As first I described on Friday, August 26, a type Ia supernova discovered on Wednesday, August 24, in the nearby galaxy M101 in Ursa Major is the nearest type Ia supernova astronomers have found since 1972. The brightness of this exploding star is on the rise and now shines at about 10th magnitude, presumably near maximum.

On Saturday, August 27, Tom Bash shot this fine portrait of M101 and its supernova at the Julian Starfest in Julian, California. He used a Celestron HD-11 on a CGEM-DX mount, an SBIG STL-1301E CCD camera with AO-L and Custom Scientific filters, and exposures of 30 minutes (clear filter) and 60 minutes of binned RGB (2x2).

Let us know at Astronomy about your observations of the M101 supernova over the coming days and please send us any photos you take— we’ll be publishing them online and sharing them with the largest audience of amateur astronomers on the planet.

You can send images and observations to editor@astronomy.com and to our photo editor Michael Bakich at readergallery@astronomy.com.