1208 replies to this topic

[deSitter]

M51 – The Whirlpool Galaxy in Canes Venatici
Telescope: Unitron 155 4” f/15 refractor, Atlas EQ-G
Camera: Canon EOS Ra full frame DSLR
Filter: 2” GSO IR Cut Filter
Guide scope: Orion 50mm Guidescope, ASI120MM, PHD, Dithered every 4 subs
Exposure: 10x240sec, ISO 1600, saved as RAW
Darks: Internal (Long Exposure Noise Reduction)
Flats: 32x1/10s sky flats taken at dusk
Average Light Pollution: Bortle 8, fair transparency
Lensed Sky Quality Meter: 18.5 mag/arc-sec^2
Stacking: Mean with a 1-sigma clip
White Balance: Nebulosity Automatic
Software: Backyard EOS, Deepsky Stacker, Nebulosity, Photoshop

 

M51 (5-7-2022)-2j.jpg

 

This field needs more subs and better conditions, but since I am limited to imaging on the east side of the meridian that will have to wait until next year.

 

M51 is a beautiful face-on spiral galaxy in Canes Venatici, just south of Alkaid, the bright star that lies at the eastern end of the Big Dipper. The spiral arm that appears to connect M51 to the nearby companion (NGC 5195) is a bit of an illusion. The companion actually lies behind M51, and if you look closely you can see that the spiral arm is silhouetted against the background galaxy. Modern observations and computer modeling suggest that the companion has made at least two passes through the main disk of M51. During the first, it approached M51 from behind, passed through the face of the galaxy, swung around in an orbit that took it in front, and then back through the disk where it lies now behind M51. These passes set off bursts of star formation that gives the arms of M51 their beautiful blue color.

That's just fantastic!! 

 

-drl

[Borodog]

Moonkiller strikes again. 1985 C8. Click for the full resolution image on Astrobin.

 

[deSitter]

Moonkiller strikes again. 1985 C8. Click for the full resolution image on Astrobin.

 

Can you rotate this 90 degree CW? Reminds me of the famous Moon image from Lick Observatory - in Sky Observer's Guide!

 

-drl

[deSitter]

Moonkiller strikes again. 1985 C8. Click for the full resolution image on Astrobin.

 

I *think* I see St George crater on the flank of Hadley Delta. That's a difficult target! I saw it - barely - in ideal conditions with an RV-6.

 

-drl

[Borodog]

I *think* I see St George crater on the flank of Hadley Delta. That's a difficult target! I saw it - barely - in ideal conditions with an RV-6.

 

-drl

 

Thanks, although I don't think St. George is visible in this particular image. I believe it's in shadow on the eastern side of the slope to the west of the rille. I have it in other images, though, from somewhat later phase.

[jgraham]

Wow, gorgeous! Nicely done!

[Borodog]

Wow, gorgeous! Nicely done!

Thank you very much!

 

2 nights later, again the '85 C8. Once again, please click to view the Full Monty on Astrobin. Thanks for looking.

 

[jgraham]

NGC 5907 – The Splinter Galaxy in Draco
Telescope: Unitron 155 4” f/15 refractor, Atlas EQ-G
Camera: Canon EOS Ra full frame DSLR
Filter: 2” GSO IR Cut Filter
Guide scope: Orion 50mm Guidescope, ASI120MM, PHD, Dithered every 4 subs
Exposure: 17x180sec, ISO 1600, saved as RAW
Darks: Internal (Long Exposure Noise Reduction)
Flats: 32x1/10s sky flats taken at dusk
Average Light Pollution: Bortle 8, fair transparency
Lensed Sky Quality Meter: 18.5 mag/arc-sec^2
Stacking: Mean with a 1-sigma clip
White Balance: Nebulosity Automatic
Software: Backyard EOS, Deepsky Stacker, Nebulosity, Photoshop

 

 

NGC 5907, the Splinter Galaxy, is very slender edge-on spiral galaxy with a small central bulge and a pronounced dust lane. The dust lane shows some wonderful detail and gives the core a beautiful amber color. The galaxy itself is something of a giant lying 59 million light years away and 180,000 light years across.

[deSitter]

NGC 5907 – The Splinter Galaxy in Draco
Telescope: Unitron 155 4” f/15 refractor, Atlas EQ-G
Camera: Canon EOS Ra full frame DSLR
Filter: 2” GSO IR Cut Filter
Guide scope: Orion 50mm Guidescope, ASI120MM, PHD, Dithered every 4 subs
Exposure: 17x180sec, ISO 1600, saved as RAW
Darks: Internal (Long Exposure Noise Reduction)
Flats: 32x1/10s sky flats taken at dusk
Average Light Pollution: Bortle 8, fair transparency
Lensed Sky Quality Meter: 18.5 mag/arc-sec^2
Stacking: Mean with a 1-sigma clip
White Balance: Nebulosity Automatic
Software: Backyard EOS, Deepsky Stacker, Nebulosity, Photoshop

 

NGC 5907 (5-7-2022)-1j.jpg

 

NGC 5907, the Splinter Galaxy, is very slender edge-on spiral galaxy with a small central bulge and a pronounced dust lane. The dust lane shows some wonderful detail and gives the core a beautiful amber color. The galaxy itself is something of a giant lying 59 million light years away and 180,000 light years across.

