On the 1st September 2026 a new supernova was discovered in the spiral galaxy NGC 7331 in Pegasus and was designated SN 2026aaiv. At discovery, this Type Ia supernova was a faint 17th magnitude but by September 15th it had brightened a 100 times to about magnitude 12. On that evening the sky was clear and the moon was 3 days before first quarter and not interfering with observation. I thought I would have a go at seeing if I could image this faint object and the galaxy it is found in and this is what I obtained after 246x15s (1 hour 1.5 minutes) of observation with my Dwarf 3 smartscope:-
The first frame was taken at 21:55 BST and the last at 23:13. The astro filter was employed and the gain was set to 60. Auto parameters were used in Stellar Studio. I have increased the saturation and brightness of the image in Photoshop and binned it x2 (please click on the image to see a full-size view). The galaxy NGC 7331 is seen in the centre of this image. Here is a crop of this image at the full resolution of the scope:-
The supernova can indeed be seen in this image and I have marked it with the green lines. It is quite close to the centre of the galaxy. What is amazing is that it looks to be as bright as the central core of NGC 7331 which contains millions of stars; so a single exploding star can rival the brightness of all these other stars put together. Type Ia supernovas occur in binary star systems where one of the stars is a white dwarf. When the dwarf has stolen enough material from its companion it undergoes a rapid runaway nuclear explosion which rips the stars apart. So much energy is produced that the explosion can be seen from great distances away (NGC 7331 is 47 million light-years distant).
All text and images © Duncan Hale-Sutton 2026
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