A star is exploding 45 million light-years away — here's how you can see it

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An extraordinary exploding star has been spotted in a distant galaxy, and astrophotographers are racing to capture it before it fades from view.

The supernova, called SN 2026aaiv, was first seen by the ATLAS survey on Sept. 1 in NGC 7331 (also known as Caldwell 30), a spiral galaxy about 45 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus, visible in the Northern Hemisphere and at mid-latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere.

That makes this supernova a prime target for amateur astrophotographers and astronomers worldwide to capture an image of this rare event.

Hundreds of astrophotographers have already captured it, including Andrew McCarthy, who posted his image on Instagram on Sept. 7 with the message, "As luck would have it, I happened to be in the middle of a massive project with this galaxy, and caught the supernova." He shot four hours of data, two before and two after the supernova, as part of a 100-hour project. "The final image will be EPIC!" he said.

Tom Masterson, Mountain Operations Manager at the Mount Wilson Observatory, also captured it on Sept. 10 using a 60-inch telescope.

What you'll need to find SN 2026aaiv

At magnitude 15.7 on Sept. 11, 2026, SN 2026aaiv is relatively dim, but still brightening. Many of the images posted online were captured with large professional telescopes or remote telescopes in dark regions. However, you can find and photograph SN 2026aaiv with relatively modest equipment. You'll need a telescope or large binoculars to see NGC 7331 (at magnitude 10) at all, but the supernova is dramatically more challenging visually. To have a chance of seeing SN 2026aaiv, a large telescope is recommended (observers have confirmed seeing it using a 14-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope). Use the averted vision technique: look slightly to the side of the galaxy's core so the eye's more light-sensitive rod cells can reveal faint detail.

The easiest way is to use a smart telescope, which can quickly find and image the host galaxy NGC 7331. According to Seestar (Official ZWO Group) on Facebook, users of the Seestar S50 have managed to image the SN 2026aaiv with about two hours of 10-second exposures (the default mode).

How to find SN 2026aaiv

SN 2026aaiv has the coordinates RA 22h 37m 05.618s, Dec +34° 24′ 35.37″. From the Northern Hemisphere, turn toward the east after dark, and you'll see four large, bright stars rising in a vast diamond shape. This is the Great Square of Pegasus, part of the constellation Pegasus. At the northwestern corner of the Great Square is Scheat. Just above it, outside the square, is a dimmer star called Matar. NGC 7331 is close by. In light-polluted skies, only the central core of the galaxy is visible, according to NASA. The galaxy, which we see partially edge-on, has spectacular spiral arms that swirl around a bright central region.

What we know about SN 2026aaiv

SN 2026aaiv is a Type Ia supernova, a catastrophic explosion that occurs when a white dwarf in a binary star system gains enough material from its companion to trigger a runaway thermonuclear reaction, destroying the white dwarf. Remarkably, another Type Ia supernova, SN 2025rbs, was found in the same galaxy on July 14, 2025.

NGC 7331, imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2018, was first found in 1784 by British astronomer William Herschel, who cataloged over 2,500 deep-sky objects and discovered Uranus and its two largest moons. NGC 7331 is similar in size, shape and mass to the Milky Way.