It’s about a total 3 hr exposure with a 11in CPC1100, using a canon 60d (iso 2500). 30s exposures, throwing away bad exposures (about 60 %) to yield this using deepskystacker (using about 50 dark frames). The arrow indicates the supernova.
Supernova in M101, August 25th 2011, about a 3 hr exposure with an 11in scope and 2500 iso on a canon D60.
Clearly an improvement of the first attempt which only included about 12 minutes of ‘sky time.’
Right, now back off to the pass to do the same thing again tonight! Me= CRAZY! :-p
-All images available under creative commons license, attribution Thunderf00t 🙂
The great thing about time lapse and high speed photography, is they give you a sense of the orders of magnitude of time, from the beat of a humming birds wings (below), to the movement of a distant planet.
However, there really is a limit to the motions you can see, and capture in the heavens on a human time-scale. The further away things are, the more they have to change for you to be able to see them. I figured that after sunset on the moon,
the rotation of Jupiter,
and the motion of Uranus and its moons, that was pretty much as far an object as you could look at!
Yup there is a supernova popping off in a nearby galaxy, M101, which by pure chance I took a picture of last month! and yes, I intend to do the time lapse of a star exploding in another galaxy!
M101, taken on 29th July 2011, with cpc1100 and canon60D (~10min exposure)
Now it should be said that this is a MONSTROUS undertaking. SNs typically brighten and fade over a period of weeks! This is all but perfect, arguably a once in lifetime experience. A potentially bright SN, in a nearby galaxy, near the new moon, when I have the time to spend on it! We are a few days before the new moon, which means I can get good observations for maybe two weeks, before the moons glare washes the galaxy out.
Thunderf00t 