Now thats interesting, I hope it lasts a good while yet. At 13.5 its well within the limits of the 20" so hopefully I get a chance to visually catch this extragalactic supernova
Dave L. on facebook , See my images in flickr
Chairman. Shannonside Astronomy Club (Limerick)
Carrying around my 20" obsession is going to kill me,
but what a way to go.
+ 12"LX200, MK67, Meade2045, 4"refractor
Palomar Observatory eve began a Facebook campaign seeking amateur astronomers to take part, especially if they imaged M51 in the past week. The progenator star has not yet bee identified.
Its possible that we can only see SN's that are relatively close in our own galaxy due to the line of sight problem looking through the densely packed plain of the Milky Way. Looking face on would not be an issue as in M51.
The Lord giveth, the Revenue taketh away. (John 1:16)
well just confirmed the supernova, seen it visually through the 20", not hard to see at all, I guess it would be brighter again under a dark sky and no light pollution and dark adaption, a shade dimmer then the star next to it, the one not on the spiral arm.
Very cool to see one visually when you can only imagine what it must look like from a planetary system in that galaxy!
Dave L. on facebook , See my images in flickr
Chairman. Shannonside Astronomy Club (Limerick)
Carrying around my 20" obsession is going to kill me,
but what a way to go.
+ 12"LX200, MK67, Meade2045, 4"refractor
M51 Supernova brightening. Supernova 2011dh, which was discovered in the Whirlpool Galaxy, M51, on May 31st, has been brightening ever since — though the brightening is now leveling off. As of June 16th the supernova was about V magnitude 12.6 and visible in a lot more amateur telescopes.
I've seen this visually with my 8" newt and meade 8.8UWA on Sat 12th. It was not easy, but I did compare what I could see to pre-discovery photos and the star that I was looking at was definitely not one of those already present on the pre-discovery images.
I couldn't see the spiral arms for definite, but I could see the cores of M51 and NGC5195 and I could use those to reference directions and distance to the field stars.
