IC 5145, Spiral Galaxy

Spiral Galaxy IC 5145 - Supernova 2003 hy

Galaxy IC 5145 and Supernova 2003 hy
A 14 minute CCD exposure taken with an ST-9E camera thru Kopernik's 20 inch F/8.1 telescope. Image taken at 0:35 UT on December 28, 2003. The field of view is 9x9 arc minutes with North at the top.

Supernova 2003 hy:

Discovered September 14th, 2003; Discovered about the same time by the UK amateurs Tom Boles and Mark Armstrong.
Magnitude at discovery: 16.6
Type: IIn (uncertain)
SN 2003hy may be a super-outburst of a luminous blue variable (LBV) rather than a true supernova, but the reported magnitude at discovery is brighter than that of a typical LBV outburst.
The supernova is dimmer than magnitude 19.4 in the Kopernik image, taken on December 28, 2003 at 0:35 UT.

Follow this Link to a NASA Web site on supernovas. It has a very nice animation and a description of what these objects are.

Spiral Galaxy IC 5145:

This 14.3 magnitude galaxy is in the constellation of Pegasus. It is a very low surface brightness Spiral galaxy. Even with a 14-minute exposure the Kopernik image does not show much detail in the arms. This galaxy is one of two discovered by Barnard. His rather poor data was apparently sent directly to Dreyer and thus the information in the 2nd Index Catalog is somewhat inaccurate and there is no description.

Based on the published red shift, (and a Hubble Constant of 62 Km/sec per Mpc) a rough distance estimate for IC 5145 and SN 2003 hy is 387 million light years, with a galaxy diameter of about 180,000 light years.

IC 5145
Magnitude: 14.3
Constellation: Pegasus
RA: 21h 54m 24.4s
Dec: +15° 08' 13" Epoch 2000
Size (mins): 1.6' x 0.9'
Classification: Sab, Spiral Galaxy

Click below to

George Normandin, KAS

December 29th, 2003