There are so many of these galaxies that they cannot all be edge-on spirals, which means many of them must be actually spindle-like, "ear of corn" galaxies. One of my crazy ideas

 

Nice work - again!

 

-drl

[jgraham]

M20 – The Trifid Nebula in Sagittarius
Telescope: Unitron 155 4” f/15 refractor, Atlas EQ-G
Camera: Canon EOS Ra full frame DSLR
Filter: 2” GSO IR Cut Filter
Guide scope: Orion 50mm Guidescope, ASI120MM, PHD, Dithered every 4 subs
Exposure: 23x120sec, ISO 1600, saved as RAW
Darks: Internal (Long Exposure Noise Reduction)
Flats: 32x1/10s sky flats taken at dusk
Average Light Pollution: Bortle 8, fair transparency, low altitude
Lensed Sky Quality Meter: 18.4 mag/arc-sec^2
Stacking: Mean with a 1-sigma clip
White Balance: Nebulosity Automatic
Software: Backyard EOS, Deepsky Stacker, Nebulosity, Photoshop

 

 

M20, the Trifid Nebula in Sagittarius is one of a series of nebula that grace the summer Milky Way. The red is a tenuous cloud of interstellar hydrogen set aglow by stars embedded in it, the blue is dust in the background reflecting starlight, and the dark lanes are vast streamers of dust in the foreground. Being near the Milky Way this field is crowded with faint stars, though the density of stars is uneven. The dark regions show areas of dust blocking the light from the faint distant stars in the background while the brighter regions are relatively clear avenues into the deep galaxy beyond.

[deSitter]

M20 – The Trifid Nebula in Sagittarius
Telescope: Unitron 155 4” f/15 refractor, Atlas EQ-G
Camera: Canon EOS Ra full frame DSLR
Filter: 2” GSO IR Cut Filter
Guide scope: Orion 50mm Guidescope, ASI120MM, PHD, Dithered every 4 subs
Exposure: 23x120sec, ISO 1600, saved as RAW
Darks: Internal (Long Exposure Noise Reduction)
Flats: 32x1/10s sky flats taken at dusk
Average Light Pollution: Bortle 8, fair transparency, low altitude
Lensed Sky Quality Meter: 18.4 mag/arc-sec^2
Stacking: Mean with a 1-sigma clip
White Balance: Nebulosity Automatic
Software: Backyard EOS, Deepsky Stacker, Nebulosity, Photoshop

 

M20 (5-7-2022)-2j.jpg

 

M20, the Trifid Nebula in Sagittarius is one of a series of nebula that grace the summer Milky Way. The red is a tenuous cloud of interstellar hydrogen set aglow by stars embedded in it, the blue is dust in the background reflecting starlight, and the dark lanes are vast streamers of dust in the foreground. Being near the Milky Way this field is crowded with faint stars, though the density of stars is uneven. The dark regions show areas of dust blocking the light from the faint distant stars in the background while the brighter regions are relatively clear avenues into the deep galaxy beyond.

Instant, reflexive Star Trek memory - a bad one! Great work!!

 

-drl

[deSitter]

Thank you very much!

 

2 nights later, again the '85 C8. Once again, please click to view the Full Monty on Astrobin. Thanks for looking.

 

Hope you got some eclipse pics! I had such interference from street lights that I didn't even try. But the event was super fun! Very dark red one this time with unusual lighting effects. 

 

-drl

[norvegicus]

M20 – The Trifid Nebula in Sagittarius
Telescope: Unitron 155 4” f/15 refractor, Atlas EQ-G
Camera: Canon EOS Ra full frame DSLR
Filter: 2” GSO IR Cut Filter
Guide scope: Orion 50mm Guidescope, ASI120MM, PHD, Dithered every 4 subs
Exposure: 23x120sec, ISO 1600, saved as RAW
Darks: Internal (Long Exposure Noise Reduction)
Flats: 32x1/10s sky flats taken at dusk
Average Light Pollution: Bortle 8, fair transparency, low altitude
Lensed Sky Quality Meter: 18.4 mag/arc-sec^2
Stacking: Mean with a 1-sigma clip
White Balance: Nebulosity Automatic
Software: Backyard EOS, Deepsky Stacker, Nebulosity, Photoshop

 

M20 (5-7-2022)-2j.jpg

 

M20, the Trifid Nebula in Sagittarius is one of a series of nebula that grace the summer Milky Way. The red is a tenuous cloud of interstellar hydrogen set aglow by stars embedded in it, the blue is dust in the background reflecting starlight, and the dark lanes are vast streamers of dust in the foreground. Being near the Milky Way this field is crowded with faint stars, though the density of stars is uneven. The dark regions show areas of dust blocking the light from the faint distant stars in the background while the brighter regions are relatively clear avenues into the deep galaxy beyond.

