What are the chances of making a new discovery?

[goodricke1]

It would have been visible naked eye ( ) but there are no reports anyone saw it. The Spanish astronomers overseeing the project only noticed it after processing the footage.

[cloudnine]

Blimey, I'm so out of touch. Thanks for sharing the 'new' lunar crater link... that is impressive despite being 34m(?) in diameter. New crater, new rays, science in action.

[Stub Mandrel]

Shame it's too small for most scopes :-(

[ollypenrice]

To move away from transient phenomena for a moment, there are deep sky imagers making new discoveries from time to time. A stunning example was Nicholas Outters' discovery of the Squid Nebula lying unknown in the middle of the Flying Bat. The Bat is an Ha object and it would have been logical enough for any imager to give it a try in OIII but seemingly nobody did - or not while paying sufficient attention. Monsieur Outters' first reaction on seeing a deep OIII sub was that the mount had moved off target because the object seen in OIII was entirely unconnected with the Bat and entirely unfamiliar.

As the Squid is Outters 4 this talented imager has clearly been busy! This version's mine.

There are also planetary nebula hunters. The Soap Bubble was discovered by Dave Jurasevich in 2007, for instance. So it can indeed be done! I had a flutter of excitement with an obscure SN remnant last month but it's catalogued already.

Olly

[JeremyS]

Good point about deep sky, Olly (and a really cracking image!).

Other examples include Jay McNeil's discovery of a reflection nebula in Orion in an image taken with his 3-inch refractor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNeil%27s_Nebula

Then there's Hanny's Voorwerp, a quasar ionization echo. It was discovered in 2007 by a Dutch school teacher who was examining images in the Galaxy Zoo project.

Go well!

Jeremy

[Piero]

Here another discovery where amateur astronomers helped:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/amateur-astronomers-help-discover-rare-eclipsing-binary-01092015224/?et_mid=781010&rid=249217521

[LukeSkywatcher]

Every time i see a meteor, i feel as if i am the only person on the planet to have seen it. Nice thought but unlikely.

[Stub Mandrel]

Lovers of Ealing comedies may not know that Will Hay discovered a great white spot on Saturn.