|
The supernova in M51 (discovered by a German amateur) has been found to be a young one, caught on the rise. A red giant star, found on archive Hubble images, has been identified as a possible candidate star that exploded.
Fortunately, M51 is positioned as best as can be for us in the Southern Hemisphere, though you're really going to have to be in northern Australia, given its far northern declination. Maybe some of our Northern Hemisphere forum members could describe their views?
I've seen reports from the last few days of brightness measurements as good as magnitude 13.5, and this supernova could still potentially brighten further (though watch out for a foreground star if you're trying to identify the newcomer).
|