IC 2461, Spiral Galaxy; Supernova 2002 bx

Spiral Galaxy IC 2461 - Supernova 2002 bx

Galaxy IC 2461 and Supernova 2002 bx
Image taken under rather poor seeing conditions with an ST-9E CCD camera thru Kopernik's 20 inch F/8.1 telescope. Image taken at 5:05 UT on May 4, 2002. The field of view is 8x8 arc minutes with North at the top.

Supernova 2002 bx:

Discovered April 1st, 2002 by Tom Boles, Coddenham, England; and the LOTOSS supernova group.
Magnitude 16.8 at discovery
Type: II
T. Matheson, et al, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, report the spectrum shows this supernova to be a type-II before maximum; the spectrum consists of a very blue continuum with P-Cyg lines of hydrogen and helium. The expansion velocity is 11,600 km/s.
The supernova is magnitude 16.58 in the Kopernik image.

Follow this Link to a NASA Web site on supernovas. It has a very nice animation and a description of what these objects are.

Spiral Galaxy IC 2461:

Dreyer's description in the Index Catalog(IC):

"Faint, very small, very little brighter middle."

IC 2461 is an edge-on Spiral Galaxy in the constellation of Lynx. It has a somewhat off center dust lane.

Based on the published red shift, (and a Hubble Constant of 62 Km/sec per Mpc) a rough distance estimate for IC 2461 and Supernova 2002 bx is 119 million light years, and the galaxy's diameter is about 100,290 light years.

IC 8521
Magnitude: 14.8
Constellation: Lynx
RA: 09h 19m 58.0s
Dec: +37° 11' 27" Epoch 2000
Size (mins): 2.3' x 0.4'
Classification: Spiral Galaxy

Click below to

George Normandin, KAS

May 6th, 2002