deep sky

M36 - Open Cluster in Auriga

M36 in Auriga from Conon Bridge on 27 September 2008 at 23:00h BST

Conditions were not ideal and there was some thin hazy cloud and smoke from domestic fires. Also, I couldn't seem to get good focus or autoguide properly.

M27 - Dumbbell Nebula

M27 from Conon Bridge on 04 September 2008 at 23:00h UT

Need to realign my scope and should have auto-guided using 2x Barlow as well. Nevertheless, not too bad for 1st DSO image of "season".

Camera	Canon EOS 400D at prime focus on auto-guided LX50 mount
Focus	Manual (trial & error)
Exposure	1 x 300 second exposure ISO1600, f/4.5 Driven mount
Auto-guiding	Meade DSI Pro 70mm f/10 refractor Shoestring Astronomy GPUSB Interface PHD auto-guiding software
Image Processing	RAW image converted to 16-bit TIF file Photoshop CS NeatImage

Comet 17/P Holmes

Comet 17/P Holmes from Conon Bridge on 12 December 2007 at 21:00h UT

Camera	Canon EOS 400D piggy-backed on auto-guided LX50 mount Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO DG Macro telephoto zoom lens (fl=133mm)
Focus	Manual (trial & error)
Exposure	2 x 180 second exposures ISO1600, f/4.5 Driven mount
Auto-guiding	Meade DSI Pro via 2x Barlow 70mm f/10 refractor Shoestring Astronomy GPUSB Interface PHD auto-guiding software
Image Processing	RAW images converted to 16-bit TIF file Dark frames subtracted Stacked and RGB adjusted with Registax Photoshop CS NeatImage

Comet 17/P Holmes from Conon Bridge on 12 December 2007 at 21:00h UT
Comet 17/P Holmes from Conon Bridge on 12 December 2007 at 21:00h UT
Above is a wee snap I took last night. Quite pleased with the star detail and colours. Also managed to capture open cluster NGC 1245 (it's the hazy blue oval on the left-hand side).

Camera	Canon EOS 400D piggy-backed on auto-guided LX50 mount Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO DG Macro telephoto zoom lens (fl=190mm)
Focus	Manual (trial & error)
Exposure	2 x 60, 4 x 90, 3 x 120 second exposures ISO1600, f/5.0 Driven mount
Auto-guiding	None
Image Processing	RAW images converted to 16-bit TIF file Dark frames subtracted Stacked and RGB adjusted with Registax Photoshop CS NeatImage

Comet 17/P Holmes from Conon Bridge on 08 November 2007 at 22:00h UT

Comet 17P/Holmes shocked astronomers on Oct. 24, 2007, with a spectacular eruption. In less than 24 hours, the 17th magnitude comet brightened by a factor of nearly a million, becoming a naked-eye object in the evening sky. Look for a golden 2.5th magnitude fuzzball in the constellation Perseus after sunset.

Optics	Meade LX50 8" SCT f/6.3 focal reducer
Camera	Canon EOS 400D at prime focus
Focus	Manual
Exposure	60 seconds single image Driven mount
Image Processing	RAW image converted to 16-bit TIF file Photoshop CS NeatImage

M45 -Pleiades

M45 taken from Conon Bridge on 29 January 2008

Camera	Canon EOS 400D piggy-backed on auto-guided LX50 mount Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO DG Macro telephoto zoom lens (133mm)
Focus	Manual (trial & error)
Exposure	1 x 180, 3 x 120, and 4 x 90 second exposures ISO1600, f/4.5 Driven mount
Auto-guiding	Meade DSI Pro via 2x Barlow 70mm f/10 refractor Shoestring Astronomy GPUSB Interface PHD auto-guiding software
Image Processing	RAW images converted to 16-bit TIF file Stacked and RGB adjusted with Registax Photoshop CS NeatImage

M45 Pleiades - 425 light years away.
The cluster is dominated by hot blue stars, which have formed within the last 100 million years.
Dust that forms faint reflection nebulosity around the brightest stars was thought at first to be left over
from the formation of the cluster but is now known to be an unrelated dust cloud that the stars are currently passing through.

Taken at 23:30h BST (22:30h UT) with the camera piggy-backed to the LX50 driven mount. I hadn't taken enough care to polar align the scope and there was considerable star-trailing even after only 45 second exposure.s. I used some "extreme" image processing to minimise the star-trails while bringing out the blue nebulosity but I have had to over-sharpen the image somewhat. Nevertheless, it's my first attempt at this and I now know the camera setup will allow the Seven Sisters to reveal all next time!.

