BOSS jackpot?

[PeterM]

Excuse this rushed post, will be adding to as day goes by. Wanted to get this breaking news on IIS ASAP. Sorry typing on iPhone on bus and just got knocked and have to rewrite.

Stu Parker may well have hit the jackpot with this discovery looking like the most interesting BOSS discovery to date and, perhaps the most valuable scientifically.

The galaxy is NGC6984 and it hosted a type 1c supernova in what appears to be exactly the same position as last year.
Problem is it shouldn't and that's what (at last count) emails from about 10 very excited professional astronomers are saying and they are keenly following it up.
The 10m SALT telescope has already obtained data (literally within an hour of notifying them) and yes it is a supernova. Now is it the same one as last year? it shouldn't be as type 1c are terminal and don't re brighten as the pros are telling us.
So what's going on? A chance alignment with another supernova or something more exotic with the first SN?
Time will soon tell and we will post here. So much for amateurs fluffing around the edges. BOSS even released our first ATEL today.

So a huge congratulations to Stu Parker, his dedication and skill are remarkable.
The BOSS team worked quickly as usual and Greg Bock was able to overlay and blink images to add to the confidence needed to send this out so quickly and get the professionals obviously very excited.
As one professional astronomer has replied " that's why I love astronomy so much"
Stayed tuned!

[Terry B]

Stunning!

[DavidTrap]

That's very interesting!

DT

[PeterM]

Here's a link to the Atel.
http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=5225
Can anyone copy and paste here thanks!

[naskies]

Wow, sounds very exciting :thumbsup: Can't wait to hear more.

[Nortilus]

Cool...very exciting stuff.

[michaellxv]

Here you go.

Congratulations to the BOSS team. A truly remarkable achievement.

[h0ughy]

well done

[astroron]

Congratulations Stu and the gang:thumbsup:
Peter I have posted the Telegram on my Face Book Page :D
Cheers:thumbsup:

[PeterM]

Just been confirmed as a type 1b/c and now the fun starts.
Astronomers are now trying to work out if its the same SN as last year which theory says it can't be.
The email I just received from one prominent astronomer basically says if it is then it will get a lot of follow up and publicity and leave a lot of people scratching their heads.
You dun good, real good again Stu!

[clive milne]

Bravo!

[Steffen]

Fascinating! Can they actually determine whether the same star has blown up twice, or whether it was a neighbouring star?

Cheers
Steffen.

[astroron]

That is the $64,000.00 question yet to be answered:question:
Cheers:thumbsup:

[Steffen]

Hehe, I mean, is it possible to determine this? What would one look for? Surely, the angular separation between two neighbouring stars in a far away galaxy is essentially zero…?

Cheers
Steffen.

[multiweb]

Maybe we're seeing the light from the same explosion twice.
Congrats BOSS. You guys rock. Your SN discoveries are coming faster in my inbox that the spam I'm getting. Gonna have to blacklist you if you keep at it. :lol: :thumbsup:

[PeterM]

It is a great question Steffen. I guess the spectra will play an important part in determining that. The galaxy is probably reasonably close and may have had some other scrutiny by Hubble etc.
It will be fascinating to see the detective work and we are getting regular updates and of course will present them here. I will put your question to the Harvard astronomers who are on the case.

[RobF]

Incredible work (even though we're expecting that from BOSS anyway ;))
Way to go guys! :thumbsup:

[allan gould]

what a great event. you all must be sooo excited.

[mozzie]

well done stu..and the boss team... a great catch and hopefully a re-write of the text books...time will tell :thumbsup::thumbsup:

[astronobob]

Sound very exciting for you guys, great to hear about the potential of this discovery, mmm, what will it finally lead to, an exotic SN, sound Grand. All the best with it and Congratts on this work so far :thumbsup:

[Park123]

Yes very exciting indeed
Here is a scratchy image due to poor seeing.Not my best work.Hope for better when the seeing clears up


BTW not many Amateurs get to release a ATel another first for the BOSS group


Stu:eyepop::eyepop::eyepop::eyepop: :eyepop::eyepop:

[PeterM]

Even more emails from more professional astronomers. One describes this an "an unprecedented event". There are a lot of big telescopes looking at this.
The spectra and some early speculation has been sent to CBAT for a CBET to be issued. Once that announcement is officially made I will post it here.

