August 21, 2013, 1:00 AM: SN 2013ej spotted

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Last night I set up the scope late, in the hope I could spot the current supernova in M74. Moonlight made life difficult, and this was compounded by slight (and slightly variable) haze. I spotted the main stars of Aries, and hopped from there to where M74 should be (after a mistake which had me looking in the wrong place for about 10 minutes ). I used a comparison chart plotted using the AAVSO tool for my scope with diagonal, so north is up, and the image is mirrored.

I managed to spot the brighter stars forming a quadrangle (like a parallelogram that has been squashed on the right-hand side) fairly easily. The magnitude 12.3 star just below and to the right of the lowest of this quadrangle could be spotted in averted vision (not easily), which caused my hopes to rise somewhat. I then spotted two brighter stars to the right of the SN position, which are nearly collinear with the left-hand stars of the quadrangle. Once I had spotted these, I could estimate where the SN should be. I had great difficulty making out anything else, so I started to move the scope slightly, to see if that movement could reveal the fainter objects. I was actually about to give up, when two faint star showed up in averted vision, one closer to the right-hand pair of brighter stars, one a bit further away, forming a line not quite at right angles to the line of the two brighter stars on the right. The leftmost of the two faint stars was a touch fainter than the right-hand one. The mag 13+ stars in the map were never spotted, the mag 11.8 to the left was.

I interpreted these observations as a tentative hit on the mag 12.5 star in the map and the SN at a magnitude just fainter than 12.5, but brighter than 13. The stars were so faint that I was not sure. So I walked away from the scope, came back and tried again. Again I could spot two faint, stellar, objects flitting in and out of averted vision. I repeated this about 4 or 5 times, and kept spotting the same pattern (intermittently: the moment my eye spotted it, it seemed to vanish as I inadvertently moved my eye and looked at it directly).

Given that the position is correct, the pattern of stars fits, the brightness estimate of 12.7 ± 0.1 (using the mag 12.3, 12,5 reference stars, and the absence of the mag 13.1 and fainter ones) which matches recent observations, and the fact that I spotted the thing half a dozen times makes me feel confident that I bagged SN 2013ej (my 8th).

I did not go after SN 2013dy in Lacerta, as this is mag 13.7. I will have to wait for clearer nights, also to get a clearer view of SN 2013ej. After packing up the scope, I had a quick look at nova Del 2013, with binoculars. It is still going strong at about mag 5. After treating myself t a tot of Lagavulin 16 y/o I went to bed very pleased with this two-object session.

[cotterless45]

Brilliant, mine's a

Laphroaig !

Nick.