When a massive star dies, it goes out with a bang, creating a stunningly bright explosion that can temporarily change the look of the night sky. What you are looking at here is two photos taken a few weeks apart from my backyard in Snoqualmie. The first photo shows the galaxy pre-supernova. The second photo shows a supernova event in M101, also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy.
Every star you see in the night sky is in our own galaxy. If this were to happen to one of our stars it could be visible during daylight. What we are looking at here is a galaxy 21 million light years away and yet with a small telescope we can capture such an event in a galaxy that far away. And according to NASA, the new supernova, called SN 2023ixf, was first spotted by Koichi Itagaki, an amateur, on May 19. Itagaki discovered the supernova when it was magnitude 14.9, though it quickly brightened over the weekend.
#astrophotography#supernova⬇️ Technical data ⬇️
🔭 William Optics GT81
⚙️ ZWO-AM5
📷 ASI294MM-Pro
📸 Astronomik Luminance
💻 ASIAir Pro, PixInsight
87 photos, 90 seconds each fpr 2 hours, 10 minutes and 30 seconds of total exposure time.
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