This maybe turn out to be cutting-edge astronomy or maybe Stu found the equivalent of an old peoples home of stars about to go supernova. Either way for a bunch of amateurs to be kept so regularly in the loop by the professional astronomers really says a lot about how valuable amateur work can be. IIS are hearing about this as best we can safely report way ahead of any other astro chat sites and it is months ahead of what could potentially end up in the likes of Sky & Tel and the science journals. So at this stage we can't just copy and paste exactly what the emails we are seeing contain, it's rather like being privvy to a chat group of professional astronomers exchanging data, ideas and speculation.
I wish I could print some of them because you can feel their excitement.

Mike, now would be a good time to do an IIS interview with Stu Parker, he really is at the top of his game.
Australian Sky & Tel should also be looking at an update from Stu and BOSS. Sure blowing our own trumpet but this is amateur astronomy shining.

Thanks to all here for your posts, very much appreciated!

More to come.

[ZeroID]

Wow ! Congrats to Stu and the rest. Just shows how 'amateurs' can be so relevant to research.

[PeterM]

Just got this and hopefully it helps with Steffens question.
Astronomers are hoping to reduce alignment errors to around 0.1arc second or better, if they are even slightly shifted at this level then they are not physically related - just a coincidence.
The search begins for a massive host star cluster - the old people's home of superstars about to depart.

[Greg Bock]

HI All,
here's an interesting comparison.
The top image was taken using the 2m Faulkes Telescope South at Siding Springs on 31 July 2012 and shows the PSN that was discovered 6 days earlier.
The image below is Stu's PSN discovered yesterday. I enlarged his image a bit to show the co-incident location of the new PSN, almost 1 year to the day later!

[Terry B]

Well done. I was impressed with the ATel as well. I didn't realise they were special until after I had one also and had comments form other amateurs.
Keep them coming!

[mithrandir]

Greg, I overlaid the Faulkes image rotated with the image from Stu scaled to get this.

[Greg Bock]

Thanks Andrew, yes i did the same yesterday as a check after Stu notified me.
Unfortunately, poor seeing conditions affect Stu's image so it is hard to see clearly how well the position of each PSN lines up....the final position of Stu's SN is one issue of several others that the professional community are attempting to determine right now.

[OzEclipse]

Congratulations STU and the BOSS team. More outstanding work!

I am wondering if spectral analysis will give a definitive answer. Just postulating here that when a star goes SN, it is blowing off material changing its mass and increasing production of heavier elements so I'd intuitively expect the second outburst of supernova to have at least slightly if not significantly different spectra to the first outburst.

Joe Cali

[mozzie]

stu peter am using 14"sct with g-star sense up 256 approx 5 sec frames video watching your find.faint not as bright as core of 6984,but is visable against one of the spiral arms....woohoo what a find for you guys.

peter do you remember my son lachlan he's here pointing it out on the monitor explaining it to 7 year old..isn't astronomy wonderful!!!!!!!!

do you think it will brighten over the coming days????

[PeterM]

Quote "I am wondering if spectral analysis will give a definitive answer. Just postulating here that when a star goes SN, it is blowing off material changing its mass and increasing production of heavier elements so I'd intuitively expect the second outburst of supernova to have at least slightly if not significantly different spectra to the first outburst"

Joe Cali

Hi Joe
that's a very good point. Interesting that this one is typed a 1b/c as against a 1c for the one last year, it may well turn out to be a different object, perhaps another of a cluster of ageing stars. I don't really know what happens to a star after the 1c phase other than we are told it is supposed to be terminal, where are you madbadgalaxyman?
Astronomers are saying there is something "funny" going on and in a couple of days they will have a better idea. BOSS are starting to follow the new object scenario. Don't you just love this stuff, its great when it gets to this level.

[PeterM]

Wow Mozzie, that's the among the best news on this thread - I wonder what he is thinking while seeing star on the screen that has obliterated itself?

I doubt it will get brighter, one theory is if this is the same object it may belong to a family of supernova known as "fast decliners" on the other hand your son sounds like a fast learner! Why not he has a great coach!

Keep it up Mozzie, we need more of him (and hers) after hearing on a Brisbane FM radio station last night that 78 percent of respondents believe the Moon landings to be a hoax. So sad that ignorance can replace incredible achievement.

[mozzie]

hi peter,
are you going to astrofest this year....lachlan is keen to ask you questions on this event..he's going a thousand miles an hour with excitment...uummm and a little worried about our sun exploding but i'm trying to re ashore him we are safe :lol::lol: gotta love kids..

[PeterM]

Hi Mozzie
Well according to Bockie last night the SN had brightened a fair bit.
This is very likely a new event and just incredibly close at less than 1 arc second to the one a year ago.
Wont be at Astrofest as will be at Leyburn this year.