 

 

Instant, reflexive Star Trek memory - a bad one! Great work!!

 

-drl

I always think of the John Wyndham book when that name comes up.    A fun cold war era dystopia story where destroyed civilization is taken over by carnivorous plants.  A lot of later dystopia / end of civilization literary tropes are stolen from this book.

 

Edited by norvegicus, 16 May 2022 - 11:39 AM.

[tim53]

How about some old scopes and old imaging?

 

Here's the Ring, taken with a ~15 yr old Point Grey Scorpion monochrome firewire camera (1600x1200 pixels in a 5/9" monocrhome sony chip) on my 2045 LX3, in October 2012.  Unguided, on that spur gear mount!  I basically would take 10-frame videos, 60" per frame, using Astro IIDC to control the camera and align and stack the frames.  About 4-5 frames out of the 10 were suitable for stacking.

Edited by tim53, 16 May 2022 - 12:48 PM.

[Borodog]

Hope you got some eclipse pics! I had such interference from street lights that I didn't even try. But the event was super fun! Very dark red one this time with unusual lighting effects. 

 

-drl

Nope. I was completely clouded out by the only clouds in Florida.

 

 

 

I did get some airplane transits before the clouds moved in completely, though.

 

 

 

 

And this was from the previous night. Click for a larger (though still reduced this time) version on Astrobin.

 

 

 

 

These are all with my 1985 C8, by the way.

[Borodog]

'85 C8 again. More aircraft transits last night. These are really fun.

 

[jgraham]

M4 – Globular Cluster in Scorpius
Telescope: Unitron 155 4” f/15 refractor, Atlas EQ-G
Camera: Canon EOS Ra full frame DSLR
Filter: 2” GSO IR Cut Filter
Guide scope: Orion 50mm Guidescope, ASI120MM, PHD, Dithered every 4 subs
Exposure: 26x60sec, ISO 1600, saved as RAW
Darks: Internal (Long Exposure Noise Reduction)
Flats: 32x1/10s sky flats taken at dusk
Average Light Pollution: Bortle 8, fair transparency
Lensed Sky Quality Meter: 18.5 mag/arc-sec^2
Stacking: Mean with a 1-sigma clip
White Balance: Nebulosity Automatic
Software: Backyard EOS, Deepsky Stacker, Nebulosity, Photoshop

 

 

Lying only 7200 light years away M4 is one of the closest globular clusters. If it weren’t for relatively thick clouds of interstellar dust in its line of site it would also be one of the brightest.

[jgraham]

M53 – Globular Cluster in Coma Berenices
Telescope: Unitron 155 4” f/15 refractor, Atlas EQ-G
Camera: Canon EOS Ra full frame DSLR
Filter: 2” GSO IR Cut Filter
Guide scope: Orion 50mm Guidescope, ASI120MM, PHD, Dithered every 4 subs
Exposure: 18x120sec, ISO 1600, saved as RAW
Darks: Internal (Long Exposure Noise Reduction)
Flats: 32x1/10s tee shirt flats taken at dusk
Average Light Pollution: Bortle 8, poor transparency
Lensed Sky Quality Meter: 18.1 mag/arc-sec^2
Stacking: Mean with a 1-sigma clip
White Balance: Nebulosity Automatic
Software: Backyard EOS, Deepsky Stacker, Nebulosity, Photoshop

 

 

M53 is a moderately bright and rich globular cluster located just to the northeast of Alpha Comae Berenices (Diadem). Located approximately 60,000 light years from the galactic center and 58,000 light years from the sun, M53 is one of the more distant globular clusters.

[mpsteidle]

I picked up a filthy old C4.5 last week for $30 and gave it a spitshine, cleaned up pretty well.  Decided to give a shot at that giant sunspot that's hanging around.  This is my first solar image, so i'm pretty pleased with it.



