Dave Bishop from the Astronomy Section of the Rochester Academy of Science challenged us to attempt to capture the supernova in NGC 5128. This is a very unique looking galaxy waaaay down south. We pointed two of our telescopes at the galaxy over two nights. The galaxy never rises above 32 degrees S from our location, and we have severe light domes toward the horizon in all directions. We were only able to capture images of this galaxy for one hour each night.

We used the RiLA 600mm with FLI ML 8300 to capture L and Ha images, and we used our Planewave CDK 17 and Moravian 8300 to capture R, G, and B. This is the first time we've created one image from both telescopes. Here is our attempt at capturing our first supernova. In the additional image in the gallery below, the inset shows that the smaller point of light is the supernova, tucked in next to a foreground star from the Milky Way.