diff --git a/radiospectra/spectrogram2/spectrogram.py b/radiospectra/spectrogram2/spectrogram.py
index 7579048..83881be 100644
--- a/radiospectra/spectrogram2/spectrogram.py
+++ b/radiospectra/spectrogram2/spectrogram.py
@@ -150,6 +150,7 @@ def plot(self, axes=None, **kwargs):
 
         Returns
         -------
+        im : `matplotlib.cm.ScalarMappable`
         """
         if axes is None:
             fig, axes = plt.subplots()
@@ -167,7 +168,7 @@ def plot(self, axes=None, **kwargs):
 
         axes.set_title(title)
         axes.plot(self.times.datetime[[0, -1]], self.frequencies[[0, -1]], linestyle="None", marker="None")
-        axes.pcolormesh(self.times.datetime, self.frequencies.value, data[:-1, :-1], shading="auto", **kwargs)
+        im = axes.pcolormesh(self.times.datetime, self.frequencies.value, data[:-1, :-1], shading="auto", **kwargs)
         axes.set_xlim(self.times.datetime[0], self.times.datetime[-1])
         locator = mdates.AutoDateLocator(minticks=4, maxticks=8)
         formatter = mdates.ConciseDateFormatter(locator)
@@ -175,6 +176,13 @@ def plot(self, axes=None, **kwargs):
         axes.xaxis.set_major_formatter(formatter)
         fig.autofmt_xdate()
 
+        for i in plt.get_fignums():
+            if axes in plt.figure(i).axes:
+                plt.sca(axes)
+                plt.sci(im)
+
+        return im
+
 
 class NonUniformImagePlotMixin:
     """