Romanian-American astronomerNicholas Sanduleak in 1970, but remained just a number in a catalogue until identified as the star that exploded in the first naked eye supernova since the invention of the telescope,[1] when its maximum reached visual magnitude +2.8.[3]
The discovery that a blue supergiant was a supernova progenitor contradicted all known theories at the time and produced a flurry of new ideas about how such a thing might happen,[4] but it is now accepted that blue supergiants are a normal progenitor for some supernovae.[5]
The candidate luminous blue variableHD 168625 possesses a bipolar nebula that is a close twin of that around Sk -69 202. It is speculated that Sk -69 202 may have been a luminous blue variable in the recent past, although it was apparently a normal luminous supergiant at the time it exploded.[2]
