A cold but clear and still night was a great opportunity to find an unexplored target. This little nebula was in a favorable position to allow a nice long run. With 29 frames of 330 seconds each, this is the integrated image I obtained. A small object with limited detail, I was happy to be challenged processing this result from my second try.
Click on the image and zoom in for a good look as usual.
My first try at this nebula on a less than ideal evening sky. It was dropping below freezing which is a good thing but there was a good bit of moisture in the air and dew on everything. The individual subs varied a lot in quality, so it may be worth another try at compiling an image stack with just the better subs.
This image stacked 28 frames of 300 seconds each for a total of 2 hours 20 minutes integration. Not a lot of color in this nebula but this image does show a large region of dark cloud in the area.
A wonderful Fall evening found me once again finding Triangulum in a favorable location to get a good run of imaging. This is compiled from 50 frames at 180 seconds each for a total time of 2 hours 30 minutes. Perhaps should have gone with a bit longer exposures but I wanted to avoid blowing out this dense galaxy.
During a smoky and stormy summer it can be hard to find a decent night at the telescope. This night the moon was low in the southern sky and my target was high in the northern sky so the best area I could work with. The Cat’s Eye Nebula is small and not very bright so even with almost three hours of 300 second subs it was difficult to pull out of the noise, but it is there. A very interesting target for those with better gear than I run. Perhaps one day….
From the Web:
“The Cat’s Eye Nebula (also known as NGC 6543 and Caldwell 6) is a planetary nebula in the northern constellation of Draco, discovered by William Herschel on February 15, 1786. It was the first planetary nebula whose spectrum was investigated by the English amateur astronomer William Huggins, demonstrating that planetary nebulae were gaseous and not stellar in nature.”
NGC 7789 was discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1783 and is known as Caroline’s Rose in her honor. Her brother William Herschel included it in his catalog as H VI.30.
This image was compiled from 54 frames at 120 seconds each. Perhaps should have gone with longer exposures but was concerned of overloading the starfield.
“Caroline’s Rose is an example of an open star cluster. Unlike globular clusters, which are ancient objects, open star clusters are groups of up to a few thousand younger stars that are loosely bound together by gravity. Caroline’s Rose is about 8,000 lightyears away and is a much older open star cluster, potentially about 1.6 billion years old.”
“The brightest stars in the cluster are orange giants. Most other bright members are also evolved stars – giants and subgiants. More than a dozen blue stragglers have been identified in the cluster. These are stars that appear younger and bluer than expected for their evolutionary stage. They are hotter than main sequence stars in the cluster that are about to evolve into red giants. Blue stragglers are believed to be the result of stars colliding and producing higher-mass stars with higher temperatures.”
Omega Nebula is an Emission Nebula in the southern sky and at a distance of 5,500 light-years away. On this very warm July night with reasonably stable and clear air, the moon is just a sliver and was down before this run started. I went with 240 second subs and used 34 out of the 45 frames taken for an integrated time of 2 hours 16 minutes.
“also known as the Swan Nebula, Checkmark Nebula, Lobster Nebula, and the Horseshoe Nebula is an H II region in the constellation Sagittarius.”
“M17 contains one of our galaxy’s youngest star clusters, at only 1 million years old. However, many of the young stars in this cluster are impossible to see because of the gas and dust that surrounds them. The powerful radiation from the young stars evaporates and erodes the dense clouds of cold gas in which new stars form. One such pocket of gas is seen at the center of the brightest region of the nebula and is about 10 times larger than our solar system. Other dense pockets of gas have formed the remarkable dark features jutting inward”
Had a nice night with a waxing quarter moon in the sky but otherwise good seeing conditions. Was annoyed at the ever increasing satellites making streaks on the early subs but not so much after midnight. Set up with 120 second subs and this the result of 1 hour and 20 minutes stacked.
“The Gumball Globular contains about 200,000 stars. In 2006, M12 was discovered to contain a surprisingly low number of low mass stars. Scientists believe that these stars were stripped from M12 by the gravitational pull of the Milky Way Galaxy and that the cluster lost four times as many members as it still has over its lifetime. In other words, as the cluster’s orbit took it through the denser regions of the Milky Way plane, M12 ejected about a million stars into the galaxy’s halo. This explains why there are hardly any M-class (red) dwarfs in the cluster. It will take another 4.5 billion years before M12 dissociates completely.”
Last night I was able to get out to the telescope and while the atmospheric conditions were less than ideal I chose the Ring Nebula for a session. This image is compiled of 150 second subs with 2 hours and 22 minutes stacked. This is a small but bright target. My focal length does not bring up a lot of detail on this scale but it is such a dramatic jewel in this field of view.
This target is designated Messier 57 and is thought to be a white dwarf remnant of a star once similar to our Sun.
April 13th was a good clear and dark sky which found the Sunflower Galaxy beckoning me. I had a good run with nice tracking that produced 35 select frames at 300 second each for nearly 3 hours of integration time.
“it appears to have an indeterminate number of spiral arms bound closely together, and is what’s known as a flocculent spiral galaxy.
In fact, the Sunflower Galaxy only really has two spiral arms, but they are wound tightly round and round the galactic core, giving the impression of numerous arms.
The galaxy’s tightly-wound arms and bright center are what give the Sunflower Galaxy its floral appearance.”
Another great night for imaging and a classic target! The moon at first quarter was bright but my target was across the sky to the North East in the dark. I had very nice tracking and a long run of 240 second exposures. 54 frames used for a total of 3 hours 36 minutes compiled in this image. Pushed some more detail for sure compared to my last run on this one in 2021.
Just off the Big Dipper handle, this is such a phenomenal galaxy to explore, and was the first galaxy to be classified as a spiral galaxy. The entangled dwarf galaxy is of great interest to astronomers who study the complex interaction.
