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My photo of the moon, Venus and Jupiter last night
This was taken shortly after 9 p.m. with my Canon point &shoot type camera in manual mode. The moon is over exposed to get Jupiter at the bottom, but does show some earthshine.
03/27/2012 – Ephemeris – Supernova near the direction of Mars
Ephemeris for Tuesday, March 27th. The sun will rise at 7:31. It’ll be up for 12 hours and 32 minutes, setting at 8:04. The moon, 3 days before first quarter, will set at 1:19 tomorrow morning.
Last week a supernova was spotted in nearby galaxy M95, which happens to be close to the direction where Mars is right now. It takes a telescope of about 6 inch diameter to spot it. If you’d like to spot it, Google “M95 supernova” for more information on its exact location. Since discovery, astronomers have found the progenitor star on an old image of the galaxy taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The star that blew itself up appears to have been 8 times the mass of the sun as determined by its color and brightness. We don’t have to worry about the sun doing the same thing, it’s simply not massive enough. It’s nice to live orbiting around a boring star of low mass. Our sun’s wildness is seen in the sunspot cycle.
* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Finder Charts
Mars' motion from March 26th to April 2nd 2012. Created using Cartes du Ciel.
Closeup Mars and M95 for the dates March 27th to April 2nd 2012. Created using Cartes du Ciel.
M95 and neighboring galaxies. The supernova will appear below M95. The faintest stars here are 10th magnitude. The supernova is about 12th. Created using Cartes du Ciel.
Google “M95 supernova” in Google images for what the supernova and galaxy look like.
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 