Morning Joe, Joe Bauman wrote:
Thank you for the great information. Do you think I might be able to photograph it tonight with my 12"? Best wishes, Joe
As your post came on the heels of Kurt's post about the nova in Sagittarius I'm not sure if you're talking about that or the supernova in M-51. However provided you can put the object on your CCD chip the combination of your scope and CCD should easily image the nova and the supernova. My scope isn't that much bigger than yours and I was able to pick up the mag. 14 SN in less than a minute. Of course all of that is assuming you intend to image it with CCD. Using film is a whole 'nother thing. No problem filming the nova but the supernova will take a loooong exposure. A bigger problem with the nova is its location. Even when on the meridian (about 00:40) it's still only about 18 degrees above the horizon as seen from here in N. Utah. Patrick