M101

Object: Messier 101, NGC 5457
Type: Galaxy
Distance: 17.5 million light years
Constellation: Ursa Major
Date: 17 April 2007
Equipment: SXV-H9, Vixen ED114 refractor (f.l. 600mm)
Subframes: 60 x 90s 2x2 binned subframes, 16 darks, 16 flats/flat darks, calibrated and stacked in AIP4Win.

My notes record that this wasn't the greatest night for imaging, as a high haze set in whilst I was setting up. Nevertheless, the brighter inner coils of this galaxy (whose full apparent diameter in the sky is nearly that of the full moon) can be seen quite well.

Deeper exposures, such as this one by Johannes Schedler, give the impression of a celestial catherine wheel struggling to hold on to its outer reaches.

The Iris Nebula...

Object: NGC 7023, Caldwell 4
Type: Reflection Nebula
Distance: 1400 light years
Constellation: Cepheus
Date: 27 October 2008
Equipment: SXV-H9, Vixen ED114 refractor (f.l. 600mm)
Subframes: 25 x 100 second 2x2 binned subframes, 16 darks, 16 flats/flat darks, calibrated and stacked in AIP4Win.

Visible through the eyepeice as a mere fuzzy star, this image shows the clover-shaped outer area of dusty obscuring matter that surrounds the bright reflection zone. For some reason, the false colour image below seems to emphasise this slightly better (click on either to enlarge).

Rob Gendler shows us a much deeper and more detailed image here, and also provides a nice chunk of information about this fascinating object.

The Pinwheel Galaxy

Object: Messier 33, NGC 598/604
Type: Galaxy
Distance: 2.3 million light years
Constellation: Triangulum
Date: 24 October 2008
Equipment: SXV-H9, Vixen ED114 refractor (f.l. 600mm)
Subframes: 40 x 120 second 2x2 binned subframes, 16 darks, 16 flats/flat darks, calibrated and stacked in AIP4Win.

From last Friday's moon, cloud and dew-free evening (two within a couple of days - you can bet that'll be it for a while now), I was taken aback by how much of the outlying areas of this old favourite appeared upon image processing, given the relatively short exposures (click on the above to enlarge). I have clearly got the framing of the image about 90º out, as the faint outer edges of the galaxy are just off frame. Rotating the camera would have filled the field a bit better.

I plan to revisit M33 soon using RGB/H alpha filters, for an extended project to try and grab a colour image in a bid to finally produce something along the lines of Richard Best's image here. I particularly like this one as other images I have seen of this object have either burnt-out cores, or have garishly exaggerated the numerous H-alpha regions that are within M33's spiral arms.

NGC 2403

Object: NGC 2403 (Caldwell 7)

Type: Galaxy

Distance: 14 million light years
Constellation: Camelopardalis
Date: 13 March 2007
Equipment: SXV-H9, Vixen ED114 refractor (f.l. 600mm)
Subframes: 25 x 150s 2x2 binned subframes, 16 darks, 16 flats/flat darks, calibrated and stacked in AIP4Win.

This faint fuzzy, barely distinguishable through a 25mm eyepiece on the above refractor from my light-polluted location, reveals itself to be a miniature of the great spiral in Triangulum (Messier 33) when imaged with the magic of CCD.

My notes at the time didn't give a reason for only shooting 25 subs as, coming back to the image, it looks like everything else, such as tracking, quality of flats etc, was pretty much OK. The image therefore suffers from noise which a larger number of sub-frames could have helped beat down.

The loose-limbed nature of this galaxy is clearly distinguishable, however (click on the above image to enlarge). Rob Gendler gives us a much more detailed view of this object here.

NGC 7331

Object: NGC 7331

Type: Galaxy

Distance: 50 million light years
Constellation: Pegasus
Date: 21 October 2008
Equipment: SXV-H9, Vixen VC200L (f9, f.l. 1800mm)
Subframes: 30 x 60s 2x2 binned subframes, stacked in AIP4Win.

A crystal clear, moon free evening allowed me to attempt imaging this fuzzy in Pegasus. A slim lens shaped glow with a bright central star-like centre was clearly visible through a 25mm eyepiece on the VC200L.

Swopping the eyepiece for the SXV-H9, I thought I'd have a quick play at checking the scope's collimation using the free trial download of CCDWare's CCD Inspector. It's dead easy to use and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the VC200L appeared to be spot-on. Not sure I'm advanced enough yet to want to fork out for a "keeper", though...

Getting a polar alignment that was accurate enough to avoid tracking errors at an 18oomm focal length was a bit more of a challenge. The GPDX mount's polar alignment scope usually puts me pretty close, but that isn't good enough for imaging with the VMC, and I have to resort to repeatedly downloading 30 second frames and iteratively adjusting the mount alignment until no trailing is evident and the stars stay in exactly the same position for a few minutes. It took me about 40 minutes to get an alignment I was happy with.

Running the periodic error correction then seemed to remove the last few jitters from the otherwise pretty smooth drive. I had planned to take at least a hundred 60 second subs, and then try my luck with some longer ones afterwards. I watched the first few download and then left the equipment to do its stuff.

