In 2022 and 2023 we were lucky enough to see one supernova each, which were also easy to photograph with our amateur telescopes.
You can see my photos of these supernovae for
SN2022hrs and
SN2023ixf.
In addition to photos, I also took spectra with the Paton Hawksley Star Analyser 100, which is an inexpensive grating that still gives amazing results.
As you can see in the image above, the spectra of the two supernovae are quite different.
SN2022hrs was of type Ia. This type of supernova occurs when a white dwarf snatches material from a neighbor until it has accumulated enough to become a supernova. Some of the elements ejected into space in this process absorb light so significantly that there are deep bands in the spectrum.
SN2023ixf, on the other hand, belongs to type II. It is the last luminous stage of a supergiant that has used up its fusible material. Although it disperses abundant elements into space, they leave no bands in the spectrum.
In fact, the
evolution of the spectrum of a type II supernova is very complex and obviously overwhelmed my simple equipment. Nevertheless, I found it interesting to see the differences between the two types of stellar explosions in the spectra as well.
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