Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  M 101  ·  NGC 5447  ·  NGC 5449  ·  NGC 5450  ·  NGC 5451  ·  NGC 5453  ·  NGC 5455  ·  NGC 5457  ·  NGC 5461  ·  NGC 5462  ·  NGC 5471  ·  NGC 5477  ·  Pinwheel galaxy
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SN2023ixf - Supernova in M101 - The Pinwheel Galaxy, Elvie1
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SN2023ixf - Supernova in M101 - The Pinwheel Galaxy

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
SN2023ixf - Supernova in M101 - The Pinwheel Galaxy, Elvie1
Powered byPixInsight

SN2023ixf - Supernova in M101 - The Pinwheel Galaxy

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Back during the time when dinosaurs roamed the earth a single aging supergiant star in a galaxy of a trillion stars ran out of fuel and exploded in a Type II core collapse Supernova. 

I had not planned to capture this image but M101 is still favourably positioned in the night sky, a real-time supernova is a fairly unique astrophotography event for a simple backyard astrophotographer, and we were lucky enough to have a few clear, but somewhat moonlit, nights. Given the less than ideal data due to the bright moon and the longterm weather forecast I combined the data from two scopes - first time. Processing showed an obvious gradient due to the moonlight and the outer blue arms of the galaxy are somewhat attenuated.

M101 - the Pinwheel Galaxy - is a large, very photogenic, spiral galaxy 21 MY lightyears distant in the constellation Ursa Major - the Big Bear. But the 'star?' of the show is SN2023ixf.

So an event that happened literally millions of years ago and trillions of kilometers away is affecting the time and energy of my insignificant earthling human life - and now yours too - because you are reading this.

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SN2023ixf - Supernova in M101 - The Pinwheel Galaxy, Elvie1