M82 Supernova by Daniel Meek
M82 Supernova (Daniel Meek)

M82 Supernova by Daniel Meek

Photo of the Week for January 31, 2014 In mid-January, a supernova erupted in galaxy M82 in the […]

Photo of the Week for January 31, 2014

In mid-January, a supernova erupted in galaxy M82 in the constellation Ursa Major. By intergalactic standards, M82 is a near neighbour, at a distance of 12 million light-years from Earth. At its brightest, the supernova (indicated in the photo above with an arrow) looked like a 10.6-magnitude “star,” apparently in front of the galaxy.

M82 Supernova by Daniel Meek
M82 Supernova (Daniel Meek)

Daniel Meek of Calgary, Alberta, took this image of M82 on January 24, using a 5-inch Tele Vue-NP127is refractor and a QSI 583wsg CCD camera with a 2× Tele Vue Powermate Barlow lens. Six hours of RGB data were combined to create his colour image.