of lightyears distant, when the combined effort one hundred billion others creates nothing but a faint smudge of light in the black of space. The fact that we are able to see this powerful beacon from such a distance makes me wonder who else has seen it. Did the inhabitants of NGC 3972 see their skies transformed by the presence of a 'second Sun'? Have any of the other surrounding galaxies visible to the edge of the field of view seen and catalogued it? If they did, then it will most likely have been lost in time, as it will have happened millions of years ago for them. And so the speculation continues...

The recent weather made the nights perfect for observing this supernova, and it hasn't disappointed so far! Here's a graph of its brightness from the last 10 days, made using the observations of amateur astronomers, collated by the AAVSO. If you see the SN yourself, then it's worth sending in your observations to the AAVSO. They are one of the most popular variable star bodies in the world, where amateurs submit their brightness estimates of variable stars and supernovae to an international database. This data is genuinely valuable for scientists because professional astronomers don't have time to continuously monitor variable stars, so if they ever need any data on their behaviour, then they access the databases maintained by organisations like the AAVSO. They also regularly send observing requests for the amateurs to fulfill. Anyway, here's the graph plotted by the AAVSO database (my points are marked by the blue crosses):

http://www.aavso.org/lcg/plot?auid=...width=600&height=450&mag1=&mag2=&mean=&vmean=

Happy observing!

 

[JEL]

Thank you. This is really cool to read

 

[Izack]

Again you've inspired me to take up stargazing. Now I can't wait for autumn and the astronomy club at university.

 

[Eli13]

Oh how i wished i had a telescope. Any chance of this growing to visual range?

 

[McWgogs]

Here's my attempt:
Shot with a Canon 1000D dslr with a 70-300 Sigma lens, on a motorized home-built barn door tracker.
45 sub-exposures at 300mm F/5,6 ISO-1600
The galaxy with the supernova can be seen right in the center.

And here's a widefield view with the star Phad, and galaxies M109 and NGC 3953 on the left.

 

[Yoda]

I'm going to try and do some CCD imaging of this tonight ( weather permitting).
ISS is making a 80 degree pass tonight as well
I'll post results of both here tomorrow.

 

[george7378]

I observed it again last night (03/05/11 @ 22:17 BST) - only briefly before I had to go to bed! It was quite easy to find again once it got dark enough - I found it the same way - by star-hopping from Phad to the brighter galaxies, and then zooming in on NGC 3972. I watched it for a bit, and it definitely looked quite a bit brighter than the mag. 13.5 star I have been using for comparison. I couldn't decide on 13.1 or 13.2, so I went half way and logged 13.15. I sent it to the AAVSO website and it's there on the graph - it seems to fit the trend:

http://www.aavso.org/lcg/plot?auid=...width=600&height=450&mag1=&mag2=&mean=&vmean=

I can't wait for the weekend so I can spend some more nights with it - it will probably be close to mag. 12.5 by then!

Thank you. This is really cool to read

It's fun to see how things like this change - you can come back tomorrow and it will be noticeably brighter than the night before - that's really thrilling, for some reason! It's a bit like watching the sky living and breathing before your eyes!

Again you've inspired me to take up stargazing. Now I can't wait for autumn and the astronomy club at university.

Thanks a lot - I hope there's an astronomy club when I go to university! Given the track record so far, there will probably be another supernova by autumn!

Oh how i wished i had a telescope. Any chance of this growing to visual range?

Not likely - it might get close to or slightly brighter than mag. 12, but it's just too far away to become visual. Don't worry though - there will be plenty more where this came from! There was another SN this February (Supernova 2011b) and it probably topped mag. 13 - I didn't think I'd see another exploding star for years after seeing that. 4 months later, and here we are!

Thanks for the pictures McWogs - at least I now know that I was looking at the right dot in the sky! I bet it feels pretty good to have captured some of those photons in your own image. In your pitcure it looks quite a bit brighter than those stars next to it - in only a couple of days, it's gone from below mag. 13.5 to around mag. 13.1!

Can't wait to see them Yoda!

 

[Yoda]

Did some imaging of the supernova tonight as well as the ISS pass over my observatory.
Supernova was imaged with 5 images 60 second exposure using a Meade LX90 and Atik Titan CCD.

ISS was imaged with LX90 with Nikon D3000 and 2xBarlow
Not too shabby I think.

 

[stephen_bennett]

I saw this with the naked eye on April the 22nd.

http://forum.skyatnightmagazine.com/tm.asp?m=124152

It was a very impressive flash!

 

[tblaxland]

I saw this with the naked eye on April the 22nd.

http://forum.skyatnightmagazine.com/tm.asp?m=124152

It was a very impressive flash!

I somehow doubt that you saw an object that has never been brighter than mag 13 with your naked eye. Other discoveries weren't reported until 2011-04-26 and it at that stage it was still dimmer than mag 14. It would be interesting to find out what you did see though.

 

[Eli13]

I somehow doubt you could see anything brighter than magnitude 4 with the naked eye....

 

[stephen_bennett]

What I did see was in this region and it was massive. I've lived under the stars most of my life and I have never seen light like it before. The flash with a black center was quite eerie and the pink flickering light associated with my second observation was very nebulous. Are there any records of naked eye observations of Supernova out there which I can use correlate my experience with?

 

[Yoda]

I saw this with the naked eye on April the 22nd.

http://forum.skyatnightmagazine.com/tm.asp?m=124152

It was a very impressive flash!

HIGHLY doubtful !!!!!!

 

[stephen_bennett]

HIGHLY doubtful !!!!!!

OK. Is there any public or private instrument or sensor array (Northern Hemisphere) which would of registered what I saw? IMO it is well worth validating and retrieving.

Apologies for the thread hijack.