Congrats to Stu Parker - Supernova discovery in PGC17571
Hi all
Many congrats to our NZ member, Stu Parker, who discovered his 4th supernova just recently.
It's a 17.1 mag supernova in the 13.6mag galaxy, PGC17517.
I'll let Stu tell the story.
Quote:
Hi all,
Just wanting to announce the discovery of my 4th supernova as part of my regular search programme. I discovered the 17.1 mag supernova on thr 18th of October in PGC17517 a 13.6 mag galaxy in Pictor.
With help from Peter Marples and Colin Drescher we were able to confirm the SN and today I received the CBAT 1984 from the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams confirming the Supernova. Many thanks to the team who worked really hard on this discovery.
Many thanks
Stu Parker
New Zealand
Excellent work Stu, congrats and good luck for the next one!
Yup it's a big congrats to Stu on number 4.
What Stu doesn't say is the mammoth effort and dedication (not to mention the $$$$ and his wifes support) that he regularly puts into his searching. With many hundreds of images per night, this discovery alone was the result of the evenings work of some 300 images followed by about 2-3 hours of blinking to find that elusive new object. Then, through the tiredness questioning starts, is this noise or is it real? He also works his own dairy farm with his wife during the day, so lots of physical work during the day after a nights imaging and morning blinking images sure adds up.
Then after the discovery of course comes the checking for known Minor Planets, Variable Stars etc. Getting the accurate Astrometry and Photometry and then reporting it, in some cases only to find as we did with a "discovery" last month that it was in fact a very faint variable M star. As a group the credibility now gained from involvement in some 7 discoveries and assistance on a few others has brought with it very welcome, completely unexpected assistance and we now have a professional astronomer that we are able to contact at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile who has taken several spectra using the 6 meter 'scopes based there - hows that! But this also brings a responsibility in that we will be vigilant in our reporting, checking everything many times prior to reporting to the IAU or anyone. In the case of the M star we got the spectra very quickly and were able to withdraw the notification prior to it being announced.
I now think Stuart is New Zealands leading Supernova discoverer and as I predicted he will go on to find many, many Supernova.
By the way the PGC stands for Principal Galaxy Catalogue (193,898 galaxies) the Galaxy also has an ESO (European Southern Observatory) number ESO 159-23.
Congratulations. I can't even begin to fathom how much work must go into discovering on of these. Thanks for shedding some light on it, Peter. Sounds like you know what you're talking about
Can anyone spell out in layman's terms how people like Stu and Peter set about looking for an SN? Where do they start? What are they looking for? etc etc
Easy peasy Paul.
Choose a set of Galaxies, image them. Then go back to the same Galaxies in 2 weeks time then image them again. Then you play "Spot the Difference".
If there is something new in the image, that's when it starts getting serious. It needs to be reimaged to make sure it isn't just a transient occurance. If it's still there it has to be verified by others in the astro community. This is where it helps to have a network of other SN searchers who don't mind being dragged out of bed at 2am.
And if they also see the suspect in their image of the Galaxy, a notification is sent to the appropriate authorities.
Hey All,
Many thanks for all your comments. It is great to hear your feedback.
One thing that Peter failed to mention here is that this discovery would of probably been missed if Him Colin and Greg had not got in to action. When I sent the discovery image to Peter I wasn’t really that certain if it was a Supernova or not so I sent it and went to bed not thinking too much more about it as it was raining and I couldn’t do any conformation images. Un known to me I had stirred up a hornets nest because I didn’t send all the information that I should have and Pete couldn’t get hold of me so it was a stressful few hours for them as they tried to get another image and get hold of me. When I woke in the early hours of the morning to go to work I woke to a long list of emails and phone calls I was shocked . I sent the files needed and waited for the results which turned out great. So the guys put alot of overtime in for this one literally overtime and a late night so many thanks for that the group worked really well together. I am looking forward to many more Hopfully?!!!
It sounds easy all right.
