The Cygnus Loop

Object: Veil Nebula and Witch's Broom Nebula (NGC 6992-6995 & NGC 6960, Caldwell 33 & 34)
Type: Supernova remnant
Distance: 2500 light years
Constellation: Cygnus
Date: 03 September 2006
Equipment: SXV-H9, Astronomix H-alpha filter, 135mm Zeiss telephoto lens
Subframes: 2x2 binned, 22 x 180 second (unguided), 16 darks, 16 flats/flat darks, calibrated and stacked in AIP4Win.

Whilst the resolution in this image can't match that offered by wide-field Apos and big-chip CCDs, I think I've got value for money out of my rather more modest set-up. The filamentary structure of both the eastern Veil portion and the western "Witch's Broom" can be seen, along with the fainter central wisps of nebulousity between the two (click on image to enlarge).

Not bad for a lens picked up for a few quid at a boot sale. Longer subs would probably have shown more detail in the fainter wispy stuff.

The Eagle Nebula

Object: Messier 16 (NGC 6611)
Type: Open cluster with nebula
Distance: 9000 light years
Constellation: Serpens Cauda
Date: 15 July 2006
Equipment: SXV-H9, Astronomix H-alpha filter, Vixen 114mm f5.3 ED refractor
Subframes: 16 x 120 second (unguided), 16 darks, 16 flats/flat darks, calibrated and stacked in AIP4Win.

I was restricted to only 16 subframes as the low altitude of this object means I can only catch it for about an hour as it passes between a gap in two houses that block out my view of the lowest regions of my southern sky.

The amount of detail in the final image was therefore quite pleasing.

M81

Object: Messier 81 (NGC 3031)
Type: Galaxy
Distance: 4.5 million light years
Constellation: Ursa Major
Date: 01 April 2006
Equipment: SXV-H9, Vixen 114mm f5.3 ED refractor
Subframes: 50 x 80 second (unguided), 16 darks, 16 flats/flat darks, calibrated and stacked in AIP4Win.

This came out OK, despite some star trailing due to poor polar alignment. The low noise in the final image allowed me to get away with using a deconvolution filter in AstroArt 4 to round up the star images and sharpen the whole thing up to an acceptable standard.

I had planned to take a second series of images just north of the field shown here to catch M82 as well, the plan being to mosaic the two outputs together. Needless to say, the clouds rolled in just as I was framing M82.

One for another evening, then. According to my calculations, the field of view available with the 600mm focal length refractor/SXV-H9 combination should just be able to fit M81 and M82 on the same frame, so I'll be trying that next spring.

The Christmas Tree Cluster

Object: NGC 2264
Type: Cluster with Nebula
Distance: 2500 light years
Constellation: Monoceros
Date: 03 March 2006
Equipment: SXV-H9, Vixen 114mm f5.3 ED refractor
Subframes: 20 x 180 second (unguided), 16 darks, 16 flats/flat darks, calibrated and stacked in AIP4Win. Colours added in PSPv7

Maurice Leyland's "Christmas Tree Cluster" (NGC 2264) can readily be made out here. The "tree" is upside down even though it's the right way up, if you see what I mean - an eyepiece normally inverts the view giving the cluster its striking resemblance to the proverbial Christmas tree

I used the magic wand tool and some masking layers in Paint Shop Pro to add the red colour to the faint nebulousity that enmeshes the cluster, and to give a blue halo to the brighter stars. The false colours actually help to highlight the nebula for some reason, which is why I've posted this image rather than the usual monochrome output from the SXV-H9. Click to enlarge.

The Cone Nebula can be made out at the southern end of the nebulousity. The whole of the nebula associated with NGC 2264 is just the brighter part of a vast cloud of nebulousity in this region of sky. I had a semi-successful attempt at imaging this cloud in hydrogen-alpha, using the SXV-H9 and a 135mm telephoto lens, giving a theoretical field of 2.8 x 3.8 degrees (see below).


Unfortunately, the tracking seems to have been a bit off for the duration of the 300 second subs used, hence the rather bloated-looking stars. I can and will do better on this one.

Partial Solar Eclipse

From 3rd October 2005. I used the Vixen 114mm f5.3 ED refractor fitted with Baader solar film and a Casio digital camera afocally coupled to a 15mm eyepiece. The exposures were 1/400th of a second. As these eclipses are fairly leisurely affairs, I simply took single frames every five minutes

It's said that all but the least partial of partial eclipses aren't really noticeable if you aren't actually looking at the Sun. At around 10.00 for this one however, I felt that the autumn sunlight had a washed-out quality and that it was distinctly cooler for a while. Maybe it was just psychological...

The Flame Nebula

Object: NGC 2024

Type: Nebula

Distance: 1300 light years

Constellation: Orion

Date: 28 January 2006
Equipment: SXV-H9, Vixen 114mm f5.3 ED refractor

Subframes: 15 x 180 second, unguided, no darks or flats.

