The Pleiades

Object: Messier 45
Type: Open cluster
Distance: 407 light years
Constellation: Taurus
Date: 09 December 2006
Equipment: SXV-H9, Soligor 200mm telephoto lens
Subframes: 20 x 180s subframes at full resolution, 16 darks, 16 flats/flat darks, calibrated and stacked in AIP4Win.

The stars are rather bloated and I think it may be down to the lens really not being too good in terms of chromatic aberration (see Great Andromeda Nebula). And whilst some of the famed nebulosity is visible, there isn't as much of it as the experts can show us.

Longer subs and colour filters may bring out more detail and sharpen up the stars, and I will give it a try before I give up on this lens.

An afocal view (single one minute exposure) with my old Casio digital camera, afocally coupled to a 25mm eyepice on my Vixen ED 114mm aperture/f5.3 refractor, gave this result in 2004.

No nebulosity, but nice stars.

Gamma Cygni nebulae

Object(s): IC 1318, 1318A (bright nebulae), NGC 6910 (cluster)
Type: Nebulae and open cluster
Distance: 5000 light years
Constellation: Cygnus
Date: 14 August and 18 September 2008
Equipment: SXV-H9, Zeiss 135mm telephoto lens
Subframes: 2 frame mosaic prepared from two lots of 30 x 300s 2x2 subframes in H alpha(unguided), 16 darks, 16 flats/flat darks, calibrated and stacked in AIP4Win, mosaic in AstroArt.

At last, a spell of clear weather in this miserable year has allowed me to finish off a project I started a month ago. The area spanning nearly 4° across, centred around Sadr (gamma Cygni), consists of a complex mass of bright and dark nebulosity that can pretty much only be detected by photography (at least, from my neck of the woods).

IC 1318 forms one wing of the "Butterfly Nebula" and is the bright patch in the lower left hand corner of the above image (click on the image to enlarge -about 200K). IC 1318A is the wedge-shaped nebula in the top right hand corner. North is up and east is to the left, just how you'd see it in the sky.

The tiny cluster just above Sadr is NGC 6910, which is very much further away than the nebulae itself. Sadr is a foreground star "only" 1500 light years away, the nebulae being powered by a more distant star buried in the dark clouds of obscuring matter.

Both sessions were hampered by a bright moon, but the magic of a Hα narrow band filter eliminated any gradients or poor contrast arising from moonlight.

Needless to say, the resolution in this image can't compare with equivalents taken with big chip CCDs and wide-field Apos set on equally expensive mounts, but I'm pretty pleased with the result of my more modest set-up.

Above is a false colour image of the monochrome original, just because I can, really (click on it to enlarge if you so desire). My technique has rather clipped the fainter traces of luminosity and I think I prefer the monochrome one...

The Great Andromeda Nebula

Object: Messier 31 (NGC 224)
Type: Galaxy
Distance: 2.3 million light years
Constellation: Andromeda
Date: 09 December 2006
Equipment: SXV-H9, Soligor 200mm telephoto lens
Subframes: 50 x 90 second full frame (unguided), 16 darks, 16 flats/flat darks, calibrated and stacked in AIP4Win.

I was quite pleased with this although the brighter stars are a little bloated and have halos - I don't think the lens is a particularly good one with respect to chromatic aberration. It may be OK on narrowband or with colour filters. I'll get around to trying this one again using a filter wheel.

The Helix Nebula

Object: NGC 7293 (Caldwell 63)
Type: Planetary Nebula
Distance: 522 light years
Constellation: Aquarius
Date: 28 September 2006
Equipment: SXV-H9, Vixen 114mm f5.3 ED refractor
Subframes: 16 x 180 second full frame (unguided), 16 darks, 16 flats/flat darks, calibrated and stacked in AIP4Win.

This really was a game of "how low could I go?" The Helix Nebula never gets more than 17 degrees above my cluttered horizon, and even then only between a gap in two close-by houses (hence only 16 subs). Add to that a horrendous light pollution gradient, and it makes for some challenging processing problems.

Nevertheless, it's possible to determine some structure in the final somewhat noisy image, and it showed to me that getting a half-decent low elevation shot was possible even under my limited viewing conditions. Had the weather been kinder this year I would have aimed for the Trifid Nebula (M20) and Lagoon Nebula (M8) which lurk in Sagittarius at 15 and 14 degrees respectively. The H-alpha filter (not used here) will certainly help with M8, I think.

Comet C/2006 M4 (Swan)

Object: Comet C/2006 M4 (SWAN)
Constellation: Corona Borealis
Date: 24 October 2006
Equipment: SXV-H9, Vixen 114mm f5.3 ED refractor
Subframes: 20 x 120 second full frame (unguided, tracked on comet nucleus), 16 darks, 16 flats/flat darks, calibrated and stacked in AIP4Win.

This object unexpectedly brightened to around 4th magnitude and was easily visible to the naked eye, even from my light polluted corner of the world. Having learned from earlier efforts, I went for longer subs to catch detail in the tail, and also tracked using the comet orbital parameters (entered into the GPDX SkySensor hand controller) rather than simple sideral tracking. The tracking was virtually perfect, more by luck than judgement, enabling me to get my best shot of a comet to date.

Once again, I wished I'd taken more subs as the image is still a bit noisy, but as this one was on a hyperbolic orbit, it won't be coming back to let me have a second go...