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While its very unlikely (but very possible) my dream in life would be to witness a supernova.
Last time one was bright enough to see with the naked eye was about 400 years ago. So my chances are slim.
Interesting side note, a supernova is the fastest moving stellar event we can see with our naked eye that we know of. It starts and ends (usually resulting in a nebula) over the course of just weeks to months. Could you imagine seeing a bright light form in the sky out of nowhere, last for months, and then in the end have a beautiful new nebula in its place... my god that would be so cool!
@freemo Right, but you'd need special telescopes to see the nebula, right? And, even at its brightest, a supernova would still be nothing more than a point of light to the naked eye.
Whereas, if you take away your "unaided" requirement, you could absolutely live that dream. Pretty sure we've seen several in our lifetime that just require serious magnification to view.
@freemo Oh wow. Yeah, as I understand it, most of what we understand as "seeing" nebulas in pictures is really like x-ray spectrum or something shifted into our visible color spectrum. So, in natural light viewing, they're mostly just slightly darker patches of the sky.
@LouisIngenthron Not at all. Nebulas do look different in X-ray and other spectrums, and **some** nebula are uninteresting in visible light. But all the famous nebulas more or less are quite beautiful to the naked eye.
See this post from my blog for a picture of the great nebula in orion using visible light only (also attached)
@LouisIngenthron
Depends on the supernova. You can just barely see some nebula. The great nebula in orion for example looks like a hazy patch to the naked eye you can just barely make out. Simple binoculars will give you a decent view of the core.
A supernova's brightness varies greatly. The one 400 years ago was so bright it could be seen in the day time at its peak.