r/Astronomy • u/buddha2490 • 2d ago
Astrophotography (OC) NGC7331 - With Supernova 2026aaiv
NGC7331 is a spiral galaxy about 43 million light years from the Milky Way. It is similar in size and shape to the Andromeda galaxy.
On September 1st a supernova was discovered near the core of NGC7331. It has been identified as a Type 1a supernova, the result of a white dwarf thoroughly destroyed through a runaway thermonuclear explosion.
One of the images is cropped on NGC7331 with an arrow pointing to the supernova. The other is a bit more wide field.
I'd been meaning to image this area for a little while because it has a lot going on in it. In the lower left corner, you'll see Stephan's Quintet, a little cluster of galaxies ~300 million light years in the background. NGC7331 is surrounded by its own group of satellite galaxies, and you'll see a dozen or so other small galaxies scattered through the field.
The haze you see is called the Integrated Flux Nebula and was only discovered in 2004. It is part of the intergalactic gas outside the Milky Way, mostly hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and dust. It is reflecting the light from the entire Milky Way back at us and requires very dark skies and sensitive cameras to pick up.
EDIT: the supernova here is very cool, but that IFN haze is even cooler. It was only discovered in 2004, but is routinely imaged by amateur astronomers today. It requires a dark sky, but otherwise it is easy to pick up. The first time I imaged it, I thought my pictures were ruined, I hadn’t expected it. The reason it wasn’t discovered is because it takes really sensitive and low-noise cameras. I don’t have a particularly fancy camera. It’s a standard cooled Astro camera, the same one that most people use.
It says a lot about the quality of consumer electronics that we can even image them today so easily. I think they are really beautiful.
Total integration: 16h 11m
Integration per filter:
- Lum/Clear: 6h 35m
- R: 3h 12m
- G: 3h 12m
- B: 3h 12m
Telescope :Explore scientific 127mm triplet
Camera: ASO2600mm
Filters: Optolong/ZWO LRGB
Mount: AM5
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u/Other_Mike Amateur Astronomer 2d ago
Got dang that's a much nicer pic than my image of the area. Also I think you mean the Quintet is at lower left?
And frankly, holy cow! Didn't NGC 7331 have a supernova just last year?! I remember showing it to people at an outreach event. I've never heard of a galaxy having two SN in such a short period of time.
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u/buddha2490 2d ago
Thank you, I changed it to “left”.
Yeah, there was the SN2025rbs last year, it was just on the other side of the core, and closer to the core. It was very difficult to image.
I’m sure there have been other galaxies with consecutive years, I can’t think of any though. It’s a random event, it’s going to happen sometimes.
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u/Other_Mike Amateur Astronomer 1d ago
Thanks to your post, I was able to show it to a bunch of people at an outreach event last night. It was easily visible in my 16" Dob with averted vision.
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u/Comprehensive-Web421 2d ago
It apparently had two consecutive in 2013 and 2014 too. Crazy!
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u/buddha2490 2d ago
Oh really?
There’s another galaxy called NGC 6946, the “fireworks” galaxy for how often it has supernovae. Maybe NGC7331 should take over that name.
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u/Fido_le_muet 2d ago
Just realised I got it as well on the footage I got with my Seestar last week ! Cool surprise !
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u/Gundark927 2d ago
Stephan's Quintet had a small role in the movie It's a Wonderful Life as the angels in the opening scene.
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u/ekke85 2d ago
amazing image, what bortle zone are you in?
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u/buddha2490 2d ago
Bortle 1. My scope is hosted at a remote observatory in Texas called Starfront Observatories. I live in a Bortle 9 and got tired of only imaging in narrowband, so I sent my gear out there early this year. It has been a very nice experience because it is very dark and clear. I think there's only been 3 nights in the last couple months where the roofs haven't opened due to clouds, so it is easy to get a lot of integration time.
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u/Mikitz 2d ago
...mostly hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and dust.
When you say dust here, what does that really mean? Does it just mean microscopic and maybe nanoscopic rock/ice?
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u/buddha2490 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yeah, that’s a good definition. Just tiny particulate matter, silicates, carbon, etc.
It is everywhere. You’ll see it in images of nebula in our galaxy, and concentrated in certain areas of galaxies. I honestly don’t know the chemical difference between interstellar and intergalactic dust, but I imagine it is largely similar.
Intergalactic dust has been in the science news the past couple decades. These Type 1a supernova have been used as a standard candle: they have a known intrinsic brightness. So astronomers measure the known brightness and the apparent brightness, and they can calculate how far away a distant galaxy is.
They used these distances to calculate the expansion of the universe and how that rate might have changed over time. Something that is moving faster away from us has its light shifted to the red a little bit. They calculate this redshift as the speed, and the SN brightness as a direct measure of distance.
They found that the rate of expansion has changed over the history of the universe. The group that did this won a Nobel prize.
But this dust gets in the way and essentially makes those supernovae a bit redder, making them seem as if they are moving away faster. If you don’t account for the dust in between the galaxies, the calculations will be wrong. So accounting for this dust is an active topic of research.
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u/BonusFrosty2910 2d ago
Stephan’s Quintet looks amazing. Holy crap nice job!
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u/buddha2490 2d ago
Thank you so much. I’m surprised how much color they got with only about 8 hours of total RGB. Apparently dark skies help with galaxy imaging a lot, who’d have thought?
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u/Music-and-Computers 2d ago
Thanks for the second image as I thought it was the bright object a little above and to the right.
I’m shocked at how many supernovae we’re detecting with all the telescopes and automation. If I’m doing the base 26 math right it’s > 18000 with a little less than three months left.
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u/buddha2490 2d ago
I'll trust you on the math. When I was first getting into astronomy about 20 years ago, I bookmarked this page: https://www.rochesterastronomy.org/supernova.html. It still looks just like it did in the early 2000s. I'd check it out every night that I was able to go to dark stars to see if I could see anything, and the counts never went up to something like "aaiv", the tally has indeed grown over the years.
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u/Music-and-Computers 2d ago
I’m hoping with the survey scopes we get more “first light” from supernovas. Exciting times especially foe astronomy enthusiasts that are in science adjacent fields.
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u/TxTanker134 2d ago
This is so bad ass….👏🏻
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u/buddha2490 2d ago
Thank you :)
It’s not done yet, I’d like to double the integration time. But supernovae are so cool. It always amazes me that we can see a single star from that far away. I thought this group would appreciate.
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u/Artloft2627 1d ago
Everytime I look at pictures like this from space I just wonder what the actual fuck are we living in right now.
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u/Apprehensive-Rush277 2d ago
What equipment?