
Taking a Picture of a Supernova While Setting Up a New Camera - dnetesn
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/science/supernova-photo-camera.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront
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tzs
I thought I might be seeing a new supernova once when I was a kid. I was an
avid amateur astronomer then, so I knew that the bright point of light I was
seeing was not supposed to be there, and it showed no apparent motion even
though I watched for a while. I went in and got binoculars and could still see
no apparent motion. I then went to get my telescope and set it up, and by then
I could see there was some motion, so the thing could not be a supernova.

The motion got faster and faster, and it soon became apparent what it was. It
was a B-52 very far away heading for an air force base that was 3 miles from
our house, with its front light on, descending in a way that had it coming
almost straight at me.

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jfries
Very cool, but can't help to wonder.. What is the likelihood of taking a
random picture that captures the start of a supernova? How often does one
happen in a given photograph-sized portion of space?

Because astronomics is involved it feels like one of those things that either
happens all the time or has a 1 in 10^100 chance of happening.

Is there another plausible explanation here? Some kind of eclipse maybe.

~~~
yborg
From the Nature paper:

"We note that the chance probability of this discovery is of the order of
10^−6 assuming a duration of 1 h and one supernova per century per galaxy. If
we consider other factors, such as the sky conditions of the observing site
and the location of the supernova away from bright host-galaxy regions, then
this probability decreases by one order of magnitude."

~~~
T-hawk
Remember the principle of multiple endpoints. We only noticed this one example
because it hit; we never notice all the cases that don't.

If between 10^6 and 10^7 cameras have been tried out by taking pictures of
space, then this one supernova incident is right at about the expected value.

~~~
gmiller123456
This would only be true if people pointed at random galaxies in the sky. There
are only a few thousand galaxies in the NCG catalog that an amateur would even
be able to see, and only a few dozen that an amateur would actually be
interested in photographing.

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jxramos
Beautiful story of parents passing down inspiration to their child. Don't
forget it is social capital that will always be the greatest inheritance.

~~~
craftyguy
As a fellow self-taught astronomer, I would have appreciated less of the
'story telling' and more of the details. None of my parents are much
interested in astronomy, but I am. If all astronomers only had parents
interested in astronomy, then astronomy would have died centuries ago.

I don't really care if his/her's dog's neighbor's boyfriend's aunt did XYZ
that was tangentially related. Alas, that type of mush 'sells' page views.

~~~
fragmede
It's entirely possible that you're neurotypical but you may want to get
checked out for ASD.

~~~
anticnstrctv
If you think you can divine such a diagnosis from a one paragraph comment on a
forum explicitly populated by tech nerds that might want to read about gritty
technical details via the kind of intellectual curiosity that is in no way
unneurotypical, you might want to get checked out for narcissistic personality
disorder.

~~~
dang
Please don't reply to a bad comment with another bad comment. That just makes
the thread worse. Instead, if you have karma > 30, flag the comment as
described at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html).

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simonster
I'm somewhat amused that, although this article suggests that Buso's work was
vital to the Nature paper, as does the first sentence of the paper itself, he
is author 7 out of 21:
[https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25151](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25151)

~~~
Waterluvian
Journal authors are like executive producer credits. I kind of get why but it
also feels like total nonsense. Don't they have acknowledgements? Or is that
section not special enough because of how journal indexing happens?

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kissickas
Did the admins change the link without acknowledging it anywhere? I assume all
of the comments about the "great story" are referring to the WaPo article,
which I only found after several minutes of trying to find a "Page 2" button
on NYT and switching tabs back and forth. The "story" on NYT is nonexistent
and contains no more information than the headline about this story I read
yesterday.

There really needs to be a more formal mechanism for changing links. At least
notify us and put the original in a comment!

~~~
DanBC
Does this help?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16434741](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16434741)

~~~
kissickas
Ah, so it wasn't even the Washington Post article! Thanks. Just wish there
were a more formal system.

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peterbraden
How would an amateur bring this to the attention of the big telescopes so
quickly? Are there alert mailing lists with people screening them?

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antognini
You can send an astronomer's telegram:
[http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/](http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/)

There's a pretty active community of amateur astronomers who search for new
supernovae. Until recently amateurs actually discovered most new supernovae.
Japanese amateurs especially found a lot because there's nothing over the
Pacific, so they could discover all the supernova that went off when it was
night over the Pacific.

~~~
cypherpunks01
Thanks, interesting! I think this may be the relevant "telegram" for this
story?

[http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=9521](http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=9521)

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rdiddly
Putting a damper on the feeling of immediacy the writer seems to have built
into the piece, that star flamed out some 80 million years ago during our
Cretaceous Period when T Rex, Triceratops et al roamed the earth!

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quickthrower2
Does 80 million light years mean 80 million years ago? If the star is moving
away from us fast...

