Very bright supernova occurring now - got a pic

[robj144]

A bit hard to see, but if you look where I'm waving the cursor around, you can see a "star" appear and disappear:



This is the supernova. This is how it looks straight out of the camera with zero processing. It's actually insane because it is 20+ million light years away while the rest of the stars in the image are in our own galaxy only 100s or 1000s of light years away. So, it is MUCH further yet as bright as most other stars in our galaxy. Mind blowing really...

Here's a pic processed and labeled:



And here are a couple others I took or finished that same night:

[Daniel Grenier]

Utterly fascinating and thanks for posting. So, excuse my embarrassingly limited astronomical savvy, but this event as we see it actually occurred over 20 million years ago? Ming boggling alright!

[ozzman]

Wow!Thats Awesome! the actual real usage of the word Awesome

[Jamolay]

Wow! That Galaxy got its tail lit up something fierce!

[1neeto]

Wow that’s gotta be a huge star! Once in a lifetime opportunity thanks for sharing!

[DCCougar]

Originally Posted by Daniel Grenier

So, excuse my embarrassingly limited astronomical savvy, but this event as we see it actually occurred over 20 million years ago?

Right. The supernova is in the Pinwheel Galaxy, which is 20.87 million lightyears distant. 20 million lightyears has a "z" value of 0.0014, which represents the amount the Universe has expanded during that light's travel time.

[DCCougar]

Originally Posted by 1neeto

Wow that’s gotta be a huge star! Once in a lifetime opportunity thanks for sharing!

The progenitor star, which is no more, was apparently a 15 solar mass red supergiant, and it produced a Type II supernova. As wiki says, supergiants have masses from 8 to 12 times the Sun (M☉) upwards, and luminosities from about 1,000 to over a million times the Sun (L☉). They vary greatly in radius, usually from 30 to 500, or even in excess of 1,000 solar radii (R☉)..... They go on to successively ignite [fuse] heavier elements, usually all the way to iron. Also because of their high masses, they are destined to explode as supernovae.

The supernova is apparently still be getting brighter....

[1neeto]

Originally Posted by DCCougar

The progenitor star, which is no more, was apparently a 15 solar mass red supergiant, and it produced a Type II supernova. As wiki says, supergiants have masses from 8 to 12 times the Sun (M☉) upwards, and luminosities from about 1,000 to over a million times the Sun (L☉). They vary greatly in radius, usually from 30 to 500, or even in excess of 1,000 solar radii (R☉)..... They go on to successively ignite [fuse] heavier elements, usually all the way to iron. Also because of their high masses, they are destined to explode as supernovae.

The supernova is apparently still be getting brighter....

Wow that’s some perspective! Also quite surreal that this actually happened over 20 million years ago and only now the light made it here.

[LiveMusic]

Fascinating, thanks!

[Merak]

Very cool, that means the iron in my guitar strings was made in a supernova at one time?

[eyesore]

Mind Boggling!! I guess we are just a little little thing here .

[The Growler]

Nice pics. Thanks for sharing them.

[fumei]

Nice shot of M13. Not only can you also see NGC 6207 (an relatively easy object) but looking carefully, you can also see IC 4617. A much more difficult object to see. Nice. Quite often even experienced observers do not know of IC 4617 - not that it is a spectacular object.

Observational impression of SN 2023ixf (the supernova) is a distinct color separation between it and NGC 5461. To me, the supernova appears quite a lot bluer. This makes it a bit easier to identify, as NGC 5461 is close in brightness.

Nice shots.

[robj144]

Originally Posted by 1neeto

Wow that’s gotta be a huge star! Once in a lifetime opportunity thanks for sharing!

No problem.

Originally Posted by Merak

Very cool, that means the iron in my guitar strings was made in a supernova at one time?

Not usually.. they usually start to fuse iron in the core and then it blows. Outside of hydrogen, helium, and a small amount lithium, we are made of stuff created inside stars or when they blew up.

Originally Posted by eyesore

Mind Boggling!! I guess we are just a little little thing here .

That we are.

Originally Posted by The Growler

Nice pics. Thanks for sharing them.

You're welcome.

Originally Posted by fumei

Nice shot of M13. Not only can you also see NGC 6207 (an relatively easy object) but looking carefully, you can also see IC 4617. A much more difficult object to see. Nice. Quite often even experienced observers do not know of IC 4617 - not that it is a spectacular object.

Observational impression of SN 2023ixf (the supernova) is a distinct color separation between it and NGC 5461. To me, the supernova appears quite a lot bluer. This makes it a bit easier to identify, as NGC 5461 is close in brightness.

Nice shots.

Thanks. M13 is ok... kind of blew out the core. But, the supernova is quite fascinating.

[fumei]

As usual I am curious.

Did you target the supernova? Were you trying to catch it? Or was it serendipitous, and you found out later?

As for blowing out M13, that is often the case when one tries to get the outer stars clearly. You have to do a composite, keeping the core for shorter exposures. It can be done quite well, but you have to work at it. The blending of the exposures (long for the outer stars, short for the core) can be tricky. I have seen some where it was so obvious it looked very artificial. I have no doubt you can do it flawlessly.