Shortly after I posted this image on SkyandTelescope.com. I was recently contacted by a group of professional European Radio Astronomers who had just imaged the supernova at radio wavelengths. To do this, they connected a network of radio telescopes in Spain, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden and Finland using the very long baseline interferometry technique. In so doing, they made a radio telescope roughly the size of Europe that permitted them to image the supernova with unprecedented resolution, down to a fraction of a light-year. They said the equivalent would be to image a golf ball on the lunar surface. They were going to show their image in multiple European press releases. However, it is very difficult for the public to interpret what they are seeing in radio astronomy images, so they wanted to display their image alongside a visible light image of the galaxy and supernova for reference. They searched the internet thoroughly and they liked this image, taken with the STL 11000M, the best. They asked permission to use it in their press releases provided they credited me. I was happy that my amateur image was able to help this group of professional astronomers. The image below is an image from one of their press releases. It uses my image to show the visual appearance of the supernova with a zoomed in high resolution radio image of the supernova. Exposures: Left image: L:R:G:B exposures=184:70:70:70 minutes=7 hours 4 minutes total exposure. Right image: Same supplemented with LRGB=44:44:44:40 minutes=2hour 52minutes additional exposure at f/8.3.
This image was selected as Editors" Choice on SkyandTelescope.com and for SBIG Image Sharing on SBIG.com.
M101 imaged in May of 2012 shows that the supernova PTF11kly is still glowing. The supernova can be seen along the 5 o'clock radial from the core, about 3/4 the distance from the core to galaxy's edge, It appears distinctly blue in color. The supernova was a Type Ia discovered on 2011-08-24 by the Palomar Transient Factory. It peaked at magnitude 9.9 in mid September, 2011. Imaging it then was not possible because my view of it from my observatory dome was blocked by trees. Reports indicated it dropped to magnitude 13 by November. However, I was delighted to see it still glowing when the Oregon weather cleared in May, 2012 with the galaxy high in the sky for imaging. Exposures: L:R:G:B=275:80:75:75 minutes=8 hours 25 minutes total exposure at f/8.3.
This is an image of galaxy M82 in Ursa Major after the appearance of SN2014J. The jets of red hydrogen gas projecting out of the plane of the galaxy on each side are thought to be largely driven out by the frequent supernovae that occur within M82; they appear at a rate of about 1 per decade. SN2014J has a reddish-orange tint, due to scattering of light by M82's dust lanes interposed between us and the supernova. Exposures: Ha:L:R:G:B=360:330:190:190:190=21 hours total exposure at f/11.
This image will be published in the March, 2017 issue of Astronomy Magazine.
These images show M82 before and after the appearance of SN2014. The jets of red hydrogen gas projecting out of the plane of the galaxy on each side are thought to be largely driven out by the frequent supernovae that occur within M82; they appear at a rate of about 1 per decade. SN2014J has a reddish-orange tint, probably due to scattering of light by M82's dust lanes interposed between us and the supernova. Exposures: Left Image: H-alpha:L:R:G:B=360:240:100:100:100=15 hours total exposure obtained between 4/22 and 4/26/2013 Right Image: Same as above with addition of L:R:G:B exposures of 90:90:90:90=6 hours additional exposure obtained on 1/26/2014. Grand total exposure for Right Image=21 hours, all at f/11.
This image will be published in the March, 2017 issue of Astronomy Magazine.
The image at left is a close up of the western spiral arm of galaxy M101 taken in 2011 after supernova 2011PTFkly appeared. The image is the same field of view taken in 2017, long after the supernova has faded into obscurity. This was a type I supernova, which occurs when a white dwarf in a binary system siphons enough gas off its companion star to trigger a supernova within its core. This always occurs when the white dwarf reaches 1.4 solar masses. Hence all type I supernovae are of equal brightness and they serve as excellent standard candles to help determine the distance to the host galaxy. This is in contrast to type II supernovae that are blue giant stars rapidly depleting their fuel for nuclear fusion. They tend to occur in HII regions of galaxies and may be of different brightness depending upon the mass of the exploding star.
Left image: L:R:G:B=275:80:75:75 minutes=8 hours 25 minutes total exposure at f/8.3. Right image: L:R:G:B=320:190:190:180 minutes=14hours 30 minutes total exposure at f/7.2.
This image was published in the March, 2020 issue of Astronomy magazine.
In May of 2023, another supernova appeared in M101 in Ursa Major. This was just 12 years after a previous supernova in M101 in 2011. My previous observatory had been disassembled and my new observatory was still under construction when it occurred, so I couldn’t image it right away. When the new observatory became operational in June, I was able to get luminance data of the new supernova using the new CDK17 on the L500 mount, as it was still quite bright. I combined those luminance data showing the supernova with LRGB data acquired with the Compustar C14. The supernova is indicated with tick marks and can be seen just east of the red HII region NGC 5461 within one of M101’s spiral arms.
