Super Nova in NGC 7331 The Deer Lick Group

A Cosmic Beacon in NGC 7331: Supernova SN 2026aaiv

A new transient visitor has appeared in the iconic Deer Lick Group! Discovered on September 1, 2026 by the ATLAS survey system, SN 2026aaiv is a dramatic Type Ia supernova exploding inside the spiral arms of NGC 7331, roughly 40 million light-years away.

Type Ia supernovae peak rapidly over a few weeks before fading over subsequent months. While it will remain a prime imaging target for amateur astrophotographers through mid-to-late autumn, its peak brightness will only last for the next 3 to 4 weeks—so capture it while you can!

See the Difference: 2018 Color vs. 2026 Supernova

Hover your mouse over the black-and-white image to reveal my original 2018 color capture!

The base black-and-white frame is a new Master Red channel extracted from a fresh LRGB dataset I'm currently acquiring. Hovering over it reveals my full-color image of this exact same target taken back in 2018.

Comparing the two frames makes the supernova immediately obvious—it shines bright in the new dataset, but is completely absent from the 2018 frame! Side-by-side, it also shows how far imaging gear, optical calibration, CMOS tech, and processing algorithms (like noise reduction and star reduction) have advanced over the last 6 years in pulling out fine structural detail and subtle background IFN.