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Not looking as impressive this evening (20 Jul / 2300 BST). Fingers crossed that this isn’t the beginning of the end….
LOL. It all ended amicably and I’m sure well reasoned arguments will – in the long run – lead to downward-directed, low colour-temperature, and proportionate-intensity lighting nationwide.
Last year – I forget precisely when – I had the telescope out on some land jutting into the sea, a great dark spot if winds are light. A curious member of the public came over and we had a good talk and I showed him some bright DSOs. He then proceeded to tell me that he was the person primarily responsible for installing the LEDs all over Tynemouth, and wasn’t it just wonderful ….
I believe the close approach was June this year (2018), so we’ve missed the best of it. It is low down in Capricornus now, and dimmer than mag 16, but I might have a go if I get a really clear southern sky.
The coma looks like it has expanded significantly since last night. Still bright and quite something.
Thanks for pointing out this object. I have been wanting to have a look – and get a low res spectrum with my StarAnalyser – but cloud has been rolling in from the sea night after night after night!
For anyone who is interested, here is a link to a new ATEL where the authors discuss photometry and spectroscopy of this transient. Not definitively a broad-lined type Ic supernova – previously, Robin raised uncertainty about this classification too.
Yes, I am sure that is right! It will be interesting to see what happens. There was a suggestion of spectroscopy in the article too, wasn’t there? As well as giving people a peek through the scopes at bright targets, I think the operators should deploy the latest EAA software for showing essentially-live pics to a wider audience. Lucky imaging of planets and near-live imaging of asteroids, comets, globulars etc is possible even from that location. I know from my interactions with the public that people are amazed by what’s possible now with the right hardware and software.
This object has gone ‘mainstream’, with articles in New Scientist (and the Daily Mail). The New Scientist article has a floating cow superimposed on a star field, in reference to the transient ID.
An excellent image Peter – seems fitting that there should be one of the sun posted up here at the summer solstice. And there are a few active regions visible on the sun too, which is a bonus.
Thanks Robin. I didn’t know that a CV in outburst has that spectral appearance. Hopefully with further work things will get cleared up as much as possible.
Very nice. In the medium term I think I’ll look at buying a short focal length refractor. It is lovely to have a wide field of view.
In addition to the maximum stacked image on my member’s page, I have created a short video from the same frames. It runs at 5fps. https://1drv.ms/u/s!Agvxu8wNOxpAcskxKKX5lQZyCh4
