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.

The lower image shows the galaxy without the supernova in an image from last may

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