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Astronuc just posted about a bright flash witnessed in December 2004
http://www.everything-science.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=111&Itemid=2
see his post "brightest explosion ever observed"
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=64274
...
Here's a NASA link that goes with that. It has an animation of the flare and some photographs of the aftermath taken in the optical range.
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/watchtheskies/swift_nsu_0205.html
It says that for a tenth of a second the power of the explosion was E40 watts.
the natural unit of power is 1.444E51 watts, so roughly 100 billion time brighter still.
In case anyone is curious and wants to calculate the natural power unit for themselves it is really easy, you just need to know c and G
the power unit is just c5/(8piG)
so you put in 299792458, raise it to the fifth,
then you divide by 8pi,
then you divide by 6.6742E-11 (what NIST gives for G)
and that's it
at this point I believe you have 1.444E51 watts.
this is the number that I somehow goofed with and got 1.6E51
in a rough calculation a couple of weeks ago. too much in a hurry
or just careless
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