If you've an gastronomical bent you may find this news interesting. A supernova event has been tentatively identified in the galaxy known as Messier 95 (M95).
Discovered two days ago, official confirmation of the discovery has not yet been given, but it does seem, from the reports I've seen to be an actual supernova. More behind the dKos cloud thing.
Here is Dr. J. Skvarc announcement...
2012 03 17.90
A possible supernova of magnitude about R = 13 was discovered by J. Skvarc on four 60 s CCD images taken with a 0.60-m f/3.3 Cichocki telescope from the Crni Vrh Observatory. The object is at R.A. = 10h43m53s.72, Decl. = +11d40'17".7 (equinox J2000), which is 60" W and 115" S from the center of M95. Nothing is visible on this location in our archive images from 2005-04-25, 2005-05-01, 2006-05-04, 2008-11-22, 2010-02-13, 2010-02-24 and 2012-02-15 nor in DSS image archives. We note that this object is only 3.3 arc seconds from the X-ray source [SYT2006] s8 listed in the paper http://cdsbib.u-strasbg.fr/... by Swartz, Yukita, Tennant, Soria and Ghosh. The image composed of all 4 discovery images can be found at http://www.observatorij.org/.... We note that Mars is presently only about half degree from this object and this is also causing the four diffraction spikes on the composite image.
Currently it is a magnitude 12 stellar object so you will need a decent telescope to be able to see it for yourself, but should you have one here is a graphic from
AstroBob to help you point you scope in the right direction.
Dr. J. Skvarc discovered the supernova with a 0.60-m f/3.3 Cichocki telescope at the Crni Vrh Observatory on March 17, 2012. Below is their picture. The bright lines crossing the image are due to the closeness of Mars to the object (.5 degrees). The supernova is shown at the cross hairs.
It wouldn't be a palantir diary without a video, so please enjoy this announcement video from Brady Haran and Deep Sky Videos.
You may also be interested in Dr. Phil Plait's report of the event over at Bad Astronomy.
I just learned that there’s a possible (but nearly certain) supernova on the rise in the relatively nearby spiral galaxy M95. This is exciting, because it should get bright enough to spot in small telescopes! By coincidence, Mars happens to be sitting in the sky very close to the location of M95; that makes it easier to find in that you have an obvious landmark in the sky, but tougher because Mars is so close and so bright it swamps the region with light!
Right now, the supernova is still at roughly 12th magnitude, making it too faint to see without bigger ‘scopes, or smaller ones with digital cameras. However, it was only discovered on March 16, so it’s most likely going to get brighter. The galaxy itself is about magnitude 9 or 10, so the supernova may get that bright.
M95 is about 38 million light years away, so this isn't actually something new as it happened, well 38 million years ago :)
Anyway, hope y'all enjoy the stars tonight!