Supernovas?

[Manok101]

Just curios I've never witnessed one myself, what do they look like? Really bright stars?

[Demonperformer]

Basically, yes. There is quite a bright one in Leo, found on 3rd Nov, which is brighter than the entire galaxy, which has a catalogued magnitude of 13.8. Co-ordinates 9h 42.9m, +09d 30', in UGC5189A, mag 13.5

[lukebl]

They're being observed all the time in other galaxies, mostly magnitude 16 or fainter although occasionally, as DP says, there are brighter ones.

The website Calsky has regular updates of them. Click here for details of the current ones. Dozens to choose from.

Certainly, when the next one occurs in our own galaxy it will be VERY bright! Look out Betelgeuse.

[brianb]

Certainly, when the next one occurs in our own galaxy it will be VERY bright!

Caution is needed here ... if the SN occurs on the other side of the galaxy it may well be invisible because of thick clouds of dust & gas in the way. In fact we expect a large galaxy like the Milky Way to host a supernova every few decades on average, yet none have been observed in four centuries.

[ollypenrice]

There's an excellent book called The Supernova Story.

Olly

[John]

I've seen just one supernova with my own eyes - it was at the SGL4 star party with a 12" dobsonian and my 13mm Ethos eyepiece. The supernova was in a faint galaxy in Ursa Major and was shining at around magnitude 12.5 at the time (that was about it's peak). It appeared as a tiny spark of light within the galaxy, just on the edge of what that scope was capable of showing that night. It's one of the all-time highlights of my observing

Of course there are nova and super nova remnants to be seen - eg: M1, the Crab Nebula and the Veil Nebula complex.