Mistake. I had clumsily let the lead to the RA drive trail over the counterweight shaft, and as the mount tracked, it pulled the lead tight and then out of the motor! I returned after a couple hours to find I had only got about 30 subs of the 100 I wanted, and as it was now past midnight and I had to work the next day, I gave imaging up as a bad job. A stack of what I got is what you see, a lot noisier than I would have liked, but still showing a moderate amount of detail (click to enlarge).

Ace astroimager Rob Gendler brings out slightly more detail in his effort here, showing structure in the associated "Deer Lick" group of galaxies (also nicknamed "the Fleas", so I gather) that show up as mere fuzzy blobs on my more humble effort.

Frustrations aside, the night really was too clear to miss out on though, so I dropped the 25mm eyepiece back in and spent 30 minutes or so getting some knock-out views of open clusters M52, NGC 884 & 869 (the Double Cluster, each of which fitted nicely into the field of view) and NGC 457 (the Phi Cas cluster, which I had never seen before and which almost appeared three dimensional it was so bright) before finally calling it a night.

It's not all about gadgets...

Work and sleep - the twin curses of amateur astronomers everywhere.

The Jellyfish Nebula...

Object: IC 443

Type: Supernova remnant

Distance: 5000 light years
Constellation: Gemini
Date: 09 March 2007
Equipment: SXV-H9, 400mm Vixen guidescope
Subframes: 33 x 300s 2x2 binned subframes in H alpha (unguided), 16 darks, 16 flats/flat darks, calibrated and stacked in AIP4Win.

A dark, clear evening allowed me to have a crack at imaging this supernova remnant in Gemini. To frame the object on my SXV-H9, I used a 400mm focal length Vixen guide scope which is of surprisingly reasonable optical quality.

The result above was OK-ish (click on the image to enlarge), but I'm starting to think I need to sort out some sort of permanent polar alignment, master autoguiding and get a good quality lens in the 300-400mm focal length range as the stars still show a trace of trailing.

I could then go for longer subs at full resolution without star trailing or other aberrations, which limits my current efforts.

Master astrophotographer Johannes Schedler of Panther Observatory fame provides a gloriously detailed wide-field image of this object here.

The Egg and Spoon Nebula...

Object: NGC 7822 & Cederblad 214 (Sharpless 2-171)

Type: Bright Nebula

Distance: 2750 light years
Constellation: Cepheus
Date: 11 October 2008
Equipment: SXV-H9, 135mm telephoto lens
Subframes: 40 x 300s 2x2 binned subframes in H alpha (unguided), 30 darks, 30 flats/flat darks, calibrated and stacked in AIP4Win.

Ace astroimager Rob Gendler tells us in his wonderful book "A Year In The Life Of The Universe", that "the faint northern arch of nebulosity is designated NGC 7822, and the brighter southern cloud is designated S 171, from naval astronomer Stewart Sharpless' 1959 catalogue of HII regions." The SkyMap Pro software I use to plan imaging sessions indicates that the lower cloud is denoted as Cederblad 214, the whole area of nebulosity being designated Sh2-171.

Whatever the "proper" designations, the brighter parts of this complex always (photographically at least) remind me of an egg (the C-214 portion) and spoon (NGC 7822), so I've decided to call it that.

A gibbous moon just a couple of days off full coupled with an ever-increasing soggy mist didn't aid particularly detailed imaging, but the main bright and dark features of the area are nevertheless visible in the above image (click for a larger view, for what it's worth). Mr. Gendler's expert rendition can be seen here. Something to aspire to, I guess...

A false colour image is appended below.

IC 434

Object: IC 434

Type: Bright Nebula

Distance: 1300 light years
Constellation: Orion
Date: 02 February 2007
Equipment: SXV-H9, 300mm telephoto lens
Subframes: 42 x 120s 2x2 binned subframes in H alpha (unguided), 16 darks, 16 flats/flat darks, calibrated and stacked in AIP4Win.

The telephoto lens used was another junk store purchase and close examination of the star images shows some distortions. This was the same lens used to produce the image of the Rosette Nebula I posted earlier. Image processing can clean up the worst defects and the lens (of unknown make - probably Russian as the name appears in Cyrillic) is perfectly acceptable for use on extended nebulousity.

Below is a false colour image, compiled using data from above, from an earlier shot of the "Flame Nebula" portion (NGC 2024) and also from a shot I took of the Horsehead region to provide more detail of the adjacent small patch of nebulosity NGC 2023.

Click on either for a larger view.

The California Nebula

Object: NGC 1499

Type: Bright Nebula

Distance: 7300 light years
Constellation: Perseus
Date: 16 December 2006
Equipment: SXV-H9, Zeiss 135mm telephoto lens
Subframes: 16 x 180s 2x2 binned subframes in H alpha (unguided), 16 darks, 16 flats/flat darks, calibrated and stacked in AIP4Win.

False colour image below (from a crop of the above). Click on either for a bigger view.

Never sure about the popular name. I think it looks like a squid...

The Double Cluster

Object: NGC 884 & 869 (Caldwell 14)
Type: Open clusters
Distance: 7300 light years
Constellation: Perseus
Date: 16 December 2006
Equipment: SXV-H9, 400mm focal length Vixen guidescope
Subframes: 20 x 60s subframes in RGB, 16 darks, 16 flats/flat darks, calibrated and stacked in AIP4Win.

Note: Must refocus between red, green and blue filter changes as 400mm spotting scope is not well-corrected. Hence the bloated redder stars.