BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy New supernova discovered in London

These days your best chance of discovering a supernova is by studying sky photos online. But a group of University College London astronomy undergrads and a member of staff discovered a supernova during a short workshop at the university's Mill Hill Observatory in north London.

The students were getting an intro to using the camera on one of the telescopes before the cloud completely closed off the sky for the night. They chose M82 to look at - a bright galaxy in a clear area of sky.

But then Dr Steve Fossey noticed an unfamiliar star. They got as much detail as they could in the few minutes available and Steve sent a report to the quaintly-named International Astronomical Union’s Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams. Telescopes around the world checked it out and it has since been confirmed as a supernova.

M82 galaxy before and after supernova

Very exciting. I'm afraid that the only discovery I ever made at Mill Hill was that I didn't have much of a talent for astrophotograpy!

Nice picture of the new supernova taken in Arizona, shown in Astronomy Picture of the Day. The galaxy is Messier catalog object 82 and is a very bright spiral galaxy. It's sometimes known as the Cigar Galaxy.

Here is a great color picture of the new supernova taken by a friend of mine in London two nights after its discovery by another friend in Mill Hill, London. (We all have connections with University College London astronomy.)