~~~
Cthulhu_
I think so; while it is moving away from us, 80 million years ago it exploded
and sent its light our way. Because it's moving away from us, the light is
stretched out a bit, causing red shift, allowing us to have a good idea of
distance / time.

I don't know how far the remains have traveled from us since then though.

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c0nducktr
Alternate link if you're unable to view content at mercurynews:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-
science/wp/2...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-
science/wp/2018/02/21/a-self-taught-astronomer-spotted-something-no-scientist-
had-ever-seen/)

~~~
gravy
How is this even allowed? It's just a repost of the Washington Post article
but behind a paywall.

Anyways what a find. It makes me wish I had a high powered telescope and a
good place to look up.

~~~
grzm
It's a common practice for papers to print articles from other publishers.
You'll note that it's credited to the Washington Post in the byline. WaPo has
their own paywall rules, FWIW.

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KnightOfWords
There are more details in this piece, the astronomer was taking just 20 second
exposures so he really did witness the breakout phase:
[http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/amateur-
astron...](http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/amateur-astronomer-
captures-supernovas-first-light/)

I once accidently captured a supernova in the Fireworks Galaxy (I was aiming
for a nearby nebula and missed), but this was one that had been visible for
several weeks previously. This was with pretty modest equipment, a 135mm lens
and DSLR.

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macintux
I was expecting to be underwhelmed by the discovery, but that truly is a
remarkable story.

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maxxxxx
Does anybody have information about the details of the process of a supernova?
How long does it take from the star collapse to the actual explosion or how
does the energy output change over time?

~~~
btilly
According to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_II_supernova](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_II_supernova),
the actual explosion is a few seconds long. 99% of it escapes as a neutrino
burst. However about 1% of the emitted neutrinos get absorbed by the start,
and that causes the visible explosion.

According to
[http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/T/Type+II+Supernova+Ligh...](http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/T/Type+II+Supernova+Light+Curves)
it takes a few hours for the expanding star to cool down and expand enough to
hit maximum visible light. And then the decay thereafter is very slow.

~~~
maxxxxx
Thanks! The scale of such an event is way beyond anything one can possibly
imagine.

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jordache
what is the elapsed time between the image sequences? how long can elapse
between a supernova being first visible and the state of it not being visible?

~~~
WD-42
Supernovae become super bright super quickly, and then taper off. This is why
there is a lot of interesting science to be done right at the beginning: they
are hard to catch. Depending on many factors they can stay visible for months.
The best way to visualize this would is with a Google image search for
"Supernova lightcurve"
[https://www.google.com/search?q=supernova+light+curve&tbm=is...](https://www.google.com/search?q=supernova+light+curve&tbm=isch)

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cyberferret
I am curious as to how long, in terms of hours/days, it took for the flash to
become visible and then extinguish? The article makes it seem like it was over
a day or two, but is that generally how long a supernova event will take? I
was of the belief that it was a very brief event lasting only an hour or so?

~~~
KnightOfWords
The flash appeared between two 20 second exposures. Supernova are generally
visible for between a few days and a few months.

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stevenwoo
TL;DR. He is the first human in history to witness the first hour of a
supernova being created. Astronomers had theorized what it would looked like
and his photographs confirm it and his notification allowed astronomers to
study the supernova early hours in depth as never before.

~~~
tzs
I'm confused by this. There have been several supernovas throughout history
that were bright enough to be seen without instruments, including some ones in
1006 and 1054 that were quite a bit brighter than Venus, and ones in 1572 and
1604 that were brighter than Jupiter.

How do we know no human happened to be watching during the first hour of one
of these?

~~~
ramses0
"Observed" ... many people have seen the moon, but few people have "observed"
it. ie: gathered evidence, etc.

I may see a fly across the room, but I'm not really "observing" it in any
meaningful way unless I'm prepared, with proper sensors, cameras, etc.
recording what's going on so that other people can learn from it.

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ablation
That style of NYT headline writing is obnoxious.

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readhn
Social capital Is a blessing and a curse at the same time..

But I agree, beautiful story!

