My 24th supernova "discovery"

 


Tonight, I witnessed a supernova explosion in galaxy NGC 5957. As usual, I was not the first to see it. As a matter of fact, I last photographed NGC 5957 on March 25th, and there was no supernova in it. But the very next night, the supernova was discovered! I shot it one day too soon!

At least in this case, a fellow amateur astronomer, Koichi Itagaki, got credit for the discovery. He picked it up and reported it before all the big professional surveys got their grubby paws on it, which is pretty impressive! The designation "fvw" translates to the 4,651st supernova discovery of 2025. 

Supernovae can be seen for up to a year after their eruptions, so supernova hunters like me can gradually get around to finding them long after the official discovery. But as far as I'm concerned, I "discovered" this supernova, too! I do my best to avoid the spoiler alerts and, if their host galaxies happen to be on my target lists, I will come across them sooner or later, as I did tonight. 

Tonight is my 96th imaging night of 2025. Not too shabby for being the 105th day of the year. And tonight's image of NGC 5957 represents my 3,747th galaxy comparison of 2025, the most comparisons I've ever made in the first 4 months of the year.

I'm proud of my efforts, especially since tonight started out as a mostly-cloudy night that I very well could have passed up. However, the recent outburst of U Geminorum (see my previous post) made me curious to see if it would be even brighter tonight than it was previously (it wasn't). So I set up my scope in mostly-cloudy conditions and just waited out the clouds. A gradual clearing allowed me to get a clear view of U Gem, and later, to discover my second supernova of 2025!

NGC 5957 lies about 100 million light-years away from earth. So, the light of this supernova began its journey during the earth's Cretaceous period, when dinosaurs like T-Rex and velociraptors were thriving. Note, too, that the supernova is on the outskirts of its host galaxy. Being far from the energetic galactic core, this would be a favorable region in the galaxy for life-bearing planets to form.

What do you think? Is it possible that intelligent life in galaxy NGC 5957 witnessed this event closeup? This raises an interesting question. If supernovae occur in any galaxy at an average rate of about once every 50 years, why haven't we seen one in the Milky Way over the past several hundred years? 

There are a couple of reasons. First is that supernovae could occur on the opposite side of the galaxy and are blocked by gas and dust. But more likely is the possibility that the light of the most recent supernova just hasn't reached us yet. 

The Milky Way, after all, is about 100,000 light years (or more) across. There may have been supernovae on the same side of the Milky Way as us, but perhaps more than 1,000 light years away.


  


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