Comments on: New pic: SN2011fe in M101

By: ChazInMT

ChazInMT — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 02:26:21 +0000

@Pete Jackson: OK, Thanks for that explanation! I was wondering what the Hey. Yer awesome!

By: RapidEye

RapidEye — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 23:26:28 +0000

I observed it for the first time this lunar cycle on Thur night.
In my 18″ f/4.5 it was very easy to see at 100x. Bumping the power up to 200X revealed more structure in the galaxy and really gave the SN a nice framing. A good finder chart is a must.

Not sure how much longer before we loose M101 into the sunset. Getting pretty low right now and had to pick it up between some trees as it was. Maybe another 2 – 3weeks. Might get a shot after the next full moon, but it will require a very clear and dark NW horizon.

By: Pete Jackson

Pete Jackson — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 18:12:59 +0000

The Sun is getting close to having the same right ascension as M101, so that on the equator, they will rise and set at the same time and you won’t be able to see M101 at all. In the southern hemisphere, it’s even worse since M101 will rise several hours after the Sun and set several hours before the Sun. But all is glory at high northern latitudes, since M101, at declination +54 degrees, will rise several hours before the Sun and set several hours after the Sun. Just crank your telescope far over to the n0rtheast (morning) or northwest (evening).

This is payback for SN1987A which was in the Magellanic Clouds!

There aren’t many large observatories at high northern latitudes because of climatic and astronomical reasons (center of our Milky Way galaxy is in the southern sky), but there is a good one in Victoria, British Columbia (Dominion Astrophysical Observatory).

By: ChazInMT

ChazInMT — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 04:42:05 +0000

Seriously, you may wanna look closer at the first sentence here. Are you OK Phil? Are we being Punkt? Last I checked, objects located 36° off the north star would be difficult to get into proximity to the Sun…..maybe after Dec 2012 they’ll end up there, Galactic Alignment and Earth being knocked off its axis and all, of course we’ll all be too dead to care about such things.

2011fe peaked at about a 10 magnitude and is only now down to 11….very confused in MT.

By: Gary Miles

Gary Miles — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 22:19:59 +0000

Beautiful!

By: jack21222

jack21222 — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 21:02:08 +0000

I saw the supernova Thursday night through a 14 inch telescope on the roof of my university’s science building. The ‘scope isn’t big enough to see any detail (just a little smudge, brighter than its surroundings), but we took a spectrum of it. It was a pretty neat experience to see how astronomical data is obtained.

By: OtherRob

OtherRob — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 20:50:44 +0000

If the sun is too bright, just wait until it’s night.

By: Katy Garmany

Katy Garmany — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 19:36:04 +0000

To insure proper credit for this image of the SN in M101, I note that Travis Rector processed the images to produce the final color composite but the work at the 4m telescope is courtesy of Heidi Schweiker and Sabrina Pakzad.

By: BethKatz

BethKatz — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 18:29:30 +0000

I must be missing something because I don’t see why the supernova would be hard to observe due to proximity to the sun. Hard because it is fading in magnitude, yes. But I saw that area of the sky very well in somewhat late evening Thursday night. Increasing moonlight will soon be a problem.