The sky was beautiful last night and I managed to get a nice conjunction of the planet Mars as it passes by two Messier Galaxies, M95 and M96.
Mars, M95 & M96
Skywatcher MN190 f/5
Canon EOS300D modified
EQ6 Pro autoguided
30 x 3 minute exposures @ ISO800
M95, shown on the right in this image, is a magnitude +11.4 barred spiral 36 million light years away from us.
M96, on the left, is a magnitude +10.6 type Sa spiral 31 million light years away.
Mars was shining brightly at magnitude -1.0 and is shown massively over-exposed here in this series of 3 minute exposures.
Look out for some great conjunctions on 25th or 26th March with the crescent Moon, Jupiter and Venus in the western early evening sky ; and Venus passing very close to the Pleiades (M45) on 2nd-4th April.
Hi Jerry
ReplyDeleteYou also managed to capture a suspect supernova in M95 which appeared 3 days ago. It is currently under investigation and may turn out to be a Nova in our own Galaxy rather than a Supernova in the M95 galaxy. More here
http://www.rochesterastronomy.org/supernova.html#PSNJ10435372+1140177
Cheers
Robin
Now confirmed as supernova sn2012aw (the spectrum shows it to be type IIp, a star which collapsed under its own gravity when it ran out of fuel) This was caught early so could get brighten enough to see visually in a small scope.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iau/cbet/003000/CBET003054.txt
Cheers
Robin