And when you're stargazing, Orion's telescope cases and covers, observing gear, red LED flashlights, astronomy books and star charts will make your observing sessions more convenient, comfortable and meaningful.Īt Orion, we are committed to sharing our knowledge and passion for astronomy and astrophotography with the amateur astronomy community. Capture breathtaking photos with our affordable astrophotography cameras. Expand your viewing experience with accessories ranging from moon filters to power-boosting Barlow lenses to advanced computerized telescope mounts. Orion's telescope and astrophotography accessories will enhance your telescope enjoyment without breaking the bank. We offer binoculars for every viewing interest, including astronomical binoculars, compact binoculars, waterproof binoculars, birding binoculars, and sport and hunting binoculars. Orion binoculars are known for quality optics at a great price. Not sure how to choose a telescope? Orion's Telescope Buyer's Guide is a great place to start. Because we sell direct, we can offer you tremendous value at a great price. From our entry level beginner telescopes for amateur astronomers to our Dobsonian telescopes to our most advanced Cassegrain telescopes and accessories, you can find the best telescope for you. Orion offers telescopes for every level: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and Expert. Our 100% satisfaction guarantee says it all. Now an employee-owned company, we pride ourselves on an unswerving commitment to best quality products, value and unmatched customer care. Although the AAVSO chart mostly only listed comparison stars between 11th to 14th magnitude, I could interpolate somewhat, and estimate the SN at between magnitude 10.7 and 11.0 as observed with the Edmund SuperPlössl (WF) 8mm, 60x eyepiece.Since 1975 Orion Telescopes & Binoculars has been offering telescopes for sale direct to customers. This corresponded perfectly with the position as plotted on the AAVSO finder chart found on the Sky & Telescope website. Temperature 74 degrees F.Īmazing view of this new supernova using such a small aperture! The SN was obvious and was the only bright stellar object within the outer halo of M101, located to the SE of the core. Transparency was 8/10 with some passing clouds and seeing was about 1". Here is my observing report using only 70 mm of aperture (Televue Ranger 70 F/6.9 refractor). I observed the new supernova (SN 2023ixf) in M101 this evening (10:02 UT on ) from the dark skies of West Molokai, Hawaii. Type II events leave a neutron star or black hole in their wake - the tiny remnant of a life lived bigly. Material falling inward bounces off the shrinking core, creating shock waves that rebound outward and rip the supergiant apart in a titanic explosion. No longer able to beat back gravity's crush, the star suddenly collapses. Stable as a proverbial brick house, it takes crazy amounts of energy to fuse it - energy the star can't produce. Each step liberates energy that pushes back against the force of gravity and stabilizes the star. Massive suns fuse simpler elements into more complicated ones all the way up to iron. Spectra indicate that SN 2023ixf is a Type II supernova - the catastrophic destruction of an aging supergiant star. Kirshner (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) The two bright objects are stars in the LMC. The ring, about a light-year across, was probably shed by the star about 20,000 years before it exploded. The supernova's shock wave slammed into clumps of material along the ring's inner regions, causing them to glow as hotspots. But the most prominent feature is the ring surrounding that debris. The central, keyhole-shaped feature is debris from the blast. Taken in 2006, this Hubble image shows the region around SN 1987A - also a Type II supernova - that erupted in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) in 1987. In the space of a weekend, the supernova became within reach of a 4.5-inch telescope! As of Sunday night, May 21st, it had climbed to magnitude 11.1 and showed no signs of stopping. The star had skyrocketed to magnitude 13.5 just 11 hours after discovery. As soon as the aurora faded back, I set the telescope up for a look. Although the lights were spectacular, I couldn't wait to get my eyes on the new star. That same night, a major auroral display lit up the sky here in northern Minnesota. I heard the news about a magnitude-14.9 supernova in the galaxy M101 in Ursa Major on Friday evening, May 19th. M101 lies approximately 21 million light-years away, making this one of the closest supernovae visible in recent years. The object is located 227.7″ east and 134.1″ south of the galaxy's center at R.A. Discovered on May 19th at magnitude 14.9, it has already brightened to magnitude 11. The new supernova SN 2023ixf, pictured here on May 21st, shines close to a prominent HII region, NGC 5461, in an outer spiral arm of the bright galaxy M101.
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