Jedolby

  Supernova in galaxy NGC 2146 I found a supernova in NGC 2146 last night. No, I was not "the discoverer" of the supernova. That would be the Japanese astronomer Koichi Itagaki. He discovered it 5 days earlier. But I didn't know it. I came across it on my own during my nightly search for supernovae in the distant galaxies. Supernova hunting has been my hobby since 2016, and supernova 2024abfl is the 21st supernova I've come across. You can look up supernovae on Wikipedia, so I won't waste your time by describing them here. What I would like to talk about, however, is the sport of supernova hunting.  Supernova hunting falls under the umbrella of backyard astronomy. If you were to purchase a telescope to get a closer look at the stars and planets, there are a number of astronomical activities you might eventually become interested in. Like most people, you'll probably be disappointed in the dull-gray eyepiece views of nebulae and galaxies, after seeing brilliant...

  T Coronae Borealis, 35 mm lens  Have you been following this one? Yeah, for Halloween, the news media called it the "Zombie Star," but over the past 6 months, you may have seen headlines where it was billed as a "recurring nova" or "T CrB" (T Coronae Borealis). Sensationalist writers may have said something like, "Nova set to light up the skies," but that's not true. The star will not be bright enough to do that. It'll be visible to your unaided eye, though, if your night sky isn't harmed too much by city lights.  Now I could waste your time here by giving you all the info on the Zombie Star, but you may as well look up "T Coronae Borealis" on Wikipedia and get it straight from the horse's mouth. My only goal for this post is to show you exactly where T CrB is located, and to say that, as of this writing, the star has not yet brightened to its predicted "nova" magnitude of roughly 2nd magnitude. So you haven...