TheSkySearchers

KingNothing13 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 7:08 pm Neat Alan - thanks for sharing - I hope you are able to find it when you get the chance!

Buckethead 2.0 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 11:10 am Thanks for the post, Alan. I hope you have been doing well.

kt4hx wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 11:12 pm

Buckethead 2.0 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 11:10 am Thanks for the post, Alan. I hope you have been doing well.

Doing fine here Eric and hope all is well there as well. Just haven't been on the site much of late.

Been doing some observing and did see this SN the other night with the 10 inch at our dark site as well as the one Clinton highlighted in his thread. They are currently listed at mag 11.9 and 12.2 respectively, so not so difficult. Given where they are placed and that I have trees to the southwest I had to hit them a little before astronomical darkness was fully set in, which in the case of NGC 4457, rendered the galaxy a bit weak visually though M85 was pretty decent.

Actually its been a decent year thus far for SNe, as I've observed six up to this point, with five of those in the Virgo galaxy cluster.

Buckethead 2.0 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 11:23 pm

kt4hx wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 11:12 pm

Buckethead 2.0 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 11:10 am Thanks for the post, Alan. I hope you have been doing well.

Doing fine here Eric and hope all is well there as well. Just haven't been on the site much of late.

Been doing some observing and did see this SN the other night with the 10 inch at our dark site as well as the one Clinton highlighted in his thread. They are currently listed at mag 11.9 and 12.2 respectively, so not so difficult. Given where they are placed and that I have trees to the southwest I had to hit them a little before astronomical darkness was fully set in, which in the case of NGC 4457, rendered the galaxy a bit weak visually though M85 was pretty decent.

Actually its been a decent year thus far for SNe, as I've observed six up to this point, with five of those in the Virgo galaxy cluster.

Great to hear from you and to get the lastest Alan, thanks for this update. Seeing supernovae must be exhilarating!

kt4hx wrote: ↑Tue Jul 14, 2020 6:20 am

Buckethead 2.0 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 11:23 pm

kt4hx wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 11:12 pm

Doing fine here Eric and hope all is well there as well. Just haven't been on the site much of late.

Been doing some observing and did see this SN the other night with the 10 inch at our dark site as well as the one Clinton highlighted in his thread. They are currently listed at mag 11.9 and 12.2 respectively, so not so difficult. Given where they are placed and that I have trees to the southwest I had to hit them a little before astronomical darkness was fully set in, which in the case of NGC 4457, rendered the galaxy a bit weak visually though M85 was pretty decent.

Actually its been a decent year thus far for SNe, as I've observed six up to this point, with five of those in the Virgo galaxy cluster.

Great to hear from you and to get the lastest Alan, thanks for this update. Seeing supernovae must be exhilarating!

It is actually. I have observed galaxies from many millions to just over one billion light years distant, which in and of itself is exhilarating. But the thought of seeing an individual star at such distances is mind boggling, even if for such a short time as these SNe remain visible.

By observing SNe, one bears direct witness to the immense power that is unleashed when one of these massive stars meets its demise. While it is true that it is simply a star, something we have an abundance of in the sky., in this case its about the distance and time involved. As well as contemplating the event that occurred making it possible for us to see it at all. In simple terms, I find it fun!

kt4hx wrote: ↑Tue Jul 14, 2020 6:20 am just over one billion light years distant

KingNothing13 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 14, 2020 1:04 pm

kt4hx wrote: ↑Tue Jul 14, 2020 6:20 am just over one billion light years distant

That's amazing - there's so much amazing in that one little statement. Thanks for sharing that with us. What is the galaxy from that distance you observed? Imagine what our little earth looked like when the photons you observed started their journey to your eye.

kt4hx wrote: ↑Fri Jul 17, 2020 1:43 pm Thanks Brett. That would be IC 1101 in Virgo, which I observed at the dark site house with the 17.5" dob on 20 April this year. Here is a link to that observing report:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=9283&p=82640&hilit=1101#p82640

More directly to the point here are the notes for that galaxy from the report:

IC 1101 (Virgo lenticular, mag=13.7, size=1.1’x0.6’, SBr=13.2):
Visible at 110x, it was a small and diaphanous oval glow that was involved in a pretty field of foreground stars in close attendance. The view at 199x really didn’t improve appreciably. Oriented NNE to SSW, it was easily seen though if one were not looking for it, I feel it could easily be passed over.
A supergiant galaxy about 4 MLY in diameter, it is the brightest in the distant galaxy cluster Abell 2029. No other cluster members were seen however. Besides its gigantic size, what makes this one special is its distance, a whopping 1.1 BLY! (New)

In my view it is one thing to see a Quasar (an extremely luminous active galactic nucleus) over distances exceeding a billion light years, but quite another to visually resolve the galactic disk of a non-quasar hosting galaxy at over a billion light years with my scope. I find it a fun and thought provoking exercise.