Located 38 million light years away in the constellation Dorado, visible in the Southern Hemisphere, the intermediate galaxy NGC 1566 appears to have had a recent supernova. The event was discovered within the last week by researchers in Chile collecting data for the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASASSN).
The supernova candidate, dubbed ASASSN-14ha, cannot readily be seen with the average amateur telescope. To make up for that unfortunate fact, the folks at Slooh Community Observatory will be doing a live broadcast of observations from Pontificia Universidad Católica De Chile (PUC).
"Supernovae are the most violent events in the universe. And among the most useful, since their brightness can help pin down the distance to their parent galaxy,” Slooh astronomer Bob Berman stated in a press release. “In this case, a rather violent and gorgeous spiral galaxy that's not too terribly far away has just had a star explode not in its spiral arms, which is the usual neighborhood for such cataclysms, but almost smack at the core. This combination of extreme conditions and odd circumstances makes it a riveting and worthy event for SLOOH's real-time monitoring. This should be an exciting broadcast.”
Berman will be hosting the event at 9:00 pm PDT (Sept 18) / 12:00 am EDT (Sept 19). Use #SloohAssassin in social media to join the conversation. You can tune in on Slooh’s website or catch the broadcast right here:
