Junior astronomer spots junior supernova A 14-year-old student from New York state has become the youngest person in history to discover a supernova. And her find is also one of the most peculiar supernovae spotted to date. For a massive stellar explosion, this one appears to be a dud. Using a relatively small telescope, Caroline Moore spied the faint object located …
"...Using a relatively small telescope, Caroline Moore ..."
Astronomy buffs reading your piece will be completely uninterested in Miss (presumably) Moore's age. What they will want to know is, 'How big was her telescope?'.
Really, that information is most important. Someone of any age can pick up a new dot on a big system - it takes skill to do it on a smaller one.....
999: Which emergency service do you require?
14 year old: the supernova task force
999: one second
supernova task force: what is the nature of your nova emergency?
14 year old: i have spotted a nova at <coordinates>, confirmed by my dad
supernova task force: thank you for your report, we will pass this on to astronomers worldwide to observe and take readings
SN 2008ha: An Extremely Low Luminosity and Extremely Low Energy Supernova
Authors: Ryan J. Foley, Ryan Chornock, Alexei V. Filippenko, Mohan Ganeshalingam, Robert P. Kirshner, Weidong Li, S. Bradley Cenko, Pete Challis, Andrew S. Friedman, Maryam Modjaz, Jeffrey M. Silverman, W. Michael Wood-Vasey
I'll miss out the boring stuff... Disinterested people might wish to scroll to the end...
Paper Content.
Here is some more boring stuff....
References...
OF COURSE MY COMMENT IS TOO FUCKING LONG THERE ARE TOO MANY FUCKING KLINGONS REFERENCED IN SUPPORT OF THE CRAP CONTAINED IN THE PAPER.
And..... being IT literate..... F3, on the full PDF paper, finds no instance of Caroline.
????
SUPERNOVA 2008ha IN UGC 12682
T. Puckett, Ellijay, GA, U.S.A.; Caroline Moore, Warwick, NY, U.S.A.; and Jack
Newton, Portal, AZ, U.S.A., report the discovery of an apparent supernova
(mag 18.8) on unfiltered CCD images (limiting mag 19.4) taken with a 0.40-m
reflector at Portal on Nov. 7.17 UT in the course of the Puckett Observatory
Supernova Search.
or should I say -young person .
She obviously has a great knowledge of the sky to pick out a new star appearing in her telescope.
Why don't we get told the size and type? I expect that is not important to the author of the article.
She may have a bright future in Astronomy if she decides on that a a career.
All those reports, I though it was simply impossible to get kids interested in science and engineering. Especially girls. That's why all those special awards for women involved in science and engineering had to be set up, because clearly the only way to get them involved is to have a "Britain's got female engineering talent" back-slapping contest.
Oh wait - actually, if they're interested in it, then they *will* do it. And be pretty damn good at it too.
I did a PhD in classical novae and can tell you its not that unusual for amateurs to spot novae or novae like objects. You dont need a big telescope to do it (in fact it is 'easier' without - you want sky coverage not the ability to spot faint objects) as the objects are usually visible with the naked eye. What you need is coverage of the night sky and the knowledge of the normal star patterns to be able to spot new objects.
There used to be a vicar in the UK who used to spot quite a few novae. He had an incredible knowledge of the night sky and a pair of binoculars.
Boring, but true
Hard to tell if you're being dim on purpose, so I'll treat this as a legit comment. The paper referenced is not the paper outlining her discovery, it is a paper on the make-up of the supernova itself (although, El Reg, it would have been nice to have a pointer to Moore's notification).
And she is referenced as the co-author of the discovery notification in the references section, as she should be, as "Moore, C.".
In other words, she's being treated as a real member of the community. Which she is.
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