[Friends_of_SSASTROS] New Supernova

[Mike McCabe]

Greetings Astro Enthusiasts,
You've probably already heard about a new supernova in the galaxy M101 in Ursa Major. What you may not know is that it is an entirely viable object for amateurs using small telescopes. At its current magnitude of 11.9 (and likely to get brighter) it's on the limit for a 4" scope, and easier in anything larger than that. All you need is a chart to help you figure out where it is. That's where I come in. Charts are my specialty. I'll leave it up to you to find M101, but once you're on it you can use the supplied chart to navigate the field at low power (the chart is about 1.5° top to bottom). Once you've got your orientation you can then zoom in a little and use the noted neighboring stars to home in on the supernova. The cool part of the whole thing is that normally there would be nothing there, but an exploding star has brightened so much that we can easily see it from 21 million light years away...and oh yeah, this event happened 21 million years ago!
Printable version attached.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ssastros.org/pipermail/friends_of_ssastros_ssastros.org/attachments/20230522/46e0514a/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 1684766763250blob.jpg
Type: image/png
Size: 99410 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://ssastros.org/pipermail/friends_of_ssastros_ssastros.org/attachments/20230522/46e0514a/attachment.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Supernova in Messier 101.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 215234 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://ssastros.org/pipermail/friends_of_ssastros_ssastros.org/attachments/20230522/46e0514a/attachment.pdf>