Supernova in Galaxy M101

[Astrnmrtom]

Here's my shot from last night of the new supernova in Galaxy M101. It's been all over the internet news. Bright enough to be seen visually through a telescope. It's a stack of 10-1 minute jpg exposures at iso 5000, Sony a6000. The telescope used is a 94mm f/7 apo. Seeing was not real great, it was a warm night and I didn't take the time to do any dark frames so the stack had quite a bit of noise. I manually removed some of the noise by desaturating the final image. This example is cropped. Stacking and processing was done in Affinity Photo v2.1

Pretty amazing to think this single star is brighter than the core of the galaxy which contains millions/billions of stars. That's a lot of energy being released very quickly.

Taken from my backyard in Arizona.

Tom

• ILCE-6000
• 60 sec
• ISO 5000

• ILCE-6000
• 60 sec
• ISO 5000

 

[Gaz]

I don’t think we get to see it from here in Aus. I’m assuming the line is a direction indicator?

Thanks for detailing your method and the app. I’d love to give it a go with my 135GM Lens. For a minute, exposure can I assume you use a star tracker?

 

[evacguy]

Here's my shot from last night of the new supernova in Galaxy M101. It's been all over the internet news. Bright enough to be seen visually through a telescope. It's a stack of 10-1 minute jpg exposures at iso 5000, Sony a6000. The telescope used is a 94mm f/7 apo. Seeing was not real great, it was a warm night and I didn't take the time to do any dark frames so the stack had quite a bit of noise. I manually removed some of the noise by desaturating the final image. This example is cropped. Stacking and processing was done in Affinity Photo v2.1

Pretty amazing to think this single star is brighter than the core of the galaxy which contains millions/billions of stars. That's a lot of energy being released very quickly.

Taken from my backyard in Arizona.

Tom

View attachment 39577View attachment 39577

WOW Thomas, that is fantastic. What Bortle are you in, must be pretty good in Arizona? Also, you say you didn't take any dark frames, but did you take any calibration frames?

 

[Astrnmrtom]

I don’t think we get to see it from here in Aus. I’m assuming the line is a direction indicator?

Thanks for detailing your method and the app. I’d love to give it a go with my 135GM Lens. For a minute, exposure can I assume you use a star tracker?

M101 is near the bend of the handle in The Big Dipper so probably not visible from that far south. The line points to the bright star just past the left end of the line, which is the supernova. If you look at some of the better images online you'll see the supernova is in one of the galaxy's spiral arms. M101 is a spiral galaxy similar to our Milky Way. Our sun lies along the inner edge of a spiral arm much like the one the supernova is in.

Yes, the scope is on a tracking mount. Effective focal length is around 650mm. A single 30 second exposure at iso 5000 will show the galaxy and supernova. Rather than doing a single long exposure I take the easy way out and stack shorter exposures. The stacking software can then align any small variations in the frame from tracking errors. I usually use a dedicated astro stacking program because Affinity struggles more with stacking if the alignment is too far off from frame to frame. Looking at the star shapes in the cropped image I suspect a frame or two is slightly misaligned although it's possible my mount wasn't properly polar aligned so maybe there was a little drift during the one minute exposures.

Tom.

 

[Astrnmrtom]

My skies are pretty decent - Bortle 2 with a glow in the southeast from the Phoenix area about an hour away. One reason for buying a house here is the skies, and the fact our small development doesn't have streetlights. Most of the people in this part of the development don't leave their porch lights on at night. My street is pretty dark. Dark enough I could observe in my front yard. It's great.

Spent the last 35 years on the Pacific Northwest under skies that when clear, I couldn't see the Milky Way. During the few clear summer months the nights were short. I liked to call it astronomy hell.

No dark frames, no flats, just the 10 light frames. Should have done some darks because it was a warm night and the sensor was noisy.

 

[Alan Clark]

I don’t think we get to see it from here in Aus. I’m assuming the line is a direction indicator?

Thanks for detailing your method and the app. I’d love to give it a go with my 135GM Lens. For a minute, exposure can I assume you use a star tracker?

It passes directly overhead for me in Liverpool, 53.5 degrees North, so it is too far North to be easily visible from most of Australia.