Astronomy, Photography and Weather

A big contraulations to Dave Grennan for discovering the first Supernova from Ireland - I knew you would do it Dave  :). The following is from Terry Moseley's email alerts...

FIRST IRISH SUPERNOVA! Dave Grennan, discoverer of two asteroids, the first of which was the first one discovered in Ireland for a century and a half, has now discovered a supernova in a distant galaxy - the first ever such discovery from Ireland. And all from his own observatory in Raheny, North Dublin! The galaxy is 290 million LY away, so the star actually exploded before even the age of the dinosaurs, and the light has been travelling through space ever since! There are various types of supernovae (use your favourite search engine for more info!), and this one seems to be a "type 1 b/c", but with various peculiarities, making it particularly interesting. This type is caused by rapid transfer of material from one star to another in a close binary system, making the receiving star unstable so that it undergoes a massive explosion.

Dave's discovery was made during a search undertaken on September 17th, but as independent confirmation is required, it has only just been officially announced. It is now designated as 2010ik. See www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/lists/RecentSupernovae.html

Supernova expert Prof. Stephen Smartt of Queen’s University Belfast and his team used the 2.5metre Nordic Optical Telescope at La Palma in the Canaries to analyse the spectrum & confirm the type of supernova explosion.
Very many congratulations Dave - all your skill, determination & hard work pays off in the long run!

Many congratulations Dave - an excellent achievement. (http://www.mackenzie1963.freeserve.co.uk/Smilies/AMac%27s/fing02%5B1%5D.gif)

Excellent! :)

Well done Dave, many congrats!

Ever since you told me about this last week I always knew Stephen would get it confirmed from La Palma if it held it's brightness and the conditions were right. It's an amazing achievement coming so soon after your asteroid discoveries. Keep up the good work and lets have more of the same.....well done that man!

This is Dave's pre-confirmation discovery image which he sent to me last week.
(http://i51.tinypic.com/rqx34i.jpg)

Hi All,

Thanks so much for all the kind words and especially to John McC for keeping a lid on all of this while we were waiting on the specturm to confirm the discovery.  I am particularly please that Prof.Smartt from Queen's played such an important role in this discovery.

It's been a hectic few days since CBET issued the formal telegram on Monday night. Yesterday was crazy as for some reason this really caught the attention of the media.  In case you missed here are some links;

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1006/6news_av.html?2832094,null,230   (RTÉ 6 One news)
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/champagne-supernova-2366415.html (Press Assiciation Video)
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/1006/1224280471995.html (Irish Times)
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/republic-of-ireland/irish-stargazer-spots-supernova-exploding-star-14968299.html (Belfast Telegraph)

So thanks to everyone here for the kind words and I hope to see you soon.

Best Wishes,

Dave.

Dave, these are fantastic!, thanks very much for sharing these links with us. It must have been an extremely exciting and busy time for you, not to mention experiencing the life changing thrill of discovery more than once already, these are good times, please keep hunting and making new discoveries, you are influcening so many people, in the future, young would be supernova hunters in this country will be reading books and internet articles about how you did it so you are the role model of the future - long may it continue!!

Clear skies  :)

When I was in south Dublin last Thursday (Oct 14th) for the naming of asteroid  (30558) Jamesoconnor, Dave was presented with a certificate by John Flannery (South Dublin AS) for his great acheivements. Dave is on the left, JohnF in middle, and on the right Dave McDonald. It was a great night and one I was happy to be involved in. This is one of the images I took.
(http://i53.tinypic.com/bg7l2v.jpg)