For those into supernovae, this is an interesting one. First "blew" in 2009, but turned out to just be flaring. I think it has popped off another couple of times in-between, and now may have gone off for good. No-one seems to be sure.
Anyhow, it is quite bright, at around Vmag 13.5, and well placed for a look high in the southern sky.
This is a stack of around 280(!) 60s exposures from last night/this morning. C11 at f/5, Atik 320E camera, V filter, binned 2x2.
Stunning work Terry! Who'd have thought a few years ago that amateurs could be taking spectra of distant faint supernovae, surely the realm of observatory-class instruments? A great leap forward!
For those into supernovae, this is an interesting one. First "blew" in 2009, but turned out to just be flaring. I think it has popped off another couple of times in-between, and now may have gone off for good. No-one seems to be sure.
Anyhow, it is quite bright, at around Vmag 13.5, and well placed for a look high in the southern sky.
This is a stack of around 280(!) 60s exposures from last night/this morning. C11 at f/5, Atik 320E camera, V filter, binned 2x2.
-Ivan
I observed this SN last night in my 16" scope, I would guess the mag as brightened to about 12.8.
It was plainly seen with eyepieces 17mm Nagler 107xmag 9mm Nagler 203xmag, and a 6mm Radian 304xmag.
all showed the Supernova clearly.
Scopes of around 10" or more should be able to see this object.
Cheers
Great to confirm your suspicion's that this SN can be observed with a 10" scope. The 12mm Mag saw the SN flit in and out of visibility but as soon as the 9mm Nag was used the pin point was sure and steady. Quite easy with the assistance of the 2 brighter stars almost in a line with it. Thanks for a great observing run last night Ron... Cheers Zub.
Hmm, maybe it's crying wolf once again. It is dimming already, which I think would not be expected so soon for a proper SN.
Here's an image from last night (Rc filter, reference magnitudes are from UCAC4).
-Ivan
Not really, the Supernova was recovered/discovered on the 24/7/2012
20 days later it was at mag 17.4 so it is nearly three months since discovery, so that is a reasonable time for a type 11n Supernova to remain visible before starting to fade.
See this chart for a light curve for the different types of Supernovae. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Co...ght_curves.png
HI Terry
great work with obtaining the spectrum of SN2009ip, well done.
I read your post with great interest. What is the faintest magnitude that you can go to?
HI Terry
great work with obtaining the spectrum of SN2009ip, well done.
I read your post with great interest. What is the faintest magnitude that you can go to?
Thanks Greg
I can realistically get a good SN with 120 mins of exposure down to about 14.5
Anything dimmer than that gets a bit hard to find and the noise is high. I could still identify Ha emission below this but not much else.
OK, thanks Terry,
my question related to the BOSS team SNe search activities, and i was wondering if your capabilities may have been suitable for some of our targets. Fortunately for us, we have developed some great ties with professionals now who are normally happy to get spectra for us, but from time to time they may not be available. Magnitude 14.5 is relatively bright for new SNe, and we wouldnt normally have any trouble obtaining a spectrum from them for a 14th mag object because one that bright is usually of great interest to them anyway.
OK, thanks Terry,
my question related to the BOSS team SNe search activities, and i was wondering if your capabilities may have been suitable for some of our targets. Fortunately for us, we have developed some great ties with professionals now who are normally happy to get spectra for us, but from time to time they may not be available. Magnitude 14.5 is relatively bright for new SNe, and we wouldnt normally have any trouble obtaining a spectrum from them for a 14th mag object because one that bright is usually of great interest to them anyway.
Greg Tom Boles in the UK also enquired about SN identification. Christian Buil has been able to take spectra of very dim SNs with the same equipment as me but he is much more skilled than me.
see http://www.astrosurf.com/buil/supernovae/2012/index.htm
Contact me if you ever need assistance and I'll do my best. One think I can do that the pros can't is regular follow up as telescope time is less of a premium.
Cheers
Terry
Terry I must congratulate you on the results you are achieving, absolutely sensational!
This is very encouraging to see amateurs going where some doubted possible just a few years ago. I have no doubt your skills will improve to fainter magnitudes and yes BOSS will no doubt be in contact from here on.
Often we get the spectra sent to us from our professional friends in Chile, perhaps next time we have one within your current capabilities it would be interesting to try and overlay them. I guess that's possible and perhaps send yours to them and see what feedback we get.
The next big step as I see it from an amateurs point of view is then to get CBAT to accept the spectra for one of our discoveries from an advanced amateur such as yourself. Perhaps this is where the pros might be handy in convincing CBAT based on feedback we get from a few future test SN.
What do you have to do to get to say mag 17? Lets keep in contact here this is truely exciting stuff.
Peter,
There is a growing and enthusiastic group of amateur spectroscopists around the world, who I'm sure would love to be able to assist in any way possible.
Getting good (SNR>100) spectra of faint targets unfortunately means two things to the amateur: Large optics and low resolution spectra....
If we can define what would be an acceptable resolution, we can work backwards to determine the choice of spectroscope and associated telescope.
Unfortunately commercial spectroscopes are very expensive and at the moment there are only three suppliers: Shelyak (LhiresIII, LISA and eShel), Baader (DADOS) and Elliott (CCDspec). SBIG used to supply the DSS7 and SGS, but these have now been withdrawn. The other viable option is to build your own....
By way of comparison:
Using the SimSpecV4 spreadsheet...
With a 350mm scope in suburbia, a 120min exposure, R=1000.
For a SNR=100 the limiting magnitude would be around +12mag
Go to a dark sky site and up the aperture to 500mm, we'd get to +13mag.
Go for an even larger scope, 1000mm, and the magnitude creeps to +13.7
OK, reduce the resolution to R=500, the same 1000mm scope would get to +14.7
If we reduce the SRN to 50, we could get close to +16mag.
(generally a rule of thumb is the limiting spectrum is about 5 mags higher than the imaging limiting mag...ie to get a spectrum of a 17mag star we'd need a scope (and conditions) to image a 23mag star...)
As you see, nothing is impossible, just very, very challenging!!
You can play with all the variables in the attached SimSpecV4.
Thanks Ken,
in general, it's possible for us with 14" scopes on a good night under outer suburban skies to get around mag 17.5 to 18 with SBIG and Starlight Xpress class cameras and 30 second images. So, that suggests we would be limited to spectra in the range 12.5 to 13, even with 2 hour images..correct???
Who'd have thought a few years ago that amateurs could be taking spectra of distant faint supernovae, surely the realm of observatory-class instruments? A great leap forward!
