Friday, February 24, 2006

Really Big Bangs...


Two supernova's have been detected over the past few weeks. I am not sure if both are viewable in a telescope, but if the clouds would just make their way AWAY from here I'd be able to tell.

The first is in M100 (above), and was reported on Astromart news about a week or so ago. It is apparently viewable from a 6" or greater telescope.



Today, another, closer supernova was reported in Aries (right), but it was apparently discovered on the 18th. It is expected to peak next week, when, coincidentally, the moon is new, which makes for dark skies. I'll be off to my mate's farm next weekend for sure if the skies are clear...

7 comments:

Lori Witzel said...

Keeps it all in perspective for me...wandered over to your blog since it was a referrer to someone who visited mine. Another Austinite! Come visit my corner of the blogosphere when you get the chance...

Phil said...

Thanks for visiting. Love the photos on your site - keep it up!

Observer said...

Check magnitudes before you go hunting. From what I read, that new supernova is going to be too faint at peak for most amateurs, but I didn't read an exact visual magnitude estimate. Maybe there's a lot of dust along the line of sight or something or as a I-c, it's intrinsically kinda weak.

Here's a neat fact. It normally takes a supernova light curve about 7-10 days to reach peak from about half of its peak luminosity. The peak largely comes from the radioactive decay of nickel-56, among other things.

Also, as we look for higher and higher redshift supernovae, the time to reach peak gets stretched out, often doubling or even more. That's another beautiful confirmation of relativity -- the supernovae look to be exploding in slow motion because of time dilation.

Phil said...

Good thinking. I'll keep an eye on the magnitude for the Aries event. The M100 event is supposed to be viewable in scopes six inches or larger. Clear and relatively okay seeing conditions here tonight, but can I be bothered packing my scope gear and driving to the usual spot? Nope. I may regret it as this week is supposed top be cloudy all the way through til next weekend.

Observer said...

I'll be shocked if the Hubble doesn't get a shot of that supernova in M100. They've taken so many famous photos of the "Whirlpool Galaxy", surely they'll take advantage of this target of opportunity to make a pretty before/after slide. I wonder if the progenitor star is buried in one of those high resolution images somewhere? After all, they took shots of the outskirts of that galaxy that could pick out individual Cepheids years ago, and I'll bet this guy was brighter than your average Cepheid.

Phil said...

Putting Hubble on either object would be very interesting. I found a Hubble image of M100 at (http://store.spaceimages.com/noname1.html) and it is quite good. Actually, I spend a lot of time browsing the images at the Hubble web site - they're beautfily.

Observer said...

Go to the Astronomy Picture of the Day website and do a global search on M100. You'll see the Hubble shots and also the shots of individual Cepheids within that galaxy (remarkable resolution).