A new year has brought much success to The Puckett Observatory World Supernova Search. With over 10 Canadians on the team there has been a steady flow over the last few years of announcements involving those members in discoveries. Last year the international team discovered 29 supernovae, this was considered to be a slow year!

 

SN2007U discovered February 5th by Jack Newton and Tim Puckett

The new year started with a bang though as Tom Orff and Tim Puckett found the first supernova of 2007. This was soon followed by the team's discovery of 2007D, 2007F and 2007J with Victoria Centre member Jack Newton participating in that discovery.

 

The end of January things really got rolling with the announcement of 2007Q, 2007R, 2007S. Jack Newton found 2007Q and would later find 2007U while Moncton Centre member Paul Gray found 2007R. Jack had found 3 in just about a month! Paul was elated to finally find his first as a team member since Halifax Centre member Dave Lane and Paul joined the Puckett team in May of 2006.

February continues to be productive as early in the month Jack found the above mentioned 2007U and near mid month Paul would find 2007AC and 2007AD, both on the same night within 40mins! After finding the first Paul was stunned to find another so quick. When the 2nd object appeared my first thoughts was, “Wow, who got that one.” To my surprise it was not listed. I then thought it must be a bright asteroid. A check of the Minor Planet Center data base showed no objects were near that galaxy! All i could say was, “No way!” and the rest is history.

As of February 21 there have been 30 Supernovae found in 2007 and the Puckett search has credit for 10 of them! It has been a productive year already with 10 months still to go. For a current listing of supernova discoveries check out: www.rochesterastronomy.org/supernova.html. For more information on the Puckett supernova search program check out their site at http://www.cometwatch.com/.

eNews date: 
Thursday, February 22, 2007
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