Supernova 2020uxz in NGC 514

[JeremyS]

14th mag supernova and brightening. Info and finding chart here.

[jetstream]

Thanks Jeremy,going to give it a try.

[John]

Looks like a possibility of some more clear skies here tonight and the blustery wind of last night has gone so the 12 inch dob will be the instrument of choice I think

Thanks for the link Jeremy - good to see that Ade is still producing good stuff

 

 

Edited October 15, 2020 by John

[JeremyS]

59 minutes ago, John said:

Thanks for the link Jeremy - good to see that Ade is still producing good stuff

Yes, Ade is producing quite a bit of material for the BAA website, especially on upcoming events to observe. Some of these are on the left hand site of the website main page: https://www.britastro.org/

We are lucky to have him onboard 🙂

 

Edited October 15, 2020 by JeremyS

[Mark at Beaufort]

Thanks Jeremy - I have zoom meeting tonight of the Herefordshire A.S. and I will add it to the list of objects to view and image. 

As John stated its good that Ade is producing this sort of information.

 

[John]

Ade used to live quite near me before he did his stint in New Zealand. We used to meet occasionally and chat about scopes including the latest ones that he was reviewing. He cleaned the objective of my Vixen ED102 for me before I had the confidence to do such a thing myself. Very knowledgeable and friendly chap 

 

[John]

I reckon I got this one tonight

NGC 514 is barely seen at all with my 12 inch scope. At high magnifications (318x) I am getting down to mag 14.7 stars and even glimpsed a mag 15 (dimmest I've managed with this scope). The supernova appears to be at mag 14.0 or maybe a touch brighter even. It's certainly a bit brighter than the 2 stars to the upper right of it (one is targeted) in this Stellarium generated image which are mag 14.7 and 14.3 respectively. The red arrow marks the position of my suspect and I've also added an image taken on the 10th October by F. Dubois when the SN was mag 16. Quite a tough one because the host galaxy is very tricky to see (barely there in fact), the SN is way out from the galaxy core and Mars is bright and not too far away. Pleased with this result

Both images are the newtonian view so S at the top and W to the left:

Edited October 15, 2020 by John

[John]

By coincidence, NGC 514 was discovered by William Herschel on this day (16th October) in 236 years ago 

 

 

 

 

[Paul M]

I just imaged my 1st supernova. It wasn't my intended target but by the time I'd wasted 2 hours of clear sky fighting technology it seemed like a good idea. A cloud bank was rolling in and so I kept it short. of 5 x 60 sec subs only 3 were usable due to guiding trying to calibrate.

ASI178 camera through my 10" Newt.

[John]

Yep - looks like you got it !

Also useful to me because it shows that the core of NGC 514 is fainter than mag 15. I wondered why I could not see the galactic core and now I know why !

I could only barely see any indications of the galaxy visually in fact. 82 million years ago the SN must have been quite a bang - it's far, far brighter than anything else in that galaxy.

 

 

[Paul M]

Interestingly, it has a strong blue colour in the subs.

ASTAP has a photometry utility that gives a magnitude of 14.12 for the supernova measuring off my image. 

[jetstream]

According to Simbad NGC514 has a V mag of 11.6.

[Mark at Beaufort]

Well done @Johnand @Paul MI was not able to use the 12" Dob last night so I hope it stays visible for the next clear spell. The photos are very helpful especially if its difficult to see the galaxy.

[John]

6 hours ago, jetstream said:

According to Simbad NGC514 has a V mag of 11.6.

Yes, I noticed that. In practice though I found it very difficult to get more than hints of it with the 12 inch last night. It is a face on spiral and many references to it on the web refer to it as dim or of low luminosity so that might explain why seeing the galaxy is hard.

I came across this image on the Barry Astronomical website. It was taken by Stephen Lubbock of Bridgend on October 8th when the SN was at around 14.5 magnitude. This image shows quite closely the stars that I could see visually last night down to magnitude 15. The galaxy is a very faint smudge, barely visible at all in this image as it was for me last night. Stephen used a 10 inch SCT and 27 seconds exposure with a Canon DSLR to capture this - the view is N at the top. I hope he does not mind me posting his image if he sees this

Here is a link to the original posting:

https://barryastronomical.wordpress.com/

 

Edited October 16, 2020 by John

[Mark at Beaufort]

I decided to produce a star map using Stellarium/12" Dob/13mm Ethos. There are some stars that will allow me to star hop. All I need is some clear skies and for the SN to remain bright (ish).

[Paul M]

It never occurred to me to pop an eyepiece in and get some of those travel weary photons directly on my retina.

I've only viewed a couple or so supernova visually but it's a step ladder job to reach the eyepiece of the 10in Newt at anything above 45deg altitude. 

Fighting tech is enough without falling off ladders at 1am...

[jetstream]

3 hours ago, John said:

It is a face on spiral and many references to it on the web refer to it as dim or of low luminosity so that might explain why seeing the galaxy is hard.

Yes some types are harder for sure and can be fussy on mag IMHO.

[Wyvern]

Hi all,

As Paul M noted, deffo a strong blue colour.

Capture from last night.

Reagrds,

Les

[JeremyS]

1 hour ago, Wyvern said:

Hi all,

As Paul M noted, deffo a strong blue colour.

Capture from last night.

So where is it? 🙂

Seriously, though: nice image Les!

[AKB]

A horribly cloudy night, but I just had to take a look...  "lucky" imaging, indeed, but here is a single 20 second sub (not 37s, as captioned, sorry) from a C9.25 Hyperstar with Atik 460EX mono camera...

So exciting to see this!  Thanks for the 'heads up'.

Tony

Full frame:

 

 

Cropped:

 

[Mark at Beaufort]

Thanks Tony for the image especially the cropped version. To me it looks if the SN has become slightly brighter.

[John]

3 hours ago, Mark at Beaufort said:

Thanks Tony for the image especially the cropped version. To me it looks if the SN has become slightly brighter.

Martin Mobberley imaged it 3 days ago, which was when I observed it, and he reckoned magnitude 13.8. Currently it's the joint brightest on the Rochester list:

http://www.rochesterastronomy.org/supernova.html#2020uxz

 

 

 

[PH-R]

On 15/10/2020 at 11:46, JeremyS said:

14th mag supernova and brightening. Info and finding chart here.

Thanks for the link, I will give it ago when I get some clear skies, forecast looking awful for the next week.

[Martin Meredith]

Just had a look at this SN a few minutes ago. It is indeed distinctly blue!

[John]

Any more visual sightings ?

No chance here due to