Greetings from across the pond, fellas. There is a story out on
Universe Today about a can-happen-anytime supernova progenitor in Carina that we all can keep our eye on while out observing. I dunno about you, but I check Eta Carinae every time I’m out j-u-s-t in case it decides to go SN while I’m out. (This could be awhile, up to 100,000 years, say the experts.) This new SN candidate is named SWB1, only 4 RA min W. and 4 Dec min S. of Eta Carina (actual: RA 10 40 18 Dec -59° 49 12.5”). It is in the nebular lobe directly across from the dust gulf that makes the Carina Neb so impressive. Track down the coordinates on WikiSky. Eta and this SN candidate, SWB1, fit comfortably in the field of a 70° AFOV eyepiece at 75x. SWB1 is ~20,000 light years out while M1 the Crab Nebula is 6500 LY away. If anyone gets lucky and happens to witness the first blast, you’ll likely be seeing it the same time the BOSS fellas do. For a better idea of what the blast wave will look like, see Figure 10 on p. 14 of
this paper.
Over here, tonight’s the first decent night in two weeks. Moon or no moon, I’m going to dadgum be out there until the roosters wake up.
=Dana in SA