Doug shows us the light

By Michael on April 23, 2008 at 2:40 pm | In Astrophysics, Blog Posts |

Our own Doug Welch wrote a very nice article in the latest issue of Sky and Telescope called “How to Hunt for Supernova Fossils in the Milky Way“. I can’t find a link to the article itself but S&T has a post about the article.

It’s really cool stuff — an accidental discovery of supernova light echos in the LMC has led to a new way to look for and study supernovae here in our own galaxy.

Doug discusses in detail how you can help hunt for these elusive light echoes. It would be a great multi-year project for a small college astronomy program or for accomplished astrophotographers with a bunch of really nice equipment.

Doug also describes in the article what happens if you find a light echo:

What happens if you find a candidate light echo? You become my new best friend!

How can you pass that up?!?