Hi all, bit of an alert here.
Early days, but Stu Parker may have discovered BOSS' brightest Supernova todate. The suspect SN is at about mag 11.9 in the superb galaxy NGC5643 in Lupus. The galaxy is large and relatively close at 50 million light years. It already has the professionals excited. Being this bright and away from the nucleus in an outer spiral arm makes this an ideal target for smaller scopes. So might be worth visual and spectra follow up by IIspacers as we await a spectra from the pros. This would be BOSS 56th Supernova if spectra confirms.
Images soon.
Object Designation Date (UT) R.A. (2000.0) Decl. Mag. p Offset Locale
PSN J14323388-4413278 2013 02 13.621 * 14 32 33.88 -44 13 27.8 11.9 U 74W 180S N5643
yes, very interesting this one, its a long way from the galaxy nucleus, so we are waiting impatiently to find out if its a new SN, or perhaps even a closer galactic nova. Either way, its brightness will be suitable for many IIS members to see visually too.
If anyone is interested in visually observing this suspected supernova and making magnitude estimates, the variable star R Lupi is located about 1 deg south of NGC 5643. The AAVSO has a reasonable chart for R Lupi with comparison star mags in the 11-14th mag range. I suggest this chart is used until Mati Morel or the AAVSO issue a specific NGC 5643 chart.
Perth has a clear night tonight, so we have the opportunity of seeing a 50m rock pass within 30,000 kms and a very bright and distant supernova at almost the same time!
Thanks All
Yes still waiting!!!!!!!No word yet. So this isn’t a sure thing but still an interesting object. Once again lack of sleep due to searching in fact I was up all night the previous night and group member Colin came to the rescue and was able to do the measurement’s while I got some long overdue sleep.
Here is an image for a finder chart.
2X300 sec
2X200 sec
Stacked in CCDstack no processing. I actually skipped by this one while blinking as I thought it was a camera hot pixel, lucky I went back a few mins later for a second look!!
We just got word from the professionals at Gemini South that it is a type 1a supernova probably at or near maximum light. This is one of the brightest in a while and well worth amateur follow up. Almost any scope should be able to get this one.
Here's a roughie from tonight, taken from the carpark of the motel I'm at, streetlights, passing cars and all! The galaxy is barely visible but the PSN is.
I visually observed the supernova this morning. Apologies, I made a mistake with my previous post. The variable star reasonably close by is RT Lup not R Lup. Anyway at Feb 15.797 UT I made it mag 11.4.
It was a busy night with two bright comets (C/2012 F6 at mag 5.6 and C/2011 L4 at mag 4.5), the flyby of 2012 DA14 (which was easily followed with a variety of telescopes) and a whole host of interesting variable stars. The universe is still a very active place at the moment.
We report spectroscopic observations of PSN J14323388-4413278 (listed on the IAU Central Bureau's TOCP page) that was discovered by the Backyard Observatory Supernova Search (BOSS) team on Feb 13.62 UT. A spectrum (range 350-1000 nm) obtained robotically on Feb. 15.70 UT with the FLOYDS (FTS) spectrograph shows it to be a type-Ia supernova, a few days before maximum light. A second spectrum (range 350-950 nm) was also acquired with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on the 8-m Gemini South telescope on Feb 15.38 UT, confirming the classification. After correcting for the recession velocity of its host-galaxy, NGC 5643 (1199 km/s, NED), the minimum of the Si II 635.5-nm absorption feature is found to be blue-shifted by ~10,960 km/s. Comparisons to other spectra with "Superfit" (Howell et al. 2005, Ap.J. 634, 1190) show similar overlap with SN 1996X near maximum light. By Feb 15.38 UT, there is no conspicuous signature of C II 657.8-nm, however a small depression is seen on top of the Si II 635.5-nm emission component, at 634.7-nm, similar to that of SN 2011fe near maximum light (Pereira et al. 2013, pre-print, astro-ph/0008463).
I heard from Mr Marples that you are going to be co-authors of a scientific paper. This means that each of you will get a record of citations (by other scientists in their papers), which is in fact the distinguishing mark of a professional scientist....
This is a very difficult thing to achieve (normally restricted to people with PhDs!), because to get professionally published means essentially that, at least jointly, you have mastered a very very large body of knowledge and have done a colossal amount of work. It is not at all easy to become a published astronomer!!
Here is the B-band (photometric blue filter) image of NGC 5643, from the de Vaucouleurs atlas of galaxies : :
The dust pattern within this galaxy is asymmetric and unusual, which could hypothetically be due to an interaction with a low mass companion galaxy.
