The remains of the supernova SN 1987A are a target on the "Namibian" list that holds exceptional significance for me. Similarly, for Mateusz Kalisz, with whom we had the pleasure of jointly capturing this object, it was like achieving a trophy, perhaps not the biggest or prettiest, but a rare and valuable catch.

A few words about the supernova itself and its remnants. SN 1987A was a Type II supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The fact that it was relatively close to Earth, about 51.4 kiloparsecs (168,000 light-years), made it a unique target for astronomers because it was the closest observed supernova since Kepler's Supernova. The first light from SN 1987A reached Earth on February 23, 1987, and as the first supernova discovered that year, it was designated "1987A". Its brightness peaked in May, reaching an apparent magnitude of about 3.

It was the first supernova that modern astronomers could study in detail, and its observations provided a wealth of information about Type II supernovae, which are supernovae associated with the collapse of a star's core.Its discovery was independently attributed to two teams: Ian Shelton and Oscar Duhalde at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile on February 24, 1987, and Albert Jones in New Zealand, who also independently recorded it within the same day. Four days after the event was recorded, the progenitor of the supernova was preliminarily identified as the blue supergiant star Sanduleak -69 202 (Sk -69 202). This was an unexpected identification because at that time, high-mass star evolution models did not predict that blue supergiants were prone to supernova explosions.Some progenitor models attributed its color not so much to its chemical composition but to its evolutionary state, especially low levels of heavy elements, among other factors.

There were speculations that the star might have merged with a companion star before the supernova. However, it is now widely believed that blue supergiants are natural progenitors of some supernovae, although there are still hypotheses that the evolution of such stars may involve mass loss related to a binary companion.I think there's no need to delve further into the supernova and its remnants because my colleague Mateusz (the creator of the Astrolife channel) has once created an excellent video material on this topic. I recommend and provide a link to it: https://youtu.be/o_K4jYO-r3k?si=fIoqcK4PihnsWOZo

Mateusz also presented the circumstances of capturing the remnants of SN 1987A in another video, summarizing our astrophotographic expedition to Africa - https://www.youtube.com/live/Gtz4EtMt0jQ?si=ZS4mQusKyilrmEA-&t=4206

I also highly recommend it.

The conditions were not entirely favorable, moderate winds and the telescope's construction (it's an older version of the Synta 16" with GoTo) caused motion in a significant number of frames and drift. Ultimately, the best 108 frames, each 1 second long, combined to create what I would like to present here.