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I measured a supernova from my backyard with help from the AI

He caught the new supernova SN 2026aaiv in NGC 7331 from his backyard with a Seestar S50, taking 371 ten-second shots. With a lot of help from the AI he measured its brightness for the first time, getting V = 12.5 plus or minus 0.2.

How it works

  1. Photographs the supernova with a Seestar S50, 371 shots of 10 seconds each
  2. Works with AI to measure the stacked image
  3. Gets a brightness of V = 12.5 plus or minus 0.2

Why it’s worth knowing

A backyard photo of a supernova turned into an actual brightness measurement, done by a hobbyist who had never measured one before.

Where it’s from

Summarized from a public post on bsky.app. See the original ↗

Upgraded prompt

A ready-to-use prompt for this idea, built from research on what makes AI agents do the job right: who the AI should be, the exact steps, and a check to make sure it was done the way you wanted.

1Who the AI should be
2The prompt, with the steps
3The check when it’s done
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