Historical Supernovae plugin

Latest revision as of 18:17, 31 January 2013

[edit] Description

The Historical Supernovae plugin provides visualization of some historical supernovae brighter than 10 magnitude:

• SN 185A (7 December)
• SN 386A (24 April)
• SN 1006A (29 April)
• SN 1054A (3 July)
• SN 1181A (4 August)
• SN 1572A (5 November)
• SN 1604A (8 October)
• SN 1680A (15 August)
• SN 1885A (17 August)
• SN 1895B (5 July)
• SN 1937C (21 August)
• SN 1972E (8 May)
• SN 1987A (24 February)
• SN 2011FE (13 September)

Example (Supernova 1604, also known as Kepler's Supernova, Kepler's Nova or Kepler's Star):

[edit] Using the Historical Supernovae plugin

1. Enable the tool by clicking the tool-bar button "Load at startup"
2. Set date and time (29 April 1006 year for SN 1006A as example)

[edit] Catalog of historical supernovae

You can modify the supernovae.json file manually using a text editor. If you are using Windows, it is strongly recommended to use an advanced text editor such as Notepad++ to avoid problems with end-of-line characters. (It will also color the JSON code and make it easier to read.)

Warning: Before editing your supernovae.json, make a backup copy. Leaving out the smallest detail (such as a comma or forgetting to close a curly bracket) will prevent Stellarium from starting.

The path to the directory which contains supernovae.json is something like:

• C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Stellarium\modules\Supernovae (Windows Vista, Windows 7)
• C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Application Data\Stellarium\modules\Supernovae (Windows XP)
• HomeDirectory/Library/Preferences/Stellarium/modules/Supernovae (Mac OS X)
• ~/.stellarium/modules/Supernovae (Linux)

(Note that this is a hidden folder, so in order to find it you may need to change your computer's settings to display hidden files and folders.)

[edit] Format of catalog

To add a new supernova, open a new line after line 5 and paste the following, note commas and brackets, they are important:

             "Supernova designation":
             {
                   "type": "type of supernova",
                   "maxMagnitude": value of maximal visual magnitude,
                   "peakJD": JD for maximal visual magnitude,
                   "alpha": "Right ascension (J2000)",
                   "delta": "Declination (J2000)",
                   "distance": value of distance between supernova and Earth (in thousand of Light Years),
                   "note": "notes for supernova"
             },

For example, record for SN 1604A:

             "1604A":
             {
                   "type": "I",
                   "maxMagnitude": -2,
                   "peakJD": 2307190,
                   "alpha": "17h30m36.00s",
                   "delta": "-21d29m00.0s",
                   "distance": 14,
                   "note": "Kepler's Supernova"
             },

[edit] Light curves

In this plugin implemented simple model of light curves for different supernovae. Typical view of light curve for supernova type I you can see below (right scale in days) and this model used for plugin:

For supernova type II we use typical light curve with plato, which you can see below (right scale in days):

On both images for light curves of maximum brightness marked as day 0.

[edit] Version history

[edit] Acknowledgment

We thank the following people for their contribution and of the valuable comments:

• Sergei Blinnikov (Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics in Russia)

[edit] How you can help

We are welcome bug reports, feature requests and feedback through the usual channels (trackers, forums and so on).