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Could I have witnessed SN 1987 if I was looking at it from Helwan Observatory?
Hello there,
After browsing many newsgroups, this one seemed like the most sensible one out of them all to post this query. SN 1987 in large magellanic cloud 23rd February 1987. Could it have been seen from the Observatory at Helwan south of Cairo at that time. Coordinates for the Observatory are Lat. 29 51 42.8587 Lon. 31 20 39.7325 Height 146.861 m I do not have the RA or Dec of SN 1987 unfortunately. I'm sorry I'm not up with the terminology and I hope this isn't deemed spam or anything. You can probably gauge the level of my experience of astronomy by the fact I have to ask this question. Thankyou for your time. Lee. Southern England. |
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Could I have witnessed SN 1987 if I was looking at it from Helwan Observatory?
In message , black flag
writes Hello there, After browsing many newsgroups, this one seemed like the most sensible one out of them all to post this query. SN 1987 in large magellanic cloud 23rd February 1987. Could it have been seen from the Observatory at Helwan south of Cairo at that time. Coordinates for the Observatory are Lat. 29 51 42.8587 Lon. 31 20 39.7325 Height 146.861 m I do not have the RA or Dec of SN 1987 unfortunately. I'm sorry I'm not up with the terminology and I hope this isn't deemed spam or anything. You can probably gauge the level of my experience of astronomy by the fact I have to ask this question. Thankyou for your time. You'll probably get a more detailed answer, but I tried putting a rough position (based on NGC 2070) and time and place into Skymap Pro, and it doesn't look like it. It was well below the horizon. |
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Could I have witnessed SN 1987 if I was looking at it from Helwan Observatory?
"black flag" wrote in message ... Hello there, After browsing many newsgroups, this one seemed like the most sensible one out of them all to post this query. SN 1987 in large magellanic cloud 23rd February 1987. Could it have been seen from the Observatory at Helwan south of Cairo at that time. Coordinates for the Observatory are Lat. 29 51 42.8587 Lon. 31 20 39.7325 Height 146.861 m I do not have the RA or Dec of SN 1987 unfortunately. Hello Lee The coordinates of SN 1987A are RA 05 : 35 : 27 (h:m:s) Dec-69 : 16.2 (deg:m) http://www.seds.org/messier/xtra/ngc/lmc_sn1987A.html This point never rises above the horizon from Lat. 29 51 42.8587. You would need to be South of lat +21 deg to have a chance of seeing it. HTH Robin |
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Could I have witnessed SN 1987 if I was looking at it from Helwan Observatory?
JRS: In article , dated Tue, 27
Dec 2005 17:09:45 local, seen in news:uk.sci.astronomy, black flag posted : SN 1987 in large magellanic cloud 23rd February 1987. Could it have been seen from the Observatory at Helwan south of Cairo at that time. Coordinates for the Observatory are Lat. 29 51 42.8587 Lon. 31 20 39.7325 Height 146.861 m Presumably the height above Sea Level; but one really needs the difference between the height of the viewing point of the Observatory and that of the southern horizon. The latitude of Helwan is near enough 30 N; the longitude is irrelevant. I do not have the RA or Dec of SN 1987 unfortunately. Neither do I. But, from an atlas of the sky, the LMC lies between 18 deg and 25 deg from over the South Pole. Thus any location in the LMC is never as high as 5 deg below the horizontal, from Helwan. The Magellanic Clouds must be too far South to be observable by the Ancients, since otherwise the Ancients would have named them. The edge of the LMC may be above the horizon from Upper Egypt; but too low to be nameworthy. Sir Arthur probably knows whether the Sri Lankans have a name for one or both of the Clouds; but I don't recall him saying so. -- © John Stockton, Surrey, UK. Turnpike v4.00 MIME. © Web URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/ - FAQqish topics, acronyms & links; Astro stuff via astron-1.htm, gravity0.htm ; quotings.htm, pascal.htm, etc. No Encoding. Quotes before replies. Snip well. Write clearly. Don't Mail News. |
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Could I have witnessed SN 1987 if I was looking at it from Helwan Observatory?
