M97 in Ha (April 8, 2014)

This planetary nebula in Ursa Major is one of the few popular narrowband targets up during the spring.  It's a bright one, too.  This is only H-alpha.  I hope to get the OIII, too, and combine them.  But the night I set up to collect the OIII data became unexpectedly cloudy at 11 pm.  Oh, well.  In the meantime, M97 is slipping behind my trees.  I may have to wait till next year.  Either way, the data interests me.

This data is 8x1200" with the 6nm Proti Astronomik Ha filter and 10x900" with the 12nm Astronomik Ha filter.  The dimmest stars in the image are below magnitude 19.

Full resolution image here.

Telescope: Orion 254mm f/4.7 Newtonian and Baader MPCC
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9 (8x1200" with the 6nm Proti Astronomik Ha filter and 10x900" with the 12nm Astronomik Ha filter), Alnitak Flatman flats
Guiding: SX Lodestar and SX SFW+OAG
Mount: Takahashi NJP
Software: Nebulosity, Photoshop CS3
Location: The Woodlands, TX

M64 ( April 2014)

Full resolution image here.

A color image of this galaxy was my goal since January, but we had nothing but cloudy nights near new moons until April.  Then the first two clear nights were hazy, and I had equipment problems.  Finally, I obtained a good night's worth of data on the 22nd.  I obtained 23x900" of data, and then M64 went behind the trees.

The galaxy is famous for the dust lane near its center, and also because the inside part of the galaxy rotates one way and the outer part rotates in the opposite direction!

Telescope: Orion 254mm f/4.7 Newtonian and Baader MPCC
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9C (23x900"), Alnitak Flatman flats
Filter: Astronomik CLS
Guiding: SX Lodestar and SX SFW+OAG
Mount: Takahashi NJP
Software: Nebulosity, Photoshop CS3
Location: The Woodlands, TX