I was watching a History channel show about a super nova that occurred in 1987 and recalled that this was around the same time I saw what I considered a strange occurrence in the night sky. I remember when this happened because 1987 was the only year I was living in an apartment. I got up during the late hours of the night, or early morning hours, depending on one's perspective, I looked out of my third floor balcony patio door, which faced west, and saw two large glowing lights in the sky, one above the other. The bright light on the top was quickly fading out. But the other light continued to glow. It faded out in about 20 minutes or so. I searched images and only found pictures of one glowing light. But I clearly remember two. Did I see super nova 1987a or was this something else?

afs0628,

I doubt that you saw the SN1987a as this SN was in the southern hemisphere.

here is the info on SN1987a:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1987A 

Now I'll always wonder what I saw. Both were glowing lights with a yellowish tone, not sharp in definition. And they were fairly large, of equal size. Nothing like a star or planet. They definitely were in the western sky.  I guess I'll never know.

I too saw something strange that night.  I knew the supernova was likely going to be below the sothern horizon from the Salt Lake City area but, just in case, I stayed out to look at what I might see anyway.  What I remember seeing was large flashes of light just above the south-western horizon a few moments apart.  They were kind of circular "spider web" like flashes.  I called my mom out to see it and there was one more flash which she was able to confirm seeing then no more.  I saw at least 3 intermittent flashes in all.  They were quite large, probably about 4 fingers wide with my hand held out. It seems like they may have had a slight green color to them but very sublte, mostly no color at all.  I have never seen anything like this before or since during any of my other skywatching activities.  I may never know the physics, but I will always believe that supernova 1987a was connected to what I saw that night.

Supernovae are rather long-lived events, often lasting weeks at time.  They do not flash on and off in a manner of minutes.  The vast majority of supernovae are too dim to be seen visually, even with very large amateur telescopes.  The brightest supernova currently visible is SN 2008ax, which is now just a bit brighter than faint Pluto.  With the exception of SN 1987a, which reached third magnitude in brightness at its peak, about as bright as Megrez, the star that is at the junction of the bowl and the handle of the Big Dipper, there have been only two other naked eye supernovae, one in 1604 and one in 1885.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/supernovae.html

http://www.rochesterastronomy.org/SNIMAGES/

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/astro/snovcn.html

Dave Mitsky