Hot take: That 'supernova' photo I nearly deleted was the real deal

I'm the guy who always double-checks everything, so when I saw a weird bright spot in my Orion Nebula shot last winter, I figured it was a lens flare or satellite trail. Almost hit delete on the whole set. But something made me zoom in and check the timestamps, and I realized that dot wasn't in my previous frames from 20 minutes earlier. Turns out I'd accidentally caught SN 2023ixf, the supernova in M101, just a few hours after it was first reported by that amateur in Japan. What convinced me was comparing my image to the official light curve data on the AAVSO site. I know it sounds like bragging but I swear I almost trashed it. Anyone else ever come close to deleting something that turned out to be legit?

2 comments

2 Comments

adams.taylor1mo ago

Did you ever notice how the things we almost delete end up being the most important? I've got a whole folder of "almost deleted" meteor photos that look like noise but are absolutely real.

the_phoenix1mo ago

Three years ago I almost deleted a photo of the night sky that just looked like a smudgy gray blob. Turns out it was a rare satellite flare crossing right through the Milky Way, and now it's my desktop wallpaper. I've learned my lesson, so now I keep everything, even the blurry pictures of my own thumb. My phone storage is a disaster zone of "maybe important" junk, but I'm too scared to clean it out. If I ever lose my phone, I'm pretty sure some stranger is gonna find 4,000 photos of trees and questionable sunsets.