Vermont astronomer captures emerging supernova

WILLISTON, Vt. (WCAX) - We get all sorts of amazing viewer-submitted images here at WCAX, but one we received last week was truly out of this world. The image is of M101, also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy, and it captures a supernova. You might think only NASA can capture amazing images like this, but the picture was taken by a woman in Williston.

Now that she’s retired, Terri Zittritsch has plenty of space for her passions. “I had time to put some astronomy into my life, and it’s just one of my many hobbies -- I have a whole bunch of hobbies,” Zittritsch said.

The former electrical engineer has always loved outer space and photography. “It was an easy jump to put those two things together -- my love of astronomy and digital photography -- So I started out using digital SLR,” Zittritsch said. And that leads us to what she does now -- astrophotography -- though the set-up has advanced. “It’s a seven-inch refractor. It’s a Galilean telescope, so it focuses the light by some lenses in the front of the telescope.”

The high-tech telescope aligns with the night sky and Zittritsch can remotely point it to any object in the sky using sky maps. The camera attached to the telescope will capture frame after frame, each long exposure to capture as much light and color as possible. “And then we use software to combine them, to stack them, to de-blur them or deconvolve them,” Zittritsch said.

The resulting picture is a supernova, or explosion, inside of M101 about 21 million lightyears away.

With her finger on the pulse of astronomical news, Zittritsch said a simple notification from NASA about the supernova prompted her to capture the image. “As soon as I heard that, I knew I had to get a picture of it. I’ve never shot a supernova before, but I shoot things like comets. When the comets come out, I try to get pictures of those; I do eclipses,” she said.

The image is made up of 90 frames, each taken at two-minute intervals. Along with software and a touch of AI processing, Zittritsch is able to make the image look the way it does. It’s just one of many incredible works in her gallery. “This is called Thor’s Helmet and it’s a nebula,” she explained. “The blue is oxygen excitation, the red is hydrogen alpha.”

Nebulas, galaxies, or supernovas -- all of them, are images you can’t help but moon over.