Ah, a supernova. The cosmic ballet...continues.

/made of star-stuff and proud of it

As long as it doesn't do ducklips.

Who the hell calls M51 "Galàxia del Remolí?" It's the Whirlpool Galaxy to everyone I know.

Well, is it more than 18 light-years away?

/a picture is a recording of light, and the *light* would be over 18 when it got to us

Mister Peejay: Well, is it more than 18 light-years away?

/a picture is a recording of light, and the *light* would be over 18 when it got to us

It's 23 million LY away. Could this ever be visible to the naked eye?

foo monkey: Mister Peejay: Well, is it more than 18 light-years away?

/a picture is a recording of light, and the *light* would be over 18 when it got to us

It's 23 million LY away. Could this ever be visible to the naked eye?

No, but it's observable with binoculars under a dark sky.

Barely at 23 million light years from Earth, in the constellation of Llebrers,

AKA Scorpions constellation in English speaking world

jack21221: foo monkey: Mister Peejay: Well, is it more than 18 light-years away?

/a picture is a recording of light, and the *light* would be over 18 when it got to us

It's 23 million LY away. Could this ever be visible to the naked eye?

No, but it's observable with binoculars under a dark sky.

Pervert.

jack21221:

No, but it's observable with binoculars under a dark sky.

Is it still observable? We looked one time, but we suck at finding things with our telescope.


We found saturn (with the help of our iPhone).

kth: j

Is it still observable? We looked one time, but we suck at finding things with our telescope.


We found saturn (with the help of our iPhone).


Same here - I need the iPad app running while I search for things. I had a great shot of Jupiter and several of its moons a few weeks ago - in NYC.

/love rooftop astronomy

ohai there

LewDux: Barely at 23 million light years from Earth, in the constellation of Llebrers,

AKA Scorpions constellation in English speaking world

Actually, M51 is in Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs).

Looks like the person who wrote the article didn't bother to translate either the galaxy's common name (the Whirlpool Galaxy, as Jack21221 noted) or the constellation into English, maybe assuming constellation names and such are *puts on sunglasses*... universal.

\YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH

O.K. subby, I laughed.

The article worded that a little wrongly i think, they didnt get an image of it days after it exploded, they got an image of it 23 million years after it exploded.

willflyforfood: The article worded that a little wrongly i think, they didnt get an image of it days after it exploded, they got an image of it 23 million years after it exploded.

Came here to say this.

LewDux: Barely at 23 million light years from Earth, in the constellation of Llebrers,

AKA Scorpions constellation in English speaking world

Good thing the article wasn't in English. Oh, wait...

The whole "equivalent to seeing a golf ball on the surface of the moon" bothers me, because it makes people believe we can see a golf ball on the moon.

I wish they would not do that. I know what they mean, most people know what they mean but it confuses the unscientifically inclined.

unlikely: 23 Million light years. It's crazy to imagine how much change that area has undergone since then.

According to Einstein, there is no "since then". There is no universal absolute time, and an event can't be said to have happened before or after another event that happens if the light from one event hasn't reached the other.

Although a few neutrinos in Italy seem to be suggesting otherwise.

GregoryD: The whole "equivalent to seeing a golf ball on the surface of the moon" bothers me, because it makes people believe we can see a golf ball on the moon.

I wish they would not do that. I know what they mean, most people know what they mean but it confuses the unscientifically inclined.

In only the moon would hold still.

ZAZ: Were there no early radio observations of SN 1987A?

There were, but at lower resolution. VLBI only became available in the early 1990s.

The golf ball thing bothered me too. We wouldn't have much trouble finding equipment that could see a golf ball on the surface of the moon if the golf ball was also glowing at 50,000,000,000 Watts.

ZAZ: common sense is an oxymoron

Google tells me something by the name of VLBI was in use by the late 1960s, and my memory agrees it is older than 1987. What's special about the 1990s? Was that when intercontinental instead of transcontinental VLBI became practical?

Reference: http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode = 2003ASPC..300....1C&db_key=AST&page_ind=0&data_type=GIF&type=SCREEN_VI EW&classic=YES

"Very long" is a relative term, the meaning of which has changed since the 1960s. I was referring specifically to global-scale interferometry networks capable of golf-ball-on-the-moon-scale resolution. The Very Long Baseline Array, with a span from Hawaii to the Virgin Islands, was dedicated in 1993.

unlikely: 23 Million light years. It's crazy to imagine how much change that area has undergone since then. Has the supernova debris formed into planets by now? Is it just starting to clump around some other star? Has the entire area completely cooled to the point where it's not even radiant? Is it full of potato shaped rocks that Han Solo has to fly through to lose the Star Destroyers?

...sorry, the distances and times involved make me go a little starry-eyed.

Or have the Pierson's Puppeteers head for the Magellans yet?

Yup. I know what you mean and concur.

Dude, she's 23 million.

+1 Subby... You knew this would start a nerd war, didn't you?

ZAZ: Google tells me something by the name of VLBI was in use by the late 1960s, and my memory agrees it is older than 1987. What's special about the 1990s? Was that when intercontinental instead of transcontinental VLBI became practical?Reference: http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode = 2003ASPC..300....1C&db_key=AST&page_ind=0&data_type=GIF&type=SCREEN_VI EW&classic=YES

There were early radio observations of SN1987A. There were observations at least as early as 2 days after the explosion.

The authors here are really playing a PR game. Their actual claim is that they have the youngest observation of a supernova...at high resolution with the supernova being radio loud. The qualifications that they stuck on their "first" statement in the popular press got lost. And their distinction of having the observation at high resolution isnt even all that impresive since they still arent resolving it - they can just better pinpoint their unresolved source to higher precision (meaning the chances of finding a progenitor in archival images is increased).

SN1987A wasnt radio loud apparently, so thats why it doesnt count as a younger observation that what they are claiming.

Came for pedobear, when I was 14 days old.....

/left satisfied
//so did pedobear

SomethingToDo: Dude, she's 23 million.

yeah, yeah NOW she is but we are looking at pictures of her when she was 14....(days)

The young star, designated Sandusky SN972-X300, is the latest to step forward in an investigation into allegations of improper touching at the Pennsylvania State University's astronomy department.

Asked for comment, the University President said "More like Ass-stronomy. Amiright? Ass-stronomy? Get it? Nobody? Well OK, then."

(The above works best if you imagine it in Peter Griffin voice)

/fooooken chuffed, our lad.