FreeLists / az-observing / [AZ-Observing] Re: Supernova in M74

["Stanley A. Gorodenski" <stan_gorodenski@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thad Robosson wrote:

> But what if there's fog, and you KNOW that tree is in a particular forest?

Simply knowing there is a forest does not mean you saw it if you in fact did
not see it.

> Here's a question for everyone....Of all the people who actually "saw" M74
> that night, how many of us saw an honest to goodness "galaxy"?  Me, I saw a
> very faint fuzzy thing that wasn't much more than a fairly well defocused
> star, (well, much less focused than the other stars in the field of view
> anyway....)

If you had the star in focus, your mirror was not undergoing self motivated
deformations on its own, and you saw the faint fuzzy stuff, then it appears you
did see M74. Not seeing the faint fuzzy stuff is a completely different matter.
Either you did or did not see the faint fuzzy stuff. If the star was so bright
that you could not see the faint fuzzy stuff, then in my opinion you did not
see M74. The best you could say is that you saw a star in supernova status that
is one of billions of stars of M74.

> and I was confident in saying I saw M74 that night because I
> knew where it was compared to the other stars, etc, etc.

That seems legitimate. If you did not know this was the location of M74 then
there would be no way for you to know the faint fuzzy stuff was part of M74.

Just my opinion.

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