Not much, in fact, if seeing is poor, the bright star will just seem elongated. Good luck Andy.
"Not much" being the scientific assessment, I'd better hope for ok seeing! I'm optimistic based on the resolution of my last 5128 image and the improved performance of my new scope, so fingers crossed
Also, some discovery stats...
That's 15 SN discoveries for Pete, 13 for me, and its is 139th for BOSS. As it turns out, Stu also found another SN waiting to go into the official record (Transient Network Server of the IAU) which makes 140 in total for BOSS today.
Yes Roger we are, it's one of the holy grails of supernova searching behind finding one in the Milky Way, LMC, SMC, or M31...still searching them too.
It seems to be hidden by dust, quite dim for its age, so it's been described by some of the professionals as " we found something frustratingly mysterious"...good we like the unusual ones.!
As per your suggestion (Peter) I have just emailed Daivd with a copy of the image I took early Saturday morning and ccd B.O.S.S. into it as well.
Hopefully it will prove to be of use to you all, despite its lengthy exposure time. I've been eagerly following this thread as much as I could during the day - fortunately it was my school's swimming carnival so have had a number of opportunities to do so! (I might be a bit blurry eyed in class tomorrow though as I'm just about to go out and set my gear up to have another run at it tonight - well early tomorrow morning that is. )
I am really looking forward to seeing what additional data surfaces in the coming days, including an analysis of its spectrum and a determination of what type of SN it is.
Congratulations once again to you and your team on its discovery, and for posting the details here on IIS. I'm tickled pink to have captured an image of it - and to think that it may turn out to be the first image taken of it. It's mind blowing to think that you have been the first person to see something for the first time and that the event causing it occurred 12 million years ago.
Kindest regards
Paul
Last edited by pfitzgerald; 09-02-2016 at 08:25 PM.
Ok here is what we can say it is definitely a supernova, not really sure of the type and it is "interesting". It probably wont brighten and will need good seeing to separate from the brighter star next to it. Paul thanks for sending your pre-discovery image to the Bright Supernova Page. You may well indeed have been the first to capture this event.
Oh well, Was hoping for a visual,but it looks very doubtful.
Well it just gives me another reason to observe NGC 5128,not that one needs much prodding.
Cheers
Very well done gentlemen! I hope to observe it too but in the colour pre-discovery images it does look very red (obscured?) and the proximity to that 8th mag star will make it challenging unless it brightens to 13th or 12th magnitude.
I have an image that I took Saturday night and it shows a little blip next to the star. Taken with my Canon 760D.
It is not very good but it appears to be there.
I've just heard back from Dave Bishop and I need to convert my .cr2 image into a .fit file. Given that I'm working on a Mac, what is the best way to do so without losing any data.
Well, a partial success - managed 7 x 5-minute frames in murky conditions with a heap of skyglow/LP and Cen A not all that high either (was about 11:45pm-12:15am 9th-10th Feb). Low clouds from the coast scuppered my hopes of getting a good imaging session in!
The up-side is that the SN was clearly resolved from the field star.
Greg, let me know if you'd like any raws, debayered/non-debayered FITS, or any of the stacks. Though I'm sure there'll be better quality tonight
Images (150% crops) in order - processed stack of 7, the plain stack of 7 with only a stretch applied, and one raw unstretched frame.
Equipment: EOS 60D on 200mm f/5 Newtonian, HEQ5 Pro, guided, darks, flats and bias removed from the stacks in PixInsight.
Four images into a run of 12 x 300" images and I come outside to see how they're progressing and the sky has completely clouded over - three hours earlier than predicted. Hopefully what I've got will be useful, but after waiting hours for NGC 5128 to get to a half reasonable altitude I'm stymied by the weather. Aah well, I'll take the darks, pack up and go to bed I guess.