There does exist a low contrast, fairly long, central bar structure in this galaxy, but it is more obvious in near-infrared imagery. The large-scale dust lanes seen within this bar seem to be rather weak, and not very symmetric. (this galaxy is usually classified as "weakly barred")
Here are the isophotes of the bar, as seen in the Ks band (near-infrared) from Mulchaey et al., 1997, ApJS, Vol.110, p.299 : :
(1997 was when NIR observations were in their infancy; there are better images around these days at NIR wavelengths!)
An extant Analysis of some 2MASS near-infrared imaging data for this galaxy derived a bar Position Angle of 85 degrees, and a bar Ellipticity of 0.67
The figure of 0.67 indicates that this bar is relatively "fat" (oval in appearance)
The immediate region near to the centre of this galaxy is very intense (high surface brightness), in the optical regime. It is not possible to actually see much of an active (Seyfert) nucleus in this Hubble Space Telescope (WFPC2 instrument) image of the centralmost region of this galaxy [Visual (V-band)image in the left panel, and H-band (infrared) image in the central panel ] : : :
However, the "starlike" nucleus is catalogued as a Type 2 Seyfert , and I seem to recall that there were some observations of a short outflow of gas from this nucleus, which was detected in both the [OIII] line and X-rays.
(It might just be possible to detect the Seyfert nucleus in very short exposures, or visually)
Hi all, bit of an alert here.
Early days, but Stu Parker may have discovered BOSS' brightest Supernova todate. The suspect SN is at about mag 11.9 in the superb galaxy NGC5643 in Lupus. The galaxy is large and relatively close at 50 million light years. It already has the professionals excited. Being this bright and away from the nucleus in an outer spiral arm makes this an ideal target for smaller scopes. So might be worth visual and spectra follow up by IIspacers as we await a spectra from the pros. This would be BOSS 56th Supernova if spectra confirms.
Images soon.
Object Designation Date (UT) R.A. (2000.0) Decl. Mag. p Offset Locale
PSN J14323388-4413278 2013 02 13.621 * 14 32 33.88 -44 13 27.8 11.9 U 74W 180S N5643
Thanks for that Robert,
There are infact a couple of papers in the works for the Astrophysical Journal with BOSS team members included in the authors list, but they do take time for acceptance, peer review I guess. The one listed below "Multi-Wavelength Observations of Supernova 2011ei: Time-Dependent
Classification of Type IIb and Ib Supernovae and Implications for their Progenitors", has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.
Of course we are blown away by this, how incredible that professional astronomers would include amateurs in their list of contributors.
To all IISpacers reading this take note that any contributions you make to the science are highly regarded by the professionals and who knows where this can lead to.
The BOSS team are very proud to be able to let Ice In Space be the first to know of our discoveries and achievements in the hope that it inspires you knowing what amateurs can contribute to. Not only in Supernova discovery but a whole range of work from the incredible spectroscopy being done by several highly talented IIspacers here to Variable Star work, Occultations, Comet discovery, monitoring of Solar activity, monitoring Jupiter and Saturn, radio astronomy to our world beating imagers.
As I have often said BOSS are just like everyone else here we get our buzz from astronomy and we have found our niche.
Thanks for that Robert,
There are infact a couple of papers in the works for the Astrophysical Journal with BOSS team members included in the authors list, but they do take time for acceptance, peer review I guess. The one listed below "Multi-Wavelength Observations of Supernova 2011ei: Time-Dependent Classification of Type IIb and Ib
Hello Pete,
Getting a preprint of a paper onto the Astronomical preprint websites of //arxiv.org and //adsabs.harvard.edu is essentially equivalent to actually being published, these days, because nearly every paper which is going to be formally published (after being peer reviewed) is put onto arxiv beforehand. Furthermore, it is a well known fact that there are usually few changes between the preprint and the actual published paper. The 100% legitimacy of preprints is tacitly acknowledged by professional astronomers, as shown by the fact that preprints are often cited in other papers.
Most professional astronomers want to get their hands on the newest scientific papers, as soon as possible, so as to advance their scientific efforts in the most speedy way; therefore the first port of call for professional astronomers is very often to view the preprint of a paper at //arxiv.org or //adsabs.harvard.edu, instead of waiting for the publication of the actual periodical that contains the finished peer-reviewed paper! Obviously, professional astonomers wish to get hold of the newest work as soon as possible. Therefore, the impact of a preprint that is put on arxiv can be greater than the impact of the paper when it is finally published!!
