Possible supernova in NGC 4478 near M87

[Martin Meredith]

Just observing M87 and noticed a possible transient in NGC 4478 which doesn't appear to be on DSS/Wikisky. Appears on all my subs. Could be a false alarm of course.

This is right next door to M87 (note the jet) so I wonder if anyone has any recent images to compare? Estimated mag around 14.5

 

[paul mc c]

Hope your right...though when i googled images of the galaxy,there seems to be a foreground star just where your image shows.

[Martin Meredith]

Yes, I think you may be right. I looked at several shots and couldn't see anything but I think the galaxy was overexposed in most of them, including DSS and Wikisky. But I just looked again more carefully and spotted one with a star in the right place. Never mind. No report submitted but at least I got to register with the transient name server ready for next time...

Martin

[paul mc c]

Hope it happens for you.

[Paul73]

Did a proximity search on SIMBAD there is a mag 16 star close in at about that position. In most of the images, the core is overexposed so the star isn’t visiable. Hope that I’ve got it wrong.

It looks brighter than mag 16. So worth more of a look.

Paul

PS. I had a false alarm a few weeks ago. Spent ages checking, sketching, rechecking; only to find that it was a SkiSafari Pro omission.