I'm not too satisfied with this image of M52. Probably I need longer sub-exposures. This is about 150x15" at 800 ISO with the XTi and the AT66ED. I figured this would be enough for this bright Messier object, but the dimmer stars in M52 are quite dim still. On the other hand, some reports of M52 put its dimmer members at magnitude 16 or fainter, and that is surely the case. M52 is 3,000-7,000 light years away from earth, and has around 200 stars (that have been found; what are the chances a cool dwarf star or two were missed?), more than I see here. In other words, I am not likely catch all the stars in the cluster with this casual imaging setup and method, so in my image the stars go from quite bright to fading out, and a few more lie beyond the reach of this set of exposures. Here's a deeper, better image. M52 is very near the Bubble Nebula, as shown in this fine image and also in this fine image and this one, too.
Astronomy and astrophotography by Val Ricks for the love of the sky and its Creator. For a better view, toggle F11 and turn off the lights.
November 27, 2008
M52
I'm not too satisfied with this image of M52. Probably I need longer sub-exposures. This is about 150x15" at 800 ISO with the XTi and the AT66ED. I figured this would be enough for this bright Messier object, but the dimmer stars in M52 are quite dim still. On the other hand, some reports of M52 put its dimmer members at magnitude 16 or fainter, and that is surely the case. M52 is 3,000-7,000 light years away from earth, and has around 200 stars (that have been found; what are the chances a cool dwarf star or two were missed?), more than I see here. In other words, I am not likely catch all the stars in the cluster with this casual imaging setup and method, so in my image the stars go from quite bright to fading out, and a few more lie beyond the reach of this set of exposures. Here's a deeper, better image. M52 is very near the Bubble Nebula, as shown in this fine image and also in this fine image and this one, too.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment