Luminous red nova 2021biy in NGC 4631 galaxy: an image – 13 Mar. 2021
We observed the luminous red nova (LRN) 2021biy in the beautiful NGC 4631 galaxy: here it is our image.
Luminous red nova 2021biy in NGC 4631 galaxy: 13 Mar. 2021.
The image above comes from the average of nine, 300-second exposures, unfiltered, remotely taken with the “Elena” (PlaneWave 17″+Paramount ME+SBIG STL-6303E) robotic unit available as part of the Virtual Telescope Project. The LRN transient is indicated by an arrow in the upper left inset.
The host galaxy is the beautiful spiral NGC 4631, nicknamed “The Whale”. Placed at about 12 millions of light years from us, it is relatively close, so we can even see this kind of eruptions, by far less dramatic (and much less bright) than typical supernova events. As for the LRN, we estimated 2021biy as bright as mag. 17.7 (unfiltered, R-mags for the reference stars from the Gaia DR2 star catalogue). This transient was discovered on 29 Jan. 2021 by the .
Further observations will follow, weather permitting.
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