Jan 29 stellar outburst

[lynnm]

Is this an oppurtunity to use radios to pick up anything...

Amateur Astronomers Discover Stellar Outburst

they say the'll be monitoring it for months, so i wonder if anything can be picked up...

[brianb]

I think it's very doubtful that radio emission from U Sco could be detected with amateur equipment. AFAIK radio emissions from dwarf & recurrent novae have never been detected even with giant radio telescopes, and U Sco is by no means the brightest of its class ... if you want a better chance, try SS Cyg, which is a similar optical brightness at maximum, stays at maximum for about a week instead of a day and flares up about 100 times as often (every other month on average). It's also circumpolar from the UK, rather than being a "horizon scraper" low above the southern horizon for only a few hours daily.

Optical observations of U Sco (visual estimates or images) would of course be valuable, especially in the next week or so. After that, large instruments are likely to be needed to make any sort of useful observation ... the star is around mag. 18 at minimum.

[shakyl008]

Lol, they just got luck, end of discussion

BTW, anyone know what is there website so I could visit it?...

[brianb]

anyone know what is there website so I could visit it?...

A good source of information for anything connected with variable stars is here: AAVSO: American Association of Variable Star Observers

[yeti monster]

I can view scorpio from here, but looking at a chart of the stars, I see no "U" Scorpii, they all have those stupid greek letters, talk about hubristic!

[brianb]

but looking at a chart of the stars, I see no "U" Scorpii, they all have those stupid greek letters

It's not marked on my "Sky & Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas" because it's too faint (even at maximum).

Greek letters were used for the brighter stars in the constellations, they were assigned by Bayer in the 17th century. Roman letters up to Q were used for some of the remaining brightish stars. When variable stars were discovered, the sequence starting at R was used ... so U Scorpii was the 4th variable star discovered in Scorpio. Rather surprising, that, given that it is such a difficult object ... there are now many thousands of variables known in Scorpio!

The position is close to Chi & Phi Ophiuchi, about 9 degrees due north of Antares, and only just inside the boundary of Scorpio. The exact position is RA: 16 22 30.80 , Dec: -17 52 43.0 (J2000.0).

(J2000).

[yeti monster]

Cheers Brian, more chance of seeing anything spectacular, were something spectacular to happen, it being at the northern end of scorpius. There is one, which could be interpreted as "U", next to one labelled "upsidedown Y", which I thought might be the binary of which I believe it is a part of. I'll try to find a more detailed chart............

[brianb]

I'll try to find a more detailed chart............

Get one from the AAVSO Chart Plotter - just feed it with the name "U Sco", a reasonable field width (60 minutes of arc = 1 degree is suggested for a start) & a suitable magnitude limit (13 or 14 if you're using a small scope).

[shakyl008]

Tanks Brian

[shakyl008]

though, now that i come to think of it, what a dumb question. the answer's like so obvious i'm really dumb sometimes

[yeti monster]

Anything happened yet? I didn't notice anything unusual in the sky this moroning, other than the almost total absence of clouds. I was however, concentrating on Mercury and the none event which was supposed to be the ISS passing over Mercury.

[brianb]

Anything happened yet?

It's over ... max around mag 8 visual, down to 10 (barely visible in binoculars if you have an excellent sky) & fading fast.

[yeti monster]

Ok, then, I'll wait for next time eh??

Keep listening for those emmissions.