Still wading through the backlog of astro-data that I'd been meaning to either process or bin.
Here's another result from way back in November last year, I think it's much better than my similar images from 2008 and 2017:
M45 - The Pleiades, in the constellation of Taurus. 2nd November 2018.
Subs: 25 light @ 300s, 50 dark frames, 50 bias frames.
QHY10 on the C80 ED-R Frac, guided with PHD.
A few images of things that I've been looking at over the last few weeks:
13th-14th May 2013:
M16 - The Eagle Nebula (aka NGC 6611 and the Star Queen Nebula), a young open cluster of stars in the constellation Serpens.
29th-30th April 2013:
The Crescent Nebula (aka NGC 6888, Caldwell 27, Sharpless 105), an emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus.
4th-5th May 2013:
M11 - The Wild Duck Cluster (aka NGC 6705), an open cluster in the constellation Scutum.
29th-30th April 2013:
M107 (aka NGC 6171), a very loose globular cluster in the constellation Ophiuchus.
4th-5th May 2013:
M4 - The Cat's Eye Cluster (aka NGC 6121), a globular cluster in the constellation Scorpius.
4th-5th May 2013:
M108 - The Surfboard Galaxy (aka NGC 3556), an edge-on barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major.
It wasn't forecast to be the clearest of nights but I'd got the OK to go out and I wasn't going to waste the chance. The skies were fairly clear for the first hour but after that I was battling the orange haze of a low thin mist illuminated by waste light from streetlights. Despite that, I managed to see a fair few things and snap some more Messiers:
M40 (centre-left), a pair of stars in the constellation Ursa Major.
Subs: 12 light @ 300s, darks and bias frames, ISO800.
1000D on the 6" R-C, guided with PHD.
M48 (aka NGC 2548), an open cluster in the constellation Hydra.
Subs: 16 light @ 300s, darks and bias frames, ISO800.
1000D on the 6" R-C, guided with PHD.
M53 (aka NGC 5024), a globular cluster in the constellation Coma Berenices.
Subs: 22 light @ 300s, darks and bias frames, ISO800.
1000D on the 6" R-C, guided with PHD.
Virgo's chock-full of galaxies, there are plenty to go around. Here's a small selection, help yourself!
M84 (aka NGC4374) and M86 (aka NGC4406) - both are lenticular galaxies - and a few other fuzzy things in the constellation Virgo.
Mouseover the pic for labels.
Subs: 17 light @ 300s, darks and bias frames, ISO800.
1000D on the 6" R-C, guided with PHD.
Cribbed from Wikipedia:
"Messier 98 (also known as M98 or NGC 4192) is an intermediate spiral galaxy about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain on 15 March 1781 along with M99 and M100 and was cataloged as a Messier object on 13 April 1781. Messier 98 has a blue shift and is approaching us at about 140 km per second."
Hmmm... "cataloged"... we Brits use the word "catalogue", so use it as a verb and the past tense is "catalogued". Surely the past tense of the verb "to catalog" should be "catalogged", as in "logged" and "blogged"?
Anyway, less of the Inner Stickler stuff. With the temperature down at -8C it was too damned cold to stand outside looking through the scope so the session was just a photo-shoot controlled from the comfort of the warm-room, replete with Jaffa Cakes and hot tea. M98 is one of the faintest objects in Messier's catalogue... I really wanted to be taking 60-second subs of it but a high background haze spoiled that idea - the best I could get away with was 300 seconds a shot, and I didn't get enough subs for a decent image anyway as a low mist rolled in and spoiled things. I'll try to get more subs when the weather improves, in the meantime here's the best I can do with what I've got so far. It's a tad noisy:
M98 (aka NGC4192), an intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices.
Subs: 20 light @ 300s, darks and bias frames, ISO800.
1000D on the 6" R-C, guided with PHD.
Here's another one - M44 - Sir Patrick Moore's favourite object on the Moore Winter Marathon list.
The refractor has introduced some odd colours to the mix, I've left them in and enhanced them because they look a bit Christmassy 🙂
M44 (aka NGC 2632, Praesepe, The Beehive Cluster, Cr 189), an open cluster in the constellation Cancer.
Subs: 12 light @ 300s, darks and bias frames, ISO400.
Spikes added using Noel's Actions.
1000D on the C80ED-R refractor, guided with PHD.