Here's the scope:
 

[jgraham]

NGC 6543 – The Cat’s Eye Nebula in Draco
Telescope: Unitron 155 4” f/15 refractor, Atlas EQ-G
Camera: Canon EOS Ra full frame DSLR
Filter: 2” GSO IR Cut Filter
Guide scope: Orion 50mm Guidescope, ASI120MM, PHD, Dithered every 4 subs
Exposure: 128x30sec, ISO 1600, saved as RAW
Darks: Internal (Long Exposure Noise Reduction)
Flats: 32x1/10s tee shirt flats taken at dusk
Average Light Pollution: Bortle 8, poor transparency
Lensed Sky Quality Meter: 18.2 mag/arc-sec^2
Stacking: Mean with a 1-sigma clip
White Balance: Nebulosity Automatic
Software: Backyard EOS, Deepsky Stacker, Nebulosity, Photoshop

 

 

NGC 6543 is a small, bright planetary nebula in the northern constellation Draco. Planetary nebula form near the end of a star’s life as the core becomes unstable, alternatively expanding and cooling and contracting and heating. These swings can become so violent that the star blows off its outer layers, forming an expanding bubble of gas while the core collapses to form a white dwarf. The intense energy from the collapsing core sets the expanding shell of gas alight, often with the beautiful blue-green glow of ionized oxygen. The shape of the expanding shell can be quite complex and the shape of NGC6543 is a good example. High resolution images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope reveal that there are at least 11 distinct shells that were released at approximately 1,500 year intervals and that the core may be a binary. Close examination of this image shows a central ring and two lobes that have been twisted into a gossamer spiral. Small, bright planetary nebula like The Cat’s Eye are visible in small telescopes where they appear as a tiny, oval, slightly out of focus blue-green star. They are also some of the few deep sky objects that show a beautiful color rather than the usual smoky gray.

[gaboaks]

Venus, Saturn and Jupiter

Telescope: Towa 339 (80/1200) F/15 refractor

Mount: Skywatcher EQM-35 pro
Camera: Svbony 305 pro
No filters, rough polar alignment.
Software: Sharpcap, autostakkert!, registax and Procam 8 on IOS for minor editing.

Venus stacked 50% best frames from a 9 minute video.

Saturn: stacked 30% best frames from a 5 minute video

Jupiter: Stacked 50% best frames from a 3 minute video.

 

Data was gathered 15/01/2021 around 23:00 UTC

 

[jgraham]

M56 – Globular Cluster in Lyra
Telescope: Unitron 155 4” f/15 refractor, Atlas EQ-G
Camera: Canon EOS Ra full frame DSLR
Filter: 2” GSO IR Cut Filter
Guide scope: Orion 50mm Guidescope, ASI120MM, PHD, Dithered every 4 subs
Exposure: 34x120sec, ISO 1600, saved as RAW
Darks: Internal (Long Exposure Noise Reduction)
Flats: 32x1/10s tee shirt flats taken at dusk
Average Light Pollution: Bortle 8, fair transparency
Lensed Sky Quality Meter: 18.4 mag/arc-sec^2
Stacking: Mean with a 1-sigma clip
White Balance: Nebulosity Automatic
Software: Backyard EOS, Deepsky Stacker, Nebulosity, Photoshop

 

 

M56 is a relatively small, dense globular cluster that tends to get a bit lost against the background Milky Way. I have always found this to be a somewhat challenging object visually (at least from my backyard) but it blossoms beautifully with a camera.

[Bomber Bob]

Venus, Saturn and Jupiter

Telescope: Towa 339 (80/1200) F/15 refractor

Mount: Skywatcher EQM-35 pro
Camera: Svbony 305 pro
No filters, rough polar alignment.
Software: Sharpcap, autostakkert!, registax and Procam 8 on IOS for minor editing.

Venus stacked 50% best frames from a 9 minute video.

Saturn: stacked 30% best frames from a 5 minute video

Jupiter: Stacked 50% best frames from a 3 minute video.

 

Data was gathered 15/01/2021 around 23:00 UTC

 

Great planetary pix!  That SVBONY 305 Pro is a VG camera.  Does it play well with Windows 10??  (My ASI120MC has not been 100% compatible.)

[highfnum]

comet catcher

M8 M17

with DGM dual channel filter

[deSitter]

M56 – Globular Cluster in Lyra
Telescope: Unitron 155 4” f/15 refractor, Atlas EQ-G
Camera: Canon EOS Ra full frame DSLR
Filter: 2” GSO IR Cut Filter
Guide scope: Orion 50mm Guidescope, ASI120MM, PHD, Dithered every 4 subs
Exposure: 34x120sec, ISO 1600, saved as RAW
Darks: Internal (Long Exposure Noise Reduction)
Flats: 32x1/10s tee shirt flats taken at dusk
Average Light Pollution: Bortle 8, fair transparency
Lensed Sky Quality Meter: 18.4 mag/arc-sec^2
Stacking: Mean with a 1-sigma clip
White Balance: Nebulosity Automatic
Software: Backyard EOS, Deepsky Stacker, Nebulosity, Photoshop

 

M56 (5-9-2022)-1j.jpg

 

M56 is a relatively small, dense globular cluster that tends to get a bit lost against the background Milky Way. I have always found this to be a somewhat challenging object visually (at least from my backyard) but it blossoms beautifully with a camera.

Another great image!!

 

-drl