What if...

[Vegeta]

Hi, I have a stupid question that i've been thinking about for a while. My question is:
What would happen if you were observing a red giant star such as betelguese, Antares or eta carina, and the star suddenly went nova in the eyepiece?

[Astro_Bot]

You might get invited to appear on a morning show? Or maybe endorse some astro product? If that happens to you, buy a lottery ticket! ;)

I think the brightness increase to its peak takes days. AFAIK, novae/supernovae are usually detected by comparison of before and after images.

[Vegeta]

Thanks for the reply, I always thought the sudden increase in brightness and radiation output would cause damage.

[JB80]

I doubt there would be any permanent damage although I'm not certain about that but I guess it would be a bit of a shock and natural reflexes would probably turn you away straight off. From there on you wouldn't need anything to help you see it.

A good little explaination of Betelguese' peak luminosity can be found here...http://space.about.com/b/2011/01/24/will-betelgeuse-go-supernova-in-2012.htm



The same would be said for any particles reaches us, I think?

[Blue Skies]

I think you've fallen for the movie effect - nova and supernova don't go "pop!" in a flash, then vanish in seconds. They gradually increase in brightness over hours, if not days. Same with fading once its peaked. You can't have that happen in a movie, so they tend to speed it up. Any astronomy gets sped up, if you look carefully. Such as the total solar eclipse in the that Mel Gibson Aztec movie "Apocalypse". The whole event was over in ten minutes. Usually takes a couple of hours in the real world. I often get questions about this kind of thing and when you get the same topic brought up repeated - stars supposedly disappearing in a flash - you start to take notice. And they seem to be fixated on the idea and just don't want to know that it was just setting below a bank of clouds low to the horizon out to sea that they can't see in the dark...

[Astro_Bot]

The rise to peak brightness seems to be faster than the decline afterwards, but both appear to be best measured in days:

http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/T/Type+Ia+Supernova+Light+Curves

[Vegeta]

Ahhhh, Makes perfect sense now. thanks for the explainations.