Three supernovae last night (1/31/14)!

[Steve Gottlieb]

Everyone knows about the blazing orange-red SN in M82 (now at maximum), but there's also a fairly easy one at the tip of NGC 3348 (mag 13.5-14). This one was of course quite easy last night with my 24-inch in fairly dark skies (SQM 21.4) about 80 miles north of the Golden Gate bridge and seen immediately at low power.

The challenging object is a faint supernova in M99. Nothing was seen at 200x, but bumping up the magnification to 375x, a very faint "star" was visible just southwest of the core. I most likely would not have noticed it without knowing the location beforehand.

I would guess a magnitude in the 15.5 range is reasonable and coupled with the location, makes this a pretty tough target. I don't know if this is one the rise or fall or just buried behind dust. In any case, fairly high magnification is necessary because of the location so close to the core.

[Ivan Maly]

How was the seeing, Steve? This week I tried for the one in M99 on two nights using up to 375x with 12" and only saw a diffuse brightening which I thought was not quite in the correct location (I am less certain now that it was wrong after having seen better photos that appeared in the last days). The seeing was very bad though. Mag 15.5 was within the range of stars that I observed on the same nights but outside any galaxy and only with care - themselves diffuse little blobs. The two other SNs were wonderfully bright.

[Steve Gottlieb]

The seeing was pretty good but not great. At 375x, I immediately noticed a brightening near the expected position and after a few seconds it sharpened into faint stellar point. It generally appeared as a dim star, but when the seeing softened it blurred into more of a diffuse brightening as you mentioned, Ivan.

[skyraider]

I took a look at the supernova in M99 on the evening of the 29th. Observed around 2:50am (1-30-14). A friend of mine who observed with me that night was able to confirm the observation as well. I observed the galaxy prior to knowing where to look for the supernova, and was able to see it quite clearly at higher power. Used a picture to confirm that what I was seeing was indeed the supernova. Here are the notes:

Average seeing, average transparency, skies brighter than normal due to light reflecting off the snow.

TeleVue Ethos 8mm X1.1, 371x
SUPERNOVA!!
Dim and quite close to the core. The only stellar point visible in the galaxy. Would be seen only on occasion and only for a brief moment.

Pentax XW 5 X1.1, 593x
SUPERNOVA!!
Best view of the supernova. It was visible quite often and it would hold for about 3 seconds each time.