SN2023ixf supernova in M101

[MarkS]

Supernova SN2023ixf was discovered 19 May 2023 by the Japanese researcher Koichi Itagaki.  It's a type II supernova i.e. a core collapse supernova. This image was taken by me a few days later on 24 May 2023:



The position of the supernova is marked.  This is a stack of 250 exposures of 8sec at ISO 10000 taken with a modified Sony A7S on a Celestron C11 SCT with Starizona 0.7x LF corrector.  The colour of the supernova should be a lot bluer than this but unfortunately it saturated the sensor pixels.

Obviously this image has been stretched to show the galaxy itself.  To get a better idea of how bright the supernova is compared with the whole galaxy, this second image (when looked at in a darkened room) is approximately what you would see through a telescope with the naked eye:



Mark

[The Thing]

I've got a load of M101 subs from 3 nights ago but they are never going to look as good as this.

[Carole]

Lovely result Mark.

[Dave A]

Mark

That's a lovely image, and amazing the supernova was only discovered 2 weeks ago
 

[Fay]

Great capture Mark