Opportunity to see a supernova September 3-10, 2011

Grab your binoculars and glimpse a cosmic explosion – a supernova – from 21 million light-years away! It’ll be visible from around September 3-10, 2011.
This should be very exciting to witness I am looking forward to it!





EarthSky

what way do i need to be looking on the sky and at what time for mountain time in colorado? it sounds like something cool to see

Originally posted by NISMOALTI
what way do i need to be looking on the sky and at what time for mountain time in colorado? it sounds like something cool to see

Its right near the big dipper. If you click the link it tells you when and where to look.


It said to look at the earliest when the big dipper is out. Funny I was just looking at the Big Dipper last night with the app on my phone! My roommate and I were trying to figure out what this star was bear the Big Dipper. It turned out to be a satellite

Wow I really hope these clouds go away by tonight!!!

Ite been viewable for days

People have been watching it with small telescopes since 31st Aug

Would love to see, but it seems every time something like this happens its always cloudy here in central ny.

Originally posted by mblahnikluver

Originally posted by NISMOALTI
what way do i need to be looking on the sky and at what time for mountain time in colorado? it sounds like something cool to see

Its right near the big dipper. If you click the link it tells you when and where to look.


It said to look at the earliest when the big dipper is out. Funny I was just looking at the Big Dipper last night with the app on my phone! My roommate and I were trying to figure out what this star was bear the Big Dipper. It turned out to be a satellite

ya i read the artical after i posted, how well would a spotting scope work

reply to post by mblahnikluver


satellites move very fast in the night sky. I doubt what you saw was a satellite if it was stationary.

This is going to be fun...
But why you put it in fragile earth?
I would have suggested General entertainment.
cheers

I know wasn't sure where to put the thread. The mods did move it to a more appropriate spot.

Brilliant!

The dipper is perfectly in front of my home, I was using the binoculars only the other day to look at Mizar's binary star. I now will be sure to look tonight for the Supernova.

For some reason star watching always makes me feel good.

Thanks for posting this! I might have missed a great chance to view a supernova. These types of things don't come along every year where an ordinary person can go outside and see it.

I have a pair of 7 x 50 binoculars I haven't used in a while so hopefully there isn't too much light pollution in my area.

We're under Lee right now...will be for a few more days...cant see the sky

a supernova is a star going errrr, supernova, right?

we only know it's happened cause we see the light, thousands of light years after this event takes place, right?

so how do we know it's happening at a set date????

it's not like something else could see it and then warn us at the speed of light, is it?

:/

Originally posted by mnmcandiez
reply to post by mblahnikluver

 

satellites move very fast in the night sky. I doubt what you saw was a satellite if it was stationary.

Sorry but I watch the skies every single night, it was a satellite.

I have watched the skies where I live her for two years. I live near an Air Force Base, multiple air ports and the Kennedy Space Center. I know what is in the sky

I use more than one thing to check what I see. I have seen some really odd things in the sky.

reply to post by starlitestarbrite


If anybody isn't too familiar with astronomy and has trouble finding certain constellations, like myself, I have found this app for your smarthphone called pocket universe which has been very helpful in the past and tonight. After downloading, you simply click the "telescope" option on the bottom and point your phone towards the sky. The app comes equipped with a compass (which will have to be calibrated if you haven't done so already,) and it's very simple to use, even for beginners.

EDIT: Beaver, I'll try to help as much as I can, but I'm no astronomy expert. This supernova is 21 million light years away. A light year, is how far light travels in one year. So, this supernova happened 21 million years ago. We could have known about it for some time now, but the light has just now become visible for us beings on earth. We know it's happening at this date because we have some smart mathematicians out there who have some complicated formula to calculate the date (the exact formula for this calculation, probably bigger than you and me.) Maybe somebody else could be of help with that..

(**Somebody please correct me if I have made any mistakes)

reply to post by Arrrr

EDIT: Beaver, I'll try to help as much as I can, but I'm no astronomy expert. This supernova is 21 million light years away. A light year, is how far light travels in one year. So, this supernova happened 21 million years ago. We could have known about it for some time now, but the light has just now become visible for us beings on earth. We know it's happening at this date because we have some smart mathematicians out there who have some complicated formula to calculate the date (the exact formula for this calculation, probably bigger than you and me.)

No, not really. We cannot predict supernovas, and no information about it travelled faster than the light. Mathematicians had nothing to do with it. We did not know about it until the light reached us.

In this case, the supernova has been happening since late August. I don't know why this thread says only 3-10 September. But the answer to "how do we know it will be 3-10 september" is "because it has been observed since August"

There are certain classes of supernovas where you can get around an hour's warning before it explodes, if you have a neutrino observatory. Both neutrinos and photons travel at the speed of light, but the neutrinos are released a small time earlier than the photons. They are released when the core implodes, and the photons are released when the outer gas shell explodes. But this is only for certain classes of supernova, and not in this specific case.

reply to post by mblahnikluver

Sorry but I watch the skies every single night, it was a satellite. I have watched the skies where I live her for two years. I live near an Air Force Base, multiple air ports and the Kennedy Space Center. I know what is in the sky I use more than one thing to check what I see. I have seen some really odd things in the sky.

Ok, I want to ask you about that too, lol. It has always been my understanding that unless you live very near the equator, all visible satellites will appear to move. If you are very near the equator and are able to see geostationary or geosynchronous sats, they appear to stay in the same spot because they are moving at the same speed as the Earth. Please correct me if I'm wrong, because I've studied sats for quite a while now and I want to make sure I'm not mistaken about something. I like to learn and want to make sure my knowledge is correct. For all I know, it may be possible to see a sat over the equator from North America, lol. Being nice here... lol. Just pointing that out because I know it's not always easy to tell how someone means something here on ATS.

If it's possible to see a geostationary sat from somewhere other than the equator, I really want to see one. I'm a geek like that, lol.

Yeah, so when did they know? And what did they know when?

Maybe the nazi space bell people came back to earth and gave em a heads up

reply to post by repressed


Although you completely lost me after neutrino observatory, glad to see somebody come along and correct me as I don't really know what I am talking about. (I thought I would take a stab at it :lol

I usually don't have trouble understanding such things. I don't know maybe I'm too tired to grasp it right now, but is there any way you could put this into less technical terms so I can get a better understanding as to why it takes us a long time to find a supernova if we can observe the neutrinos before the photons?