"On January 21st a group of astronomy students spotted Supernova 2014J in M82, the famous nearby irregular galaxy in Ursa Major. It peaked at V magnitude 10.5 during the first week of February, and as of March 5th it was still visible in amateur scopes about magnitude 12."
I took the image below on the 16th of February, with no darks or bias and guiding was pretty poor due to some wind.
Also M81 can be seen but not enough detail unfortunately.
"Spectra showed it to be a Type Ia supernova — an exploded white dwarf — with debris originally expanding at up to 20,000 kilometers per second.
M82 is a near neighbor as galaxies go, at a distance of 11 or 12 million light-years. It's a favorite for amateur astronomers and researchers alike with its thick dust bands, sprays of hydrogen gas, and bright center undergoing massive star formation. The supernova is not in the central star-forming region but off to one side, 58 arcseconds to the west-southwest."
Clear skies,
Andrei
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