My Astro Photo Of The Day

[orogenicman]

Messier 104, The Sombrero Galaxy, in Virgo

Image:

4x4 minutes, for a total exposure of 16 minutes at ISO 800
Stacked with Deepsky Stacker, processed in Adobe Photoshop CS3 extended
Images taken on April 11, 2010 from the Louisville Astronomical Society Observatory site, near Curby, Indiana.

Equipment:

Hutech modified Canon T1i DSLR
200 mm f5 modified Konus Newtonian with Baader coma corrector
Losmandy G-11 with Gemini Go To with Losmandy heavy duty tripod
Orion Starshooter Autoguider on Orion 80 mm Short tube

From Wikipedia:

The Sombrero Galaxy (also known as M 104 or NGC 4594 ) is an unbarred spiral galaxy in the constellation Virgo. It has a bright nucleus, an unusually large central bulge, and a prominent dust lane in its inclined disk. The dark dust lane and the bulge give this galaxy the appearance of a sombrero. The galaxy has an apparent magnitude of +9.0, making it easily visible with amateur telescopes. The large bulge, the central supermassive black hole, and the dust lane all attract the attention of professional astronomers. This galaxy is a member of the local group which includes the Milky Way, and is approximately 29 million light years away.

[orogenicman]

Messier 27, The Dumbbell Nebula, in the constellation Vulpecula

Image:

14x1.5 minutes for a total exposure of 21 minutes at ISO 800
Stacked and dark subtracted in Deepsky Stacker, processed in Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended
Taken at Taylorsville Lake, Kentucky, on July 7, 2010
(I consider this one of my best efforts so far this year)

Equipment:

Hutech modified Canon T1i DSLR
200 mm f5 modified Konus Newtonian with Baader coma corrector
Losmandy G-11 with Gemini Go To with Losmandy heavy duty tripod
Orion Starshooter Autoguider on Orion 80 mm Short tube

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbbell_Nebula

The Dumbbell Nebula (also known as Messier 27, M 27, or NGC 6853) is a planetary nebula (PN) in the constellation Vulpecula, at a distance of about 1,360 light years.

This object was the first planetary nebula to be discovered; by Charles Messier in 1764. At its brightness of visual magnitude 7.5 and its diameter of about 8 arcminutes, it is easily visible in binoculars, and a popular observing target in amateur telescopes.

[leo-rcc]

Messier 27, The Dumbbell Nebula, in the constellation Vulpecula

Awesome. With long exposure do you have something to compensate for the rotation of the Earth?

[orogenicman]

Messier 27, The Dumbbell Nebula, in the constellation Vulpecula

Awesome. With long exposure do you have something to compensate for the rotation of the Earth?

Yes. The mount is a Losmandy G-11 with Gemini Go To. What that means is that it is an equatorial mount with a digital clock drive. The clock drive compensates for the Earth's rotation. "Go To" is a computer built into the system that allows me to slew to any of some 42,000 objects that are in the computer catalogue. I can also type in the coordinates of any object (such as the comet I took a picture of earlier this month), and the computer will slew the scope to the designated coordinates. To take deep sky astro photographs, I have to be anble to track a deep sky object with high precision. The autoguider allows me to do that automatically instead of the old fashion way of making small changes manually using a reticulated eyepiece. It saves a lot of previously sore neck nights.

[orogenicman]

The Leo Triplet, In The Constellation Leo

NGC 3628 (Left), M65 (Top), and M66 (Bottom Right)

Image:

6x4 minutes for a total exposure time of 24 minutes at ISO 800
Stacked and dark subtracted with Deepsky Stacker, processed in Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended
(Tracking was good, but focus was a little off)

Equipment:

Hutech modified Canon T1i DSLR
200 mm f5 modified Konus Newtonian with Baader coma corrector
Losmandy G-11 with Gemini Go To with Losmandy heavy duty tripod
Orion Starshooter Autoguider on Orion 80 mm Short tube

From seds.org:

http://seds.org/messier/more/m066gr.html

This small group of galaxies consists of the Messier objects M65 (NGC 3623) and M66 (NGC 3627) as well as the edge-on spiral NGC 3628. These three galaxies, the heart of the M66 group, form a beautiful and photogenic group which is frequently referred to as the Leo Triplett; Halton Arp has included this group as number 317 in his Catalogue of Peculiar Galaxies (M66 is also Arp 16). Lying at a distance of some 35 million light years, it is probably physically related to the M96 group.

[orogenicman]

NGC 689 and NGC 884, The Double Cluster, In Perseus

Image:

11x2.5 minutes for a total exposure time of 27.5 minutes at ISO 1600
Stacked and dark stubtracted in Deepsky Stacker, processed in Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended

Equipment:

Hutech modified Canon T1i DSLR
200 mm f5 modified Konus Newtonian with Baader coma corrector
Losmandy G-11 with Gemini Go To with Losmandy heavy duty tripod
Orion Starshooter Autoguider on Orion 80 mm Short tube

From eso.org
http://www.eso.org/public/images/b02/ :


The famous Double Cluster in the constellation of Perseus consists of the star clusters h and chi Persei, which lie some 7,100 and 7,400 light-years away from Earth, respectively, and appear very close to each other on the sky.

These open clusters formed relatively recently in astronomical terms and move together through space, approaching us at a speed of roughly 80 000 kilometres per hour. They are both part of the so-called Perseus OB1 association, an assembly of extremely massive stars. The western component of the pair, h Persei, entry 689 in the New General Catalogue (NGC 689), is about 5.6 million years old, while Chi Persei (NGC 884) is closer to 3.6 million years old.

Easy to spot in the northern winter sky between the constellations of Perseus and Cassiopeia, the Double Cluster is a favourite of amateur astronomers. The clusters are dominated by bright blue stars and, speckled with a few fine orange stars, make a spectacular sight in the night sky, especially through binoculars.

The ancients also admired the Double Cluster, and the Greek astronomer Hipparcos first catalogued it in 130 BC.

[thesummerqueen]

Apparently I won't be going to just the Bad Astronomy blog for my daily slice of cosmos.

[orogenicman]

Apparently I won't be going to just the Bad Astronomy blog for my daily slice of cosmos.

I hope that was a compliment. Not sure. If so, thanks, but don't get too used to it. I'm kinda laid up right now, so I'm not producing any new ones from the field right now. Hopefully, I can do more before the heavy winter weather sets in. That all depends on when I can recover from surgery. In other words, I only have a finite number that I can post right now. I will be running out soon. But I might try to make up for it by posting links to other amateur sites I know of. I've not done that yet because, frankly, they put mine to shame.

[orogenicman]

This is not a very good photograph. In fact, it was just a test. But I thought I would post this to see how many galaxies you guys and gals could pick out in this photograph. I'll post the answer and some more info on the image after about a day. Happy galaxy hunting!

[thesummerqueen]

I hope that was a compliment.

Yeah, it was a compliment.