Hi,

A nice Supernova in the Whirlpool Galaxy, M51. I imaged it with my DSLR Camera.
See Variable Star Nights

The SN is about 2.7' SE of the nucleus of M51. I found it too faint to see with the 106mm refractor. It was mag 13.5 at discovery.

John

Now thats interesting, I hope it lasts a good while yet. At 13.5 its well within the limits of the 20" so hopefully I get a chance to visually catch this extragalactic supernova

Palomar Observatory eve began a Facebook campaign seeking amateur astronomers to take part, especially if they imaged M51 in the past week. The progenator star has not yet bee identified.

palomarskies.blogspot.com/2011/06/amateu...-help-ptf-study.html

M51 really has had a few supernovae in the past decade or two, whereas the Milky Way?... Nada.

Seanie.

Its possible that we can only see SN's that are relatively close in our own galaxy due to the line of sight problem looking through the densely packed plain of the Milky Way. Looking face on would not be an issue as in M51.

well just confirmed the supernova, seen it visually through the 20", not hard to see at all, I guess it would be brighter again under a dark sky and no light pollution and dark adaption, a shade dimmer then the star next to it, the one not on the spiral arm.
Very cool to see one visually when you can only imagine what it must look like from a planetary system in that galaxy!

From Sky and Telescope:

M51 Supernova brightening. Supernova 2011dh, which was discovered in the Whirlpool Galaxy, M51, on May 31st, has been brightening ever since — though the brightening is now leveling off. As of June 16th the supernova was about V magnitude 12.6 and visible in a lot more amateur telescopes.

thats great news, lets hope we get a view of it again soon.

Forgot to post this, here's an image and spectrum taken of Sne 2011dh from June 3rd;

www.webtreatz.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=81

I've seen this visually with my 8" newt and meade 8.8UWA on Sat 12th. It was not easy, but I did compare what I could see to pre-discovery photos and the star that I was looking at was definitely not one of those already present on the pre-discovery images.
I couldn't see the spiral arms for definite, but I could see the cores of M51 and NGC5195 and I could use those to reference directions and distance to the field stars.