The stars you see at night

So what if a star explodes, and that star is visible in the sky at night, would we get to see eye candy explosions?

If that star had exploded many hundreds, thousands or millions (etc...) of years ago, then yes we could quite easily look out at night and see it with the nekkid eye...

Depending on how big the explosion was and of course the distance from us...When you see a supernova go off, you really are looking way back into the past of the universe...

As far as seeing "eye candy" explosions....Thats a tough one...The Chinese viewed the Crab Nebula going off around 1000 yrs ago and that was visible during the day, and apparently you could read by its light at night...

So I'd guess that one would count as "eye candy" no ? As far as others go, I'm sure there have been numerous ones that have been quite spectacular...There have been 8 seen thus far in 2008, but the brightest of these has been around 14 deg magnitude, as far as I know...

Though I have a nagging thought in my head there was one a few months ago that would have been visible to the nekkid eye, except it wasn't discovered for a day or two after maximum brightness, so it was only visible thru scopes...I don't remember details right about now, and perhaps that's something you might want to research ?

Peace

Hell I might just do that but about that million years ago theory I heard that one yes, but wouldn't it be more logical to say that if you see that 'supernova' you see it happening right now? and not that it happend so many years ago?

[edit on 25-4-2008 by FL_Freak]

reply to post by FL_Freak

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To the observer its happenning right now, but in reality its all down to the speed of light (186,200 miles per second) so you really are seeing the light of the nova from the distance that its light traveled to you (in light years) closest star e.g. "prox centari 4 light years, Orioin nebula 2500 lyrs, andromeda galaxy 2.2 million light years- ad infinitum.

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[edit on 25-4-2008 by RUFFREADY]

Just wanted to point out that Orion nebula is about at 1500 light years, not 2500.

But yes, essentially that's about right. What we see now is indeed happening for us now, but that light that we see now departed the explosion site so many years ago... So, indeed, for instance, if one of the stars in Alpha Centauri would explode right now, we would only see it in 4 years and a bit, which is the time it takes light to travel from over there to here...

reply to post by FL_Freak

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If a supernova explosion occured in the stellar neighbourhood, say within a hundred light-years of us, the eye-candy would be a bit too bright for comfort. In fact, life on Earth's surface would be wiped out by a hurricane of radiation from the blast.