HI All,
well, hot on the heels of my 4th SN discovery last week, Stu discovered his 39th (!!!) last night in a galaxy far, far away. Actually, its about 700 million light years away!
The measured position of the new SN candidate is (J2000) RA:05 22 41.59 Dec: -39 03 42.9, in the constellation of Columba.
The galaxy is PGC17201 (ESO305-21) and the new SN candidate is about magnitude 18.0, so it's very faint and is only for people with CCD cameras.
Stu imaged this galaxy early on the 14th, and I managed to get a good 5 minute image for confirmation on the 15th, see the image below.
We notifed a few professionals last night, so now we have the usual nail-biting wait to get a spectral confirmation, but indications so far are excellent that it will be a new one indeed.
Congrats yet again Stu.
STOP PRESS - in the middle of writing this, I heard that ABC Radio National were doing a 1 hour broadcast of "Life Matters" that focussed on citizen science, so I rang in and gave a live radio interview that described the BOSS team discoveries and our collaboration with the professionals to a national radio audience..fun !!!
I'll make a request like Suzi's earlier in the year - Can you please find a bright one so Terry, Bernard and I can get the spectroscopes onto it. This is a bit beyond my humble gear