Armchair astronomers may catch a glimpse of an exploding star, better known as a supernova, just by looking at the big dipper.
The star is about 21 million light years away in the Pinwheel Galaxy, just above the big dipper. The supernova was first spotted by telescopes Aug. 23 and it is expected to reach it’s peak brightness Thursday and Friday.
USA Today reports that amateur stargazers with a six inch telescope or a powerful set of binoculars can sharpen the blurry image of the Pinwheel Galaxy. The best time to look is just after sunset.
Dr. Dale Ireland of Silverdale sent us the attached photo that he took last Thursday night from his backyard. He used his 130mm f/6 telescope and a CCD camera. He took 15 exposures of five minutes each and added them together with special software for amateur astronomers called MaxIMDL, so the total exposure time was 75 minutes.
If such an explosion happened in our own Milky Way Galaxy, astronomers say you’d probably be able to see it in the daytime.
Visit USA Today’s website for more on this phenomenon and a diagram of where to look in the sky.
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