SUNSET: 
0
Photographer:
Jon Greif
Location of Photo:
St. George, UT, captured remotely from La Jolla, CA USA
Date/Time of photo:
June 12, 2023 between 12:30 and 2:30 AM PDT
Equipment:
17 inch Planewave CDK reflecting telescope, FLI-PL6303E Monochrome CCD camera, LRGB filters, Pixinsight Processing software.
Description:
On May 23, the Japanese astronomer Koichi Itagaki reported the explosion of a star in the nearby galaxy, M101 (aka "Pinwheel")...subsequent review of data from Palomar Observatory determined that light from the explosion first reached the Earth 2 days earlier. The explosion was the result of a massive star running out of fuel and collapsing creating what is known as a Supernova, and this one was dubbed SN2023ixf. At just 21 million light years away, it becomes the closest Supernova to the Earth in the past 5 years. There have been no clear nights in our area for the past month, so I resorted to gathering the data for this image remotely from the iTelescope.net observatory near St. George, Utah. It is a total exposure of 100 minutes, divided evenly through red, green, blue and clear filters, using a 17 inch CDK reflecting telescope.
