SN1987A 30th Anniversary.

[Dave47tuc (David)]

Hi All,
Well time stands still for no one! 30 years ago on 24/02/1987 Sn1987A was discovered ,
some information here, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1987A
For me it was a interesting story I was away up in the Goulburn river fishing with my late grand father and my uncle, my birthday is in late Feb 19th and we had a week away trout fishing and doing well. I woke one morning and now the dates elude me and I was scanning the sky and looked at the LMC and thought hey that's not right that seems to be a new star!
I said to my family that's star is new it was not there a few days ago they laughed at me I cant be right , I said no that is a new star .
Anyway I could not contact anyone for a few days. Once I got back home I contacted my local Astronomical Society which I was member ASF now the MPAS. And was quickly informed all about the new Nova and soon to be known as SN 1987A . I can not put my dates down accurately but I know the discovery was on 24/02/1987 and Albert Jones in NZ had seen it around that time and I had seen it a little before but told no one as I was fishing LOL.
Anyway once home I took a picture which I have dug out of my shed and I hope I can get it to post.

On the back of the pic has written 5 min exp FL 200mm at F4 Piggy back on 8" Reflector 01/03/1987.

Does not mention film used !

would be interesting to here your story?

Regards David

[doppler (Rick)]

I can remember seeing it in March 87 and trying to get some pics, but can't seem to find any so I am guessing they didn't work out. Here's a pic of the LMC taken 11 months later, the supernova is still quite visible.

20 min single exposure Fuji 1600d slide film 50mm lens @ f2.8, piggybacked on an 8" newt eq mount with a RA drive only .

[Allan]

I was in year 10 and had a 4.5" reflector at that time. I used to be an avid observer of the LMC and would have a look every night. I was aware that when I first saw the SN it hadn't been there the night before. So I saw it on the night it occurred. What date that was I have no record, but I am greatly disappointed I didn't record any details, as I wasn't really aware at the time how significant it was. If only the internet had been around for us mortals back then.

I phoned my Physics teacher and told him about it, and he just said casually, oh it's probably a supernova. I had only been into astronomy for two years at that point, and guessed these things must happen all the time!

[kens (Ken)]

I managed a couple of fairly poor pics piggybacking my Minolta X500 with 50mm lens (I think) using Ektachrome 400 pushed to 800. Scope a Vixen 6" newt on a SP mount used for manual guiding. Location was in Camberwell so heavy light pollution. And I vaguely recall that the opportunities were limited - by cloud perhaps?

[Larryp (Laurie)]

This was taken with a Meade 2120LX3 I owned at the time. Apologies for the poor quality, as it is a scan of a print.
Taken on 20/6/1988 at f10 with Meade 2120 LX3-40 minute exposure on Konica SRV3200 hypered, using Lumicon Deep Sky filter

[sn1987a (Barry)]

Scan of a selfie of young me looking at sn1987a using a flash and about 30 to 40 seconds on a high ASA film