
On May 31st a supernova erupted
in the galaxy M51. After about three weeks it reached it's
maximum brightness. A spell of bad weather, short nights and
moonlight prevented me from being able to take a picture of
it. Today I was successful at last. This time I used a real
(cut) Bahtinov mask and was able to use my QHY5 autoguider,
so the raw images had better focus and a longer exposure,
resulting in a much more improved image of M51 compared to
my last result.
Move your mouse over the image to compare
the current view of M51 with the image from early may and
see the supernova as a blinking star in the upper spiral arm
of the galaxy..
This image shows the whole field of view:

Telescope: |
Astro-Professional 80mm ED f/7 Doublet
with TS Flattener |
Camera |
Nikon D7000 |
Exposure: |
12x 180" @ ISO 1600 |
Processing: |
Regim & Photoshop |
Date: |
27th June 2011 |
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