This comes in courtesy of Terry Moseley at the Irish Astronomical Association (IAA):
Many congratulations to Dave Grennan for discovering his second supernova – and not from some dark sky site with an ideal climate, but from his own observatory in Raheny, Dublin! Dave used his 36cm Schmidt Cassegrain telescope for the discovery images.
Dave Grennan (left) and his wife Carol in an observatory in their back garden in Raheny, north Dublin
Discovered on August 22nd, it has just been confirmed. Dave was the first person in the world to spot the light from the gigantic explosion of the dying star. It has been designated 2012ej and is his second supernova discovery in two years!
The exploding star was in 13th magnitude galaxy IC2166 (PGC 19064), and was magnitude 16.2 at discovery. It lies at a distance of about 120 light years, and is a classic Type 1C supernova. The discovery was confirmed by Tom Boles (the world’s leading discoverer of supernovae), who recently gave a fascinating lecture on the subject to the IAA in Belfast.
The latest supernova discovery by Dave
The first supernova discovery from Ireland was by Belfast amateur Isaac Ward, in 1885: that one was in M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. There’s more information here and here.
So this is the third supernova to have been discovered from Ireland. The second was also discovered by Dave Grennan in 2010 – and once again his discovery required lots of patience and some highly specialised equipment. Read more here.
Experts told him that the star was 100 times bigger than the sun and violently exploded in another galaxy, called IC2166, because it got too big and could not support its own weight.
Four years ago Dave also discovered an asteroid, a minor planet just three metres-wide, and named it after his late mother Catherine Griffin who encouraged his interest in the stars when he was a boy.
Filed under: Deep Space
