Image Description and Details : NGC 7814 is sometimes called the Little Sombrero for its resemblance to the brighter more famous M104, the Sombrero Galaxy. Both Sombrero and Little Sombrero are spiral galaxies seen edge-on, and both have extensive halos and central bulges cut by a thin disk with thinner dust lanes in silhouette. In fact, NGC 7814 is some 40 million light-years away and an estimated 60,000 light-years across. That actually makes the Little Sombrero about the same physical size as its better known namesake, appearing smaller and fainter only because it is farther away. In this view, NGC 7814 is hosting a newly discovered supernova, cataloged as SN 2021rhu, the stellar explosion has been identified as a Type Ia supernova, useful toward calibrating the distance scale of the universe.

Scope: Skywatcher 254/1000 reduced @960mm, f3.8
Camera: QHY8L @-10°C, gain 10, offset 113, with coma corrector Tecnosky 0.95x and Optolong L_pro filter
Guide: Skywatcher 70/500 with Asi120MM and UV/IR-cut filter Svbony
Mount: Skywatcher Eq6r Pro
Accessories: Zwo EAF
Management system: Raspberry PI4 with Stellarmate OS remotely controlled with Windows 10
Acquisition software: Kstars/Ekos
Frames: 144x300" calibrated with flat, dark and bias
Stacking and post-production softwares: AstroPixelProcessor, Pixinsight and Photoshop
Location: Ferrara (Italy), Bortle 6, SQM 19,22

Copyright: Massimo Di Fusco 

Image Description and Details :

The two images on the left date back to 23 June 2020 while the two on the right were made on 14 May 2021, the latter clearly highlight the presence of the nova V1405 Cas discovered on 18 March 2021 and which at the time had an approximate magnitude of 9 , 6 but in the last few days the magnitude has unexpectedly risen to about 5.2. It is hypothesized that the star that produced the nova is the eclipsing variable CzeV3217 located at a distance of about 5,500 light years from the Solar System, V1405 Cas was initially classified as a "classic nova" or the result of an explosion that occurred in a binary system consisting of a star and a white dwarf but further studies are currently underway.
In order to show more details the original frames were heavily cropped.

Images by: Luca Balestrieri Cosimelli & Nicoletta Guarniera

June 2020 image
23x360s
Skywatcher 150/750
Skywatcher AZ EQ5
Canon 200D

May 2021 image
15x300s
Skywatcher 200/800
Skywatcher AZ EQ6
SBIG STF8300C


Copyright:[Luca Balestrieri Cosimelli ][1]

Here is a view of the relatively new supernova SN 2020jfo located in the beautiful spiral galaxy Messier 61 in the constellation Virgo. The left image was taken on May 13, 2020 showing the bright supernova, the image on the right was taken on April 1, 2019. Doing a quick comparison, it looks to be hovering at magnitude 14. This supernova was discovered on 6th May 2020 by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF)

Tech Specs: Meade 12” LX-90, ZWO ASI071mc-Pro, 55 x 60 second exposures, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Captured using Sequence Generator Pro and processed using PixInsight. Image date: May 13, 2020. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA. — at The Dark Side Observatory.

Copyright: Thomas Wildoner