For The 1st Time In Human History, An Amateur Astronomer Photographed A Supernova By Accident
The guy was trying to test out a new camera, and ended up making a huge scientific discovery.
Supernovas, the massive explosive event that is a dying star, are incredibly rare to catch. It should say enough that humanity has never witnessed the birth of a supernova.
That is, until now...
In a report published yesterday, amateur astronomer Victor Buso detailed his lucky break in September 2016, when he just happened to accidentally catch one while testing out a new camera.
Buso says he was testing a new camera attachment for his 16-inch telescope one night, taking a few pictures to make sure it was working. When he checked the images, he noticed something that he realised shouldn¡¯t have been there. On the edge of the NGC 613 galaxy, there was a tiny pinprick of light that appeared bigger in the next few images.
The astronomer had, against all odds and completely by accident, managed to catch a star in the act of exploding. He¡¯d photographed a supernova.
Supernova sn2016gkg, marked by the red bars -
Capturing a supernova is like trying to photograph lightning, but with the latter you can at least get lucky around a thunderstorm. Astronomers estimate the chances of having a telescope pointed at the right point in the sky at the right time is less than one in 10 million.
Thanks to Buos¡¯ discovery, a group of international astronomers led by Melina Bersten were able to train observatory telescopes on the event, gaining valuable information about beginnings of a supernova for the first time ever. The team estimates the star had almost 20 times the Sun¡¯s mass, though it had shrunk down to about 5 times the size of the Sun before it went kaboom.
