Hi Greg and other "SN fanatics",
According to the posts in the Visual Observing forum, we did have one definite & strong visual detection of the SN by the noticeably "eagle-eyed" Paddy..... at a dark sky site, using his 16 inch.
Ron (astroron) was able to see the SN, on and off, with his 16 inch...... but the visibility of the object was strongly dependent on the large variations in the size of the stellar seeing disk.
Ron, in the visual observing forum, estimated that the SN may have a visual magnitude of 14.8 or fainter, which is in accord with my theoretical calculations in the Science forum.
These two blokes are skilled visual observers of vast experience, yet they did not find the SN to be an easy object.
There is an extant magnitude estimate of 14.1, by Joseph Brimacombe at the
www.rochesterastronomy.org/snimages supernovae site, but in my and Ron's view, this appears to be an
infrared magnitude, and an infrared magnitude relates in no meaningful way to the visual magnitude and visual appearance of this object.
Brimacombe
seems to have been using infrared magnitudes for his comparison stars, which is a
very odd thing to do.....is there any way you can check on this, Greg?
cheers, robert