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How to See a Supernova This Weekend From Your Backyard

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Re: How to See a Supernova This Weekend From Your Backyard

#3

Post by unwantedLetters »

JacobAldridge wrote: post #2

Hours, and 21 million years, after it happened.

Thanks for pointing this out. I've obviously not gotten my head around the concept of space-time and the article fails to mention this.

Also, http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2011/08/25/superno... is perhaps a more official story. They too don't mention that it's discovery was a few hours after it was possible to observe the explosion, not a few hours after the actual explosion.

Re: How to See a Supernova This Weekend From Your Backyard

#6

Post by VladRussian »

unwantedLetters wrote: post #3
JacobAldridge wrote: post #2

Hours, and 21 million years, after it happened.

Thanks for pointing this out. I've obviously not gotten my head around the concept of space-time and the article fails to mention this. Also, http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2011/08/25/superno... is perhaps a more official story. They too don't mention that it's discovery was a few hours after it was possible to observe the explosion, not a few hours after the actual explosion.

"The PTF survey uses a robotic telescope mounted on the 48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory in Southern California to scan the sky nightly. As soon as the observations are taken, the data travels more than 400 miles to NERSC via the National Science Foundation’s High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network and DOE’s Energy Sciences Network (ESnet). At NERSC, computers running machine learning algorithms in the Real-time Transient Detection Pipeline scan through the data and identify events to follow up on. Within hours of identifying PTF 11kly, this automated system sent the coordinates to telescopes around the world for follow-up observations."

can it look like a planet-wide intelligence to an outsider? :) . Interesting to compare to the origins of cybernetics :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener#During_and_after...

It seems to me that detect-track-target feedback-looped principle was one of key in the development of intelligence of animals and humans, and it seems to continue its work in developing the intelligence beyond that.

Re: How to See a Supernova This Weekend From Your Backyard

#7

Post by sophacles »

unwantedLetters wrote: post #3
JacobAldridge wrote: post #2

Hours, and 21 million years, after it happened.

Thanks for pointing this out. I've obviously not gotten my head around the concept of space-time and the article fails to mention this. Also, http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2011/08/25/superno... is perhaps a more official story. They too don't mention that it's discovery was a few hours after it was possible to observe the explosion, not a few hours after the actual explosion.

These conversations are useless. Everyone knows that anything we see is strictly in the past and already has happened. Yet for practical purposes, a week ago there was no supernova there. Today a supernova is there.

It may help you to look at it like this: a supernova is NOT the star exploding, it is the observation of the star exploding. In one sense, this is wrong, but in another it is really the only freaking thing a supernova can be. Therefore since it wasn't a supernova until humanity saw it being a supernova, it is currently happening.

Further, the article only says the supernova is brightening, and that the telescope saw the star early in its explosion a few hours ago. From the reference point of observability, no claim is made that something 21million light years away is being watched now, just the effects of it are being watched right now.

Relax and go watch the show.

Re: How to See a Supernova This Weekend From Your Backyard

#8

Post by Natsu »

mainguy wrote: post #4
JacobAldridge wrote: post #2

Hours, and 21 million years, after it happened.

Yeah, I thought that was a little misleading also.

Why would you find it misleading to use our reference frame instead of the star's? There is no absolute "when" but a different time for each observer.

Re: How to See a Supernova This Weekend From Your Backyard

#10

Post by japaget »

This supernova has been hyped lately but is not something a casual observer will find to be particularly exciting. It is best seen with a telescope and will appear as a faint dot of light. The brightness will be magnitude 10 or 11, or about 100 times fainter than what the unaided eye can see in dark skies far from city lights. For more information, see

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/observingbl...

or

http://washedoutastronomy.com/content/another-urban-supernov...

or

http://www.dailycalifornian.org/how-to-spot-new-supernova-in...

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