Date: June 4, 2011 1:00AM PDT

Location: Victoria Centre Observatory, Observatory Hill, Victoria, BC, Canada

Whirlpool Galaxy is host to supernovae on a regular basis. This SN was discovered on May 31st by French amateur astronomer Amédée Riou.

Equipment: 14" Meade LX-200 SCT operating at f/10; QSI 583c colour CCD camera; Paramount ME equatorial mount, guided with Orion autoguider & PHD guiding software. Image acquisition by Nebulosity.

Image parameters: 10x5 minute exposures; 1x1 bin; one shot colour. 3x5 minute dark frames; 13.7°C ambient temperature; CCD temperature -20°C

Processing:
ImagesPlus 4.25 x64 - Auto Image Set Processing for Generic RGB CCD; calibrated using dark frames. Digital Development - aggressive contrast stretch applied.
ACDSee Pro 4: midtone contrast stretch, colour balance, crop, reduce colour depth from 48 bit to 24 bit; save as jpg.