On 2014.01.22 Fossey et al. discovered this possible supernova in the famous M82 irregular galaxy. Surprisingly the discovery were made at a visual magnitude of about 11.7m, which is quite bright, and especially weird that in such a well-known galaxy a supernova can remain undiscovered for so long (days actually, within the range of a 12" telescope visually). I believe that the reason might be that on long exposure photographs the SN is not so different than the little bright knots in the GX, and probably many algorithms missed identifying the exploded star.

So, despite the fact that the satellite images shown 100% cloud coverage, I decided to believe to my own eyes and not satellites, and went out to check the sky condition. To my surprise, the sky was clear! There was a nice little hole in the clouds above me, hooray!

Although the GX was in a bad position for me - just half a degree above our roof, and right in the middle of the light pollution of a nearby lamp and the smoke out of our chimney - I could catch both the GX and its SN very easily. I've estimated the SN at a visual magniture of 11.4m, which is about 0.1-0.2m lower than actual measured brightness around that time.

The conclusion behind this supernova is that there is still a good chance to beat robots and algorithms and discover a supernova visually! Just imagine how many observers around the globe have seen this supernova without realizing that they have discovered something new.