Discovered last night by ASASSN - a young type 2 SN at mag 16.7 that will brighten, possibly to mag 13 ish.
Greg Bock from Boss was able to confirm the SN last night.
Color images encouraged to be sent the Bright Supernova page. http://www.supernova.thistlethwaites.com/snimages/
c/- dbishopx at gmail.com.
2016cok, (= ASASSN-16fq) ATEL 9091 discovered 2016/05/28.296 by All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN)
Found in M66 at R.A. = 11h20m19s.100, Decl. = +12°58'56".01
Located 61".4 east and 34".0 south of the center of M66 (Discovery image) (Greg Bock image)
Mag 16.7:5/28, Type IIP (zhost=0.002425) (z=0.002) (References: ATEL 9093, ATEL 9094, TNS; SN 2009hd, 1973R, 1989B, (1997bs))
Thanks for the alert Peter! And to think I so nearly started an imaging run on these after dusk when they were higher in the sky. Canned another target when I saw your alert
It's still pretty faint, I'd estimate 16.8 or 16.9 off my image with comparison stars on skymap.org, though seeing was pretty poor and it was getting pretty low in the sky.
Here it is, 12 x 5 minutes, 200mm f/5 Newtonian, EOS 60D at ISO800. I'll send it in to David Bishop too. Darks, flats & bias subtracted, processed PixInsight. First image is 150% scale.
HI all,
FWIW, this is the confirmation image taken for the ASAS-SN team at the time of their alert..only 10 x 30 second images, Meade 14F7 LX200R, SX Trius 694 binned 2x2. Estimated magnitude then was 16.7v.
An image from 30th May, the SN appeared to have brightened slightly from my image of 24 hours previously; however the 30th May had both better seeing and the SN was a bit higher in the sky. From comparing last night and tonight, there appears little change in brightness (maybe just a wee bit brighter, ~0.1mag?), though I'd revise my estimate of brightness to nearer mag 16.6 with the sharper view.
Also an animation with an M66 image from last year taken with my old scope, the improvement in resolution from 150mm to 200mm is significant!
The weather probably ensures this will be my last M66 image for a while...
Gees, I hope Peter is right about the SN brightening to mag 13. If the clouds co-operate we'll see it in the 14" for sure. It'll stick out like the proverbial in fact!
Very difficult to catch this visually last night. The three stars outboard of the galaxy to the left of the supernova are easy enough in a 25", but the supernova is hiding amongst a few bright HII regions in the spiral arm. Although I knew exactly where to look and managed to snag it at about 250x, there's no way I would have picked this up with a visual search.
cheers,
Andrew.
Absolutely sensational image there Martin. The detail along the arms is amazing.
Yes, it was a good find in such a close and bright galaxy, I'm very lucky to be associated with the ASAS-SN team through the Ohio State University, and of course independantly, the guys on the BOSS team here and in NZ.
We've been cursed with dreadful weather here in Brissie. Does anyone know if the SN is brighter than on the weekend? Or has it dimmed? Is it worth trying to go to a dark spot, say on Wednesday to try to catch it?
Brother in Law & I went out to our normal "dark" sky sight. I couldn't see it, albeit I did enjoy taking the time to observe m66 more closely than what I have before.
I could see some of the spiral structure and a bit of the central region as a semi circle. I found the view through a 9mm EP the best combination of dark background and at 183x, magnification.
Alas in between the clouds, people driving into the lookout and the encroaching LP of Ipswich I couldn't see it. The BiL cought a glimpse of something at about the 10 o'clock position relative to the core as viewed in a reflector, i.e. Opposite the row of three foreground stars. So the right general area. But that could also be one of the bright star forming HII regions... Who knows ?
As disappointed as I was with the whole outing last night, observing is still better than not observing