Congrats to Stu Parker - Supernova discovery in PGC17571

[iceman]

Hi all

Many congrats to our NZ member, Stu Parker, who discovered his 4th supernova just recently.

It's a 17.1 mag supernova in the 13.6mag galaxy, PGC17517.

I'll let Stu tell the story.



Excellent work Stu, congrats and good luck for the next one!

[jjjnettie]

Congratulations Stu.
Glad to see that all the effort you are putting into your searches is paying off, yet again.
Well done.

[dpastern]

Congrats Stu, well done. Good stuff on Peter and Colin being able to confirm for Stu as well.

Dave

[PeterM]

Yup it's a big congrats to Stu on number 4.
What Stu doesn't say is the mammoth effort and dedication (not to mention the $$$$ and his wifes support) that he regularly puts into his searching. With many hundreds of images per night, this discovery alone was the result of the evenings work of some 300 images followed by about 2-3 hours of blinking to find that elusive new object. Then, through the tiredness questioning starts, is this noise or is it real? He also works his own dairy farm with his wife during the day, so lots of physical work during the day after a nights imaging and morning blinking images sure adds up.
Then after the discovery of course comes the checking for known Minor Planets, Variable Stars etc. Getting the accurate Astrometry and Photometry and then reporting it, in some cases only to find as we did with a "discovery" last month that it was in fact a very faint variable M star. As a group the credibility now gained from involvement in some 7 discoveries and assistance on a few others has brought with it very welcome, completely unexpected assistance and we now have a professional astronomer that we are able to contact at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile who has taken several spectra using the 6 meter 'scopes based there - hows that! But this also brings a responsibility in that we will be vigilant in our reporting, checking everything many times prior to reporting to the IAU or anyone. In the case of the M star we got the spectra very quickly and were able to withdraw the notification prior to it being announced.
I now think Stuart is New Zealands leading Supernova discoverer and as I predicted he will go on to find many, many Supernova.
By the way the PGC stands for Principal Galaxy Catalogue (193,898 galaxies) the Galaxy also has an ESO (European Southern Observatory) number ESO 159-23.

Below is a useful list of some catalogues
http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/doc/ecatinfo.html

A nice little bit in Astronomy Magazine. Note the the PGC number on the galaxy image is the correct one, not the one in the text.
http://cs.astronomy.com/asycs/blogs/astronomy/2009/10/20/an-amateur-astronomer-discovers-an-exploding-star.aspx

PeterM.

[troypiggo]

Congratulations. I can't even begin to fathom how much work must go into discovering on of these. Thanks for shedding some light on it, Peter. Sounds like you know what you're talking about ;)

[Ric]

Top Stuff Stu and congratulations.

It looks like a real beauty as well judging from the image.

Cheers

[White Rabbit]

Wow thats great, well done.

[renormalised]

Great going, Stu:D

Onto the next one:D:D

[bird]

Well done Stu, persistence pays off...

Bird

[h0ughy]

congratulations

[ngcles]

Hi Mike & All,

Congratulations to the whole team for this discovery and in particular to Stu -- well done mate.

I can see if this rate of discovery keeps up I'm gonna get RSI :thumbsup:


Best,

Les D

[Quark]

Congratulations Stu,

Extremely well done, yet another brick in the wall of astro endeavor by an amateur.

Top Stuff
Regards
Trevor

[spacezebra]

Congrats!

Cheers Petra d.

[spearo]

Congratulations!
well done
frank

[PCH]

Hi Stu and very well done :thumbsup:

Can anyone spell out in layman's terms how people like Stu and Peter set about looking for an SN? Where do they start? What are they looking for? etc etc

Cheers

[jjjnettie]

Easy peasy Paul.
Choose a set of Galaxies, image them. Then go back to the same Galaxies in 2 weeks time then image them again. Then you play "Spot the Difference".
If there is something new in the image, that's when it starts getting serious. It needs to be reimaged to make sure it isn't just a transient occurance. If it's still there it has to be verified by others in the astro community. This is where it helps to have a network of other SN searchers who don't mind being dragged out of bed at 2am.
And if they also see the suspect in their image of the Galaxy, a notification is sent to the appropriate authorities.

[PCH]

Hi Jeanette,

thanks everso for that. Oh well, if it's that easy, I won't bother ;)

[jjjnettie]

:lol: It sounds easy all right.
It's just the actual doing it, and finding one that's hard.:rofl:

[Jen]

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: congrats Stu :D

[Park123]

Hey All,
Many thanks for all your comments. It is great to hear your feedback.
One thing that Peter failed to mention here is that this discovery would of probably been missed if Him Colin and Greg had not got in to action. When I sent the discovery image to Peter I wasn’t really that certain if it was a Supernova or not so I sent it and went to bed not thinking too much more about it as it was raining and I couldn’t do any conformation images. Un known to me I had stirred up a hornets nest because I didn’t send all the information that I should have and Pete couldn’t get hold of me so it was a stressful few hours for them as they tried to get another image and get hold of me. When I woke in the early hours of the morning to go to work I woke to a long list of emails and phone calls I was shocked . I sent the files needed and waited for the results which turned out great. So the guys put alot of overtime in for this one literally overtime and a late night so many thanks for that the group worked really well together. I am looking forward to many more Hopfully?!!!

Thanks again

Stu

[DavidU]

Fantastic Stu, those fellas really support your work. Well deserved.