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Special Notice #251: Possible transient in Scorpius

September 6, 2011: John Seach (Chatsworth Island, NSW, Australia) reports the detection of a transient object in Scorpius, having a magnitude of 9.8 on 2011 September 6.37 UT (JD 2455810.87).  Observations were made with a DSLR and 50mm f/1.2 lens and 5 second exposure, with limiting magnitude 10.5.  The object is visible on four separate frames taken after the discovery was made.

AAVSO Receives National Science Foundation Award

The AAVSO has been awarded a new grant from the National Science Foundation. This one is for 3 years and ~$660,000. As with Citizen Sky, it is from their Informal Science Education program. It is titled "Two Eyes, 3D: Studying Stereoscopic Representations in Informal Settings". Aaron Price is the PI with Co-PIs from Tufts University (Dr.

Visual Observing Manual - Portuguese Version

Thanks to the hard work and perseverance of David Duarte and his colleagues at the Centro de Estudos Astronômico de Alagoas (CEAAL), there is now a version of the AAVSO Manual for Visual Observing of Variable Stars available for download here:

http://www.aavso.org/visual-observing-manual-portuguese

We hope that this manual will be helpful to all of our many Portuguese-speaking observers and that you will feel free to share it with others.

Alert Notice 446: Supernova 2011‭fe ‬in M101‭ (‬NGC 5457‭) = ‬PSN J14030581+5416254

August 26‭, ‬2011

Discovered by‭:  ‬The Type Ia supernova science working group of the‭ ‬ Palomar Transient Factory‭:  ‬Peter Nugent‭, ‬Lawrence Berkeley National‭ ‬Laboratory‭ (‬LBL‭), ‬University of California at Berkeley‭; ‬Mark‭ ‬Sullivan‭, ‬Oxford University‭; ‬David Bersier‭, ‬Liverpool John Moores‭ ‬University‭ (‬LJMU‭); ‬D‭. ‬A‭. ‬Howell‭, ‬Las Cumbres Observatory Global‭ ‬Telescope Network Inc‭., ‬University of California at Santa Barbara‭; ‬Rollin Thomas‭, ‬LBL‭; ‬Phil James‭, ‬LJMU

Special Notice #250: Possible Type-Ia Supernova in M101

August 24, 2011: P. Nugent et al. report in ATel #3581 that a possible Type-Ia supernova has been discovered by the Palomar Transient Factory shortly after eruption in the galaxy M101 and has been designated "PTF11kly".  The object is currently at a magnitude of g=17.2, but may well rise by several magnitudes. The object is well placed within M101 for good photometry, and observations of this potential bright SNIa are strongly encouraged.

The (J2000) coordinates reported for the object are

    RA: 14:03:05.81 , Dec: +54:16:25.4