Apparently this object is part of the same molecular cloud that encompasses the M78 complex (see previous post), which is some 2 degrees to the northeast. I recently reprocessed these subs in AstroArt 4 and I think they have scrubbed up quite well, even without the benefit of a flat frame.

This object has been saddled with several names, some of them quite inappropriate for its delicate beauty. Some US (who else?) astromoners have called this the "Burning Bush Nebula" (clumsy, but at least understandable), the "Lips Nebula" (ugh!) or even the "Tank Track Nebula" (good grief...).

"Flame Nebula" is just fine for me...

M78

Object: Messier 78 (NGC 2068)
Type: Nebula
Distance: 1630 light years
Constellation: Orion
Date: 28 January 2006
Equipment: SXV-H9, Vixen 114mm f5.3 ED refractor
Subframes: 17 x 180 second, unguided, no darks or flats.

Same old mantras (mantrae?) of "more and longer subs" and "could do with a flat field". At the time I took this image though, I didn't have any image stacking software, other than the clunky package that came with the SXV-H9 camera itself, so I tended to shy away from flat fields.

This curious mixture of dark and reflection nebulae still shows up reasonably well though. It's another one I plan to revisit now I have more experience, better software and a colour filter wheel.

M78 is the nebulousity in the bottom half of the frame - the upper one is NGC 2071. The smudges just to the northwest and southwest of M78 also have their own NGC designations, NGC 2067 and 2064 respectively.

Mercury and Venus conjunction...

This one caught me by surprise on the evening of 27 June 2005. By chance I happened to look at the western horizon and noticed that Venus had a dimmer companion very close by. A quick look at SkyMapPro showed that Mercury was only about 5 arc-seconds from Venus and wouldn't appear any closer than that until December 1st 2070, (and that during the day from the UK too).

Figuring that I was very unlikely to get this weird photo-oppportunity again, I grabbed the VC200L, the Toucam and my lap-top and set up to grab a few frames. The image above is a Registax of 30 seconds-worth of 15 frames/second images taken at around 21.00 BST. The blue sky is not an artifact. The phases of Venus (91%) and Mercury (61%) show up reasonably clearly.

In hindsight, I wish I'd used the wider field refractor to give an impression of just how close the pair looked. Oh well, I'll guess I'll try and aim to stick around for 2070..

Comet C2001-Q4 NEAT, Venus

Object: C2001-Q4NEAT

Type: Comet

Constellation: Cancer

Date: 19 May 2004
Equipment: Casio digital camera, 25mm eyepiece afocal, Vixen 114mm f5.3 ED refractor

Subframes: 8 x 60 second, unguided, no darks or flats.

This little blue fuzzball was an early evening binocular object low in the western sky for a few days in the summer of '04. The above image is horribly vignetted and a bit noisy but nonetheless doesn't do too bad a job at portraying the comet's telescopic appearance. More talented imagers than I produced some wonderful images showing all sorts of long tails, but I'm just "glad I was there"...

A 12% phase Venus was also brilliantly on show lower on the horizon, so I rattled off forty or so 0.1 second frames and Registaxed them. I quite like the enigmatic feel of the result...

M52 and NGC 7635

Objects: Messier 52 (NGC 7654) and NGC 7635 (Caldwell 11)

Type: Open Cluster and Nebula

Distance: 5100 light years (cluster); 7100 light years (nebula)

Constellation: Cassiopeia

Date: 31 December 2005
Equipment: SXV-H9, Vixen 114mm f5.3 ED refractor

Subframes: 20 x 180 second, unguided, no darks or flats.

A night of poor seeing rendered the cluster stars not as sharp as they could be in the above image, but the ghostly form of NGC 7635 and its component "Bubble Nebula" can still be readily discerned. I plan to return to the Bubble with the VC200L and a Ha filter sometime.

In terms of the M52 cluster, I think the digital camera effort below (afocal, 25mm eyepiece with the VC200L, eight 60 second frames combined in AIP4Win) from October 2004 actually shows it as it appears through the eyepiece and does the object some justice. Click on either to enlarge.

Mars

Date: 17 November 2005
Equipment: Phillips TouCam and x2 Barlow on the VC200L (f18 in total)
Subframes: 500 x 1/10 second, processed in Registax.

Mars was around 19" in diameter and was just past the October 30th opposition. It won't get as big again until just before the opposition of 2018, which will be low down in Capricorn and pretty much hopeless for UK observers.

I might have got the hang of web-camming by then...

Sun-spots

Date: 25 October 2003
Equipment: Casio QV-3500EX digital camera coupled afocally to a 25mm eyepiece on a Vixen 114mm f5.3 ED refractor fitted with Baader solar film
Subframes: 10 x 1/400 second.

Our nearest star is currently going through a solar minimum in terms of sun-spot activity, with a disc that is often blank for weeks on end. However, even during the maximum of the previous sunpsot cycle five years ago, having two big active regions such as AR486 and AR484 on the disc at the same time was regarded as rather unusual.

I picked through about forty images and stacked the clearest ten in Registax. A mild sharpening and subsequent yellow colour mask (Baader film gives a white disk) gave the above result.