[mozzie]

bummer pete was hoping to catch up...i'll have another look tomorrow night to see if it has brightened at all...

does anyone know the distance of this galaxy from earth???

[mithrandir]

Based on the redshift given for NGC6984 of 0.015386 in Simbad (http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=NGC++6984) about 65 megaparsec

[mozzie]

thanks andrew...i can know explain to my son how long it has taken for that light to reach us...

[mithrandir]

In that case Peter, 211.9 million light years might be easier to explain.

[Steffen]

At that distance the 0.1 arc seconds resolution we're hoping for is a tad over 100ly. So even at that resolution we still won't be able to tell whether it's the same star or a neighbouring one?

Cheers
Steffen.

[mozzie]

he's not understanding them numbers :lol::lol:i'm giving him examples of before and after the dinosaures..as he's into them as well !!!!

[PeterM]

A very unique CBET 3607 has just been released by the IAU announcing both last years supernova as SN2012im (until now it did not have a cbet or IAU designation) and this current discovery as SN2013ek. It ties them both together and encourages follow up to find out just what has actually happened.
The CBET notes two possible interpretations - two nearby explosions or a non terminal explosion of the same object. To my knowledge there had never been two supernova occur this close and within 1 year almost to the day of each other. Colin Drescher BOSS team member put forward an interesting idea - could the one supernova trigger a chain reaction SN in a nearby star?

[astroron]

Peter,I had already suggested that as well :D
Cheers:thumbsup:

[PeterM]

Yeah it's interesting Ron. This area of this galaxy will get a lot of scrutiny in years to come from amateurs and professionals, should there be a third supernova at that position, well that would really put the cat amongst the science. Exciting stuff.

[CarlJoseph]

Wonderful work and very exciting to hear the development of this as it becomes better understood. Looking forward to learning what the spectra says about this second explosion. :thumbsup:

[madbadgalaxyman]

Good point, Steffen,

I should think that if they can obtain radio positions using a radio-frequency interferometer, where the resolution available is much better than in the optical regime, this might be able to distinguish whether there is a single repeated event or two different events.
(but don't quote me on it!)

In some of the star catalogs, there are some star positions that are accurate to 0.02 arcseconds.
I don't know how they manage this, as I have had an unjustified comtempt for astrometry;
however, as we can see from this case, it is quite obvious that we need to obtain object positions which are as accurate as they can be.

Incidentally, the angular resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope is about 0.04 arcseconds (or maybe slightly better??). When or if the Webb Telescope flies, we are still stuck with a best available optical resolution similar to that of the Hubble;
so Webb is not really such a good investment after all.

cheers,
Robert

[madbadgalaxyman]

Actually, I was wrong in the previous post about the best angular resolution available being 0.04 arcsec.

With adaptive optics used on ground-based telescopes, which decreases the size of the airy disk by a large factor, I have a feeling that we can get positions of 0.01 arcseconds accuracy, and even better.
(for instance: I have just found some positions in the literature which are accurate to 10 milliarcseconds)

Perhaps someone who knows a lot more about this than me can enlighten us about this issue!

Here is an article in Scholarpedia about astrometry:
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Astrometry

144514

[Terry B]

According to this item http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=5229
the researchers quote an accuracy of 52 x 38 milliarcsec for the HST to identify the progenitor star for the SN in M74.
Radio very long baseline interferometry is incredibly accurate but someone needs to have tried it for the SN last year and actually detected it at radio frequencies. This actually needs a reasonably bright radio source and the desire to research the position of the first SN which wasn't special until the second one occurred.

[mozzie]

with fair seeing...s/n is visable in 14" video...looking to be as bright as core of galaxy,atmosphere is bouncing around to get a crisp look.

[CometGuy]

Hi Peter,

My belated congrats to Stu and the BOSS on this amazing discovery! Please post updates on the SN as news comes available.

Terry

[tonybarry]

Hi Robert,

If the object of interest undergoes an occultation (by the lunar limb, or an asteroid, for example) the positional accuracy for that epoch can become really quite high. Unfortunately such occultations do not happen frequently for objects out of the ecliptic.

Regards,
Tony Barry

[rally]

Robert,

Gaia when launched later this year (I think its still on time ?) will be providing astrometric positional accuracies of sub 10 microarc seconds down to 20 and 22 magnitudes.
More than 100 spectra each on a Billion stars over 5 years

Rally