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Hi All,
Further to the above, I've learned this morning from Brian Skiff on another mailing list that preliminary spectra indicates it is a type Ia event (ie a detonating carbon-oxygen white dwarf star). Several reliable magnitude estimates place it between mag +12.8 and +13.0.
It is within the south tail of the Antennae Galaxy (NGC 4038-39) and the precise position is 12 01 52.80 -18 58 21.7 (J2000), about 5 arc-mins south of the main merged galaxy pair. 25cm sould see it pretty well from a dark site and in 20cm it will be a bit tougher.
If not for any other reason, once you have identified it, you can use it as a marker to locate where the S pointing streamer is, and then try to see the streamer itself -- a very, very difficult obserrvation but will now be right at the top of my list in a couple of weeks!
Best,
Les D
Contributing Editor
AS&T
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