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.

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.

"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

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.

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

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

"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.