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Well, the weather has been a little more cooperative in New Zealand. I got a spectrum on Sunday (though a little compromised by high cloud), and one on Tuesday night. GELATO classifies them as unreliable Type II, which is probably about as good as I can hope for. sn2024ggi_ 20240414_325_Tom Love.png...

Surprisingly, I have had good weather tonight. So here is my fresh Alpy spectrum as well.

Thanks Olivier. My weather forecast is terrible for the next week, so I think it's over to you for now!

And an updated observation. This is a long (3 hour) exposure which shows a little more detail, though it's a bit noisy as we approach the near infrared. FITS files uploaded to the ARAS database as usual. at2024epj_ 20240321_838_Tom Love.png H Alpha in velocity: at2024epj_ 20240321_838_Tom Love_HAlph...

This possibly explains why I have so often had difficulty getting accurate calibration with the Alpy, whereas I've never really had much of a problem with the Lhires. I have also often found the smile correction very volatile, sometimes getting quite different values with different lines selected fr...

And this is what I've managed with an Alpy. I suspect it's a little fainter than the 10th magnitude it has been estimated at. Similar result of about +/- 4200 km/s for the expanding shell.

Hi Bernard, I have both an Alpy600 and a Lhires, and I have to say that the Alpy has seen more use in the last couple of years. Especially in the winter months, when Southern novae are easier to observe. Classifying and monitoring transients is quite a satisfying activity, though it has its own chal...

At the moment the answer to the question (for me, anyway) is that I'm not sure. Obviously there is value in being able to observe fainter objects. And for early classification lower resolution is often more than adequate. But our low resolution observations are often a mix of classification and moni...

I am currently wrestling with trying to get a good installation and understanding of how to use two pieces of software: 1) KOREL, which is spectral disentangling software, for distinguishing multiple blended lines from a spectrum when you have binary or multiple systems. See: Hadrava, P., 2004. KORE...

I agree Ernst, and I have been lucky enough to have strong involvement in the various publications I've been part of. But when someone just takes the data and makes no effort to provide any other involvement, I think that is unfortunate. I wonder if the IAU pro-am committee should be encouraged to d...