20 million years ago, long before mankind was even walking upright, that alone backing the rocks together, a white war star and a distant galaxy reached a critical mass and exploded with a violence that can scarcely be countenanced. At such a brief time, it shone with comparable luminosity to the rest of the entire galaxy. Supernova. Now, some 20 million years later, that light is just about to reach the Earth. Menteed, it's shining on me right now. The telescope is pointing right at it. It's just you can't see it yet because it's lost in the late evening twilight. However, later in the full dark, I'm going to show you that supernova. It's actually up there in the Big Dipper. There's a major. It's a fairly bright galaxy as galaxies go. M101. That is, if you can actually currently see the Big Dipper, then you're being bathed in the light of one of the most violent explosions at the University of Concontra. Now, by chance, I'd actually taken a picture of this galaxy about a month ago and went out there a couple of nights ago to get a picture of this phenomenal fireworks. Indeed, by some reckonings, it's the closest type 1A supernova for some 40 years, but it's only just beginning. The point where I may yet well be able to show you this thing, life from the eyepiece and not these minutes to hours long exposures. So, yeah, I mean, it's a hell of a hunt to take in, but I was thinking of doing a time lapse on this one for you. Well, come on. I think down sunset on the moon, the rotation of Jupiter and the movement of Uranus. How much bigger and better can you get than doing a time lapse of an exploding star on a distant galaxy? However, for the moment, all I can do is show you the galaxy at the end of July and on August the 25th, I'll leave updates on my blog and Twitter, but until then, I'll leave you to take a first look at one of the biggest baddest booms that you ever lied to see. I'm telling you, if you'd lit the blue touch paper on this one, your ears would be ringing for weeks.