Supernova SN 2025rbs in NGC7331 Deer Lick Galaxy in Pegasus
About 40 million years ago in a galaxy far, far away a White Dwarf and its binary companion fought their own Star War. The result was a spectacular supernova in that galaxy which outshone even the galactic core. It will have been a spectacular event for all of the citizens of the star systems in that galaxy.
This month, the light from this explosion eventually reached here, being first seen by citizens of good old planet Earth on 14 July 2025. And ten days later by me and my C11.
You can see the supernova in my photo. It is the bright spot to the right of the core of the galaxy. You can zoom in on the picture to see the detail for yourself.
For a more technical description:
The Deer Lick galaxy, NGC 7331, is an unbarred spiral galaxy located 39.8 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus.
On 14 July 2025, a supernova, named SN 2025rbs, was discovered in this galaxy. It is a type Ia supernova: which typically takes place in binary star systems, in which one of the components is a white dwarf. The white dwarf receives a flux of matter from a more massive companion star, creating an accretion disk which collapses and eventually ends up in a supernova explosion.
Shorter exposures (3 seconds and 20 seconds) did not capture the detail of the galaxy. With longer exposures (120 seconds) the glow of the galaxy burned out the supernova. I compromised with 30-second frames).
The sky clouded over after about 20 minutes so the result is not as good as the picture I got of NGC7331 last year.
~
Telescope: Celestron C11-A XLT Schmidt Cassegrain OTA
Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro
Controller: ZWO ASIAIR Plus
Main Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro at -10C
Filter: ZWO UV/IR cut filter
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI174MM Mini guidecam
Guide via: ZWO OAG
Stacked from:
Lights 35 at 30 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C
Darks 30 at 30 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C
Flat 30 at 560 ms, gain 101, temp -10C
Dark Flat 30 at 560 ms, gain 101 temp -10C
Bortle 4 sky.
Integrated the saved frames in Astro Pixel Processor.
Processed in PixInsight
Cropped and captions added in Photoshop CS4
Supernova SN 2025rbs in NGC7331 Deer Lick Galaxy in Pegasus
About 40 million years ago in a galaxy far, far away a White Dwarf and its binary companion fought their own Star War. The result was a spectacular supernova in that galaxy which outshone even the galactic core. It will have been a spectacular event for all of the citizens of the star systems in that galaxy.
This month, the light from this explosion eventually reached here, being first seen by citizens of good old planet Earth on 14 July 2025. And ten days later by me and my C11.
You can see the supernova in my photo. It is the bright spot to the right of the core of the galaxy. You can zoom in on the picture to see the detail for yourself.
For a more technical description:
The Deer Lick galaxy, NGC 7331, is an unbarred spiral galaxy located 39.8 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus.
On 14 July 2025, a supernova, named SN 2025rbs, was discovered in this galaxy. It is a type Ia supernova: which typically takes place in binary star systems, in which one of the components is a white dwarf. The white dwarf receives a flux of matter from a more massive companion star, creating an accretion disk which collapses and eventually ends up in a supernova explosion.
Shorter exposures (3 seconds and 20 seconds) did not capture the detail of the galaxy. With longer exposures (120 seconds) the glow of the galaxy burned out the supernova. I compromised with 30-second frames).
The sky clouded over after about 20 minutes so the result is not as good as the picture I got of NGC7331 last year.
~
Telescope: Celestron C11-A XLT Schmidt Cassegrain OTA
Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro
Controller: ZWO ASIAIR Plus
Main Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro at -10C
Filter: ZWO UV/IR cut filter
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI174MM Mini guidecam
Guide via: ZWO OAG
Stacked from:
Lights 35 at 30 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C
Darks 30 at 30 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C
Flat 30 at 560 ms, gain 101, temp -10C
Dark Flat 30 at 560 ms, gain 101 temp -10C
Bortle 4 sky.
Integrated the saved frames in Astro Pixel Processor.
Processed in PixInsight
Cropped and captions added in Photoshop CS4