8th July

M51 Supernova
  The supernova is now fading.
Magnitude 13.72












  I have no recent magnitude estimates from other people, hence the lack of data points to the right.

The series of points that seem to be plotting a separate line above the others are magnitudes derived with blue filters.











M31 nova PNV J00430685+4115308
A nova was spotted in M31 on July 1st. It is hard to find in this image, being close to the galaxy core.





A cropped negative image shows the nova.

Magnitude estimates are difficult because of the nearby core.
Readings on four frames give 20.55, 18.49, 18.19, and 17.03

     


9th July

Abell 2065 Galaxy cluster
10x10 minutes. Conditions were awful, with all images taken through wispy cloud.

Abell 2065 is a very distant cluster of about 400 galaxies. The distance from us is between 1.0 and 1.5 billion light years,
so this is probably the furthest object I have imaged.
Nearly all the objects in the image are galaxies, with just a handful of stars that belong to our galaxy.



This shows the positions of the brighter galaxies




11th July
  Updated magnitudes for the M51 supernova just published.
My value for 8th July agrees closely with Gary Poyner's.















  14th July

Full Moon prevented any imaging, but the magnitude of the supernova could still be measured.

It has dimmed to 14.26





















  Converting magnitude values to relative brightness gives this curve.

The starting point is arbitrary, as the magnitude of the star before the explosion would have been unmeasurably dim.

I chose a value of 18, which is about the limit of my telescopes' detection in10 minute exposures.

The plateau from days 12 to 25 shows the supernova to be a type II supernova.


Hubble images
Hubble images are often published at a scale similar to the ones produced by amateurs.
It is easy to lose sight of the incredible resolution of full-scale Hubble images.
This shows ngc3314 produced by Hubble, and the size it would appear if imaged by my 10" Newtonian.



23rd July
  The M51 supernova appears to have got a little brighter.
Perhaps my value from the 14th is inaccurate...







 
       
       


Sky conditions were better than the 14th July.

7x10 minutes on Abell 2065