Hi IIS folks literally hot off the press, just one day back from the AIC (imaging conference) in USA and Stu Parker has discovered his 23rd SN (suspect at this stage). Catalogued as PSN J22571177-4323048, CBAT TOCP discovered 2011/11/12.476 - Galaxy IC5267 in Grus.
Congrats Stu you are a machine. The BOSS total now stands at 27 and this is quite an achievement for amateurs working together.
Stu had taken 300 images when he found the object and gave me a call. As usual Greg Bock was quick to get positional and magnitude data and we both checked for known minor planets. known variables and recent discoveries. Colin Drescher then double checked everything before posting on CBATs TOCP page (see below).
We needed another image but here in Brisbane we were totally clouded. We called on colleagues around Australia - Joe Brimacombe in Cairns and Roger Groom in WA who were as usual very keen to assist, Joe was able to get an image while Roger was unfortunately clouded out. We have several other contacts in NSW but the weather maps ruled them out.
Contact was made with our professional colleagues in South Africa (SALT) and Chile (Las Campanas) and at this stage there is some excitement in this particular galaxy as it appears it is already a target of interest for some professionals. So we expect a spectra will be done fairly quickly.
At mag 15.5 (unfiltered) this is a good target for IIS imagers. The galaxy is also bright and well worthy of an image on its own.
Will keep you informed as things progress and no doubt Stu will have some words when he comes down to Earth.
Hi All
Great job done by the group AGAIN!!
Attached is the first image quite poor but a start. We have had terrible weather here last month with only about 60 galaxies images where as my normal amount it 3-4,000.So it was lucky Greg got his SN last month. I also have been away at the advanced imaging conference in the USA last week and saw Mark Bolton over there as well which was great.
So this night was the first night out for ages!!!! So I guess there is a bit of luck with this one I guess.There was also bright moon light which didnt help.
This makes 4 SN visible in the sky currently that has been discovered by BOSS so that is fantastic. Hopefully the spectra will be done tonight or tomorrow.
Great work by all the team.
All BOSS team members have been members of the Ice In Space community for some time. Indeed we have had much encouragement and feedback from this community. Several community members have been very keen to assist where follow up images were needed, so a thanks from us. Hopefully we are not becoming hohum with our successes and you still enjoy us bringing them to you. I guess we just want to show how everyday amateurs can still contribute to the science of astronomy if you wish to and at the same time have an absolute ball doing it. Talk about living the dream ... the astro dream that is.
Looking forward to those great IIS member images of this galaxy and the "guest" star .... Mr Bradley and others.
Now it must be my turn to find anudder one.
Last edited by PeterM; 14-11-2011 at 10:51 AM.
Reason: typos etc
I had a go at it tonight.
This one is in a very nice spot, almost zenith at twilight end.
Even though I had pretty good seeing it was a warmish night
and the ccd cooling was very noisy for some unknown reason.
So I did a set cooled and uncooled.
Here is the uncooled, north at top, ambient got down to 16
but uncooled CCD was 23.0C grrrr
Steve it's great to see IISers getting images of these discoveries, congrats indeed.
We have just found out that this SN is possibly very young and could get to mag 12.5! So we await the spectra. I have seen correspondence between more professionals than usual on this one AND its being touted as a possible Hubble Space Telescope target!
Peter
Hi All,
yes, another amazing discovery by Stu. As it turned out, I was imaging about 30 degrees to the west of Stu when he picked this one up. I didn't get that far east as I needed some sleep, just the luck of the draw.
It was another team effort once the discovery was made. On Sunday morning, I did the initial positional analysis and checking for Stu to make sure it wasn't already known, or an asteroid, or a variable star. Once done, I was running late to go out for the day with Kath, so I had to pass it over to Colin to double check the positions and brightness prior to preparing the announcement for the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT) TOCP page. http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/unconf/tocp_ra.html
Peter and I were then on standby to get a confirming image for Stu later on Sunday night, but as usual, the clouds didn't play ball.
So, for now, we have to wait for the spectral analysis from Las Campanas which is the final proof.
I have a record of all (27 to date) of the BOSS discoveries that I will post here once the spectrum confirms the type of supernova that we have.
Congratulations again Stu, this is number 21. Happy 21st!!!
Well done Stu and team. What champs. And another SN to go looking for visually. Bring on the clear skies! and maybe we can have a BOSS supernova party at Snake Valley.
The arms in this galaxy are very fine, and the knots look small.
It does not look like the sort of galaxy that has a lot of surviving supergiant stars.
Could this be a type 1a ( non- core collapse) object?
The old photograph of this galaxy (chemical process) in the Carnegie Atlas of Galaxies is excellent:
Here is another goodish image, this time a composite of blue and red DSS images that I downloaded from the Aladin version of DSS:
If you go to //hla.stsci.edu, and look up the HST images of this galaxy, you can find a nice image of an unusual dust lane bisecting the bulge; this lane looks like it could be a polar feature.
cheers,
Robert
P.S.
I seem to recall once discussing with Mr Marples that, while (on the whole) the core-collapse events are more common, certain very massive galaxies without much current star-formation do seem to have plenty of type 1a events.
Last edited by madbadgalaxyman; 16-11-2011 at 09:34 AM.
Reason: more info
HI Robert,
thanks for the links to the images here.
Yes, the galaxy arms are thinly populated and sparse, it's very pretty galaxy. Stu has a 15 minute image that shows those features quite well.
We are still waiting for the spectrum to be confirmed, but we were advised yesterday that at first glance, it looks like a recent core collapse, probably a type IIb, or type II.
