An amateur astronomer has spotted a once-in-a-decade supernova that scientists hope will shed light on how dying massive stars give birth to strange objects such as neutron stars and black holes.On May 19 seasoned supernova discoverer Koichi Itagaki spotted something strange in a spiral galaxy called M101: a bright new pinprick of light. At about 21 million light-years away from Earth, the
new supernova, which is now formally dubbed SN 2023ixf, is the closest such explosion of the past five years and the second closest of the past 10 years, according to NASA.
That was copied from a Scientific American article I read on the Internet. Well done Koichi!!!
I ran a 2 night sequence with the same rig I used to image M101 earlier this season before the Super Nova. However, I had much higher background with an unfavorable Moon with this sequence.
A link to the original AB post is here:
M101 The Pinwheel Galaxy OSC The M101 with the SN2023ixf has more integration time than my previous version. I combined both images using Image Composite Editor from MS. Acutally my first clear nights in a very long time so I am happy to image such a meaningful celestial event!
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