Dr John Stockton wrote: JRS: In article , dated Tue, 27 Dec 2005 17:09:45 local, seen in news:uk.sci.astronomy, black flag posted : SN 1987 in large magellanic cloud 23rd February 1987. Could it have been seen from the Observatory at Helwan south of Cairo at that time. Coordinates for the Observatory are Lat. 29 51 42.8587 Lon. 31 20 39.7325 Height 146.861 m Presumably the height above Sea Level; but one really needs the difference between the height of the viewing point of the Observatory and that of the southern horizon. The latitude of Helwan is near enough 30 N; the longitude is irrelevant. I do not have the RA or Dec of SN 1987 unfortunately. Neither do I. But, from an atlas of the sky, the LMC lies between 18 deg and 25 deg from over the South Pole. Thus any location in the LMC is never as high as 5 deg below the horizontal, from Helwan. The Magellanic Clouds must be too far South to be observable by the Ancients, since otherwise the Ancients would have named them. The edge of the LMC may be above the horizon from Upper Egypt; but too low to be nameworthy. I have for a long time used a "rule of thumb" that subtracts or adds 90 (as the case may be) to the declination of a celestial body to determine whether its likely to be visible at a specific latitude. For instance I'm at 34 degrees South - so I know that any body with a decl of +56 will be a very marginal horizon object at best (56-90 = -34) even given the bit of altitude that I do have. Is this a logical rule of thumb? I've never really thought about it before! Eugene Griessel |
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Could I have witnessed SN 1987 if I was looking at it from HelwanObservatory?
black flag wrote:
Hello there, After browsing many newsgroups, this one seemed like the most sensible one out of them all to post this query. SN 1987 in large magellanic cloud 23rd February 1987. Could it have been seen from the Observatory at Helwan south of Cairo at that time. Has Helwan still got a working observatory ? I worked just south of there for several months over the last couple of years - for CMRDI, the Egyptian metallurgy research centre. I think the observatory has to Katamia (sp ?) out in the desert. I've been itching to visit there myself. Apparently Helwan was a beautiful place before Nasser deliberately wrecked it as too bourgeois. Steve |
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Could I have witnessed SN 1987 if I was looking at it from Helwan Observatory?
"Steve Taylor" wrote in message ... black flag wrote: Hello there, After browsing many newsgroups, this one seemed like the most sensible one out of them all to post this query. SN 1987 in large magellanic cloud 23rd February 1987. Could it have been seen from the Observatory at Helwan south of Cairo at that time. Has Helwan still got a working observatory ? I worked just south of there for several months over the last couple of years - for CMRDI, the Egyptian metallurgy research centre. I think the observatory has to Katamia (sp ?) out in the desert. I've been itching to visit there myself. Apparently Helwan was a beautiful place before Nasser deliberately wrecked it as too bourgeois. Steve I have been in touch with a Dr. Khaled Zahran who works there so certain aspects are still working. I know they do a lot of work with siesmology and geology up there. Managed to find it on Google earth just off these coordinates. Lat. 29 51 42.8587 Lon. 31 20 39.7325 Height 146.861 m It almost looks like there is a second dome to the east of the main observatory. I think the observatory has to Katamia (sp ?) out in the desert. I've been itching to visit there myself. Sorry do not understand this. Is Katamia the name of the telescope at Helwan or another observatory? I keep seing it cropping up in searches I do but with no clear relevance. I know the whole kit and kiboodle used to live in Cairo until it was transported down to Helwan. Interested in this Nasser stuff you were talking about, probably not the right forum to discuss. I will endeavour to search the internet to find out more. I would also like to thank everyone who came back to me on the question. Thankyou for your help, it has settled something in my mind I have been wondering about for sometime now. I had used something called stellarium to create the location and time, but it didn't show it. needed some science input to make sure. Thanks again, Lee. Southern England. |
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