Camera	Canon EOS 400D Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO DG Macro telephoto zoom lens
Focus	Manual
Exposure	45 seconds each image f/5.6 fl = 300mm ISO 1600 Driven mount
Image Processing	10 images stacked using Registax V4 Photoshop CS NeatImage

M13 - Globular Cluster in Hercules

M13 - 25,100 light years away. Several hundred thousand stars in cluster. 145 light years across. Around 14 billion years old. Globular cluster M13 was selected in 1974 as target for one of the first radio messages addressed to possible extra-terrestrial intelligent races, and sent by the big radio telescope of the Arecibo Observatory.

Taken fairly early on the evening of 21 August 2007 (around 10:45pm BST) and the skies weren't totally dark at this latitude (57°N).

The telescope started to go noticeably off track after about 30 secs (at the magnification I was working at) so I'll need to work on that set up over the next wee while.

Got focus pretty good (Hartmaan mask) but there was some high thin cirrus cloud present. River fog started to roll in about 11:15pm BST and that ended my first session of the "season".

Optics	Meade LX50 8" SCT
CCD Camera	Canon EOS 400D attached afocally to scope (no focal reducer)
Focus / Guiding	Hartmaan mask Unguided
Exposure	ISO 1600 f/5.8 30sec & 45 sec
Image Processing	7/11 images selected and stacked using Registax V4 Adobe Photoshop CS & NeatImage

M51 - Whirlpool Galaxy and NGC 5195

L-layer only L-layer only, inverted

LRGB layers

M51 from Conon Bridge on Friday 13 April 2007

M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy, is easy to locate, even with binoculars, near Alkaid at the end of the Plough's "handle". The Whirlpool Galaxy is face-on making it easy to resolve its spiral arm structure. Note the link of nebulosity which connects M51 to its companion galaxy NGC 5195. It is currently thought that the gravitational pull of NGC 5195 is causing star formation in M51.

One of my friends from the Highlands Astronomical Society, Maarten de Vries, who is much more knowledgable about deepsky objects than myself, managed to spot a couple of very distant background galaxies the image - IC 4277 and IC 4278 (see image below) with some detail evident in IC 4278.

nd in your image you have even captured some detail IC 4278

Optics	Meade LX50 8" SCT with f/3.3 focal reducer
CCD Camera	Meade DSI Pro with Meade AutoStar Envisage software Combine images on the run
Focus	Hartmaan mask
Exposure	L (no UV filter):R:G:B 20 images each (minimum 30% quality vs reference) 15 seconds each image, 300 seconds total per filter Gain: 100% Offset: 50% Dark image subtraction
Image Processing	FITS Liberator in Adobe Photoshop CS NeatImage

M65 - Leo Triplet

M65 from Conon Bridge on Friday 13 April 2007

M65, one of the Leo Triplet galaxies (M65, M66, NGC3628). M65 is a spiral galaxy (mag. 10.5) slightly edge-on as we see it and it therefore appears elliptical.

Optics	Meade LX50 8" SCT with f/3.3 focal reducer
CCD Camera	Meade DSI Pro with Meade AutoStar Envisage software Combine images on the run
Focus	Hartmaan mask
Exposure	L (no UV filter):R:G:B 20 images each (minimum 30% quality vs reference) 15 seconds each image, 300 seconds total per filter Gain: 100% Offset: 50% Dark image subtraction
Image Processing	FITS Liberator in Adobe Photoshop CS NeatImage

Milky Way - Cygnus Region

Milky Way taken from Culloden Observatory on Saturday 23 September 2006

The Cygnus region of the Milky Way taken using a Nikon Coolpix 5700 piggy-backed to a motor-driven Meade LX50 telescope. 5 minutes exposure, ISO 200, f/2.8, wide angle tele-adaptar. Image cropped and processed using Adobe Photoshop CS.

Comet 73P-C: Schwassmann-Wachmann

Comet 73P-C taken from Conon Bridge on 27 April 2006 2310-15h UT
(image width 14')

A magnitude 8.5 comet near the constellation of Coma Bernices. This is the "main" comet fragment (C). It's approximate location at the time of imaging (23:12h UT, 27.04.06) was RA: 16h 15.7m, Dec: 30.3° (see chart below).

Optics