NGC 1491 (Dec. 2018)

This is 21x1800" with the SXVF-H9 through the 6nm Astronomik H-alpha filter and Synta-ONTC 8" f/4.95 Newt. The brighter star in the center driving the hydrogen emission is 11.2-magnitude BD +50 886, classified as O5 or O4.  Source.  The nebula is probably over 10,000 light years away. I was able to catch two nights on this nebula.  The first night was somewhat less transparent, but the data seemed good.  The second night had excellent transparency.

M1 Bi-color (Dec. 2018)

This is M1, the remnant of a nearly 1,000-year-old supernova. If you look closely, at the center of the nebula you can see two stars, very close together.  The dimmer of the two is the pulsar, what is left of the exploded star.  This image is 10x1800" in Ha and 11x1800" in OIII with the SXVF-H9 through the Synta-ONTC 8" at f/4.95.

Melotte 15 (Dec. 2018)

This is cluster Melotte 15 and accompanying nebula, which to me looks like a Brontosaurus traveling towards the upper left.  This is 12x1800" with the SXVF-H9 through a narrowband H-alpha filter and the Synta-ONTC 8" f/4.95.

Goosehead Nebula in IC 1848 (Fall 2018)

Here's a Hubble palette Goosehead Nebula from IC 1848. Data for this image includes, for H-alpha, 20x1200"; for OIII, 16x1200"; and for SII, 17x1200". Camera was the SXVF-H9, telescope the Synta-ONTC f/4.95 Newtonian. Some of the Ha and SII were taken with the moon at >60%. Below is a more natural color version crafted from the same narrowband data.

Centaurus A Galaxy (Fall 2018)

Here is the latest data from New South Wales.  This has been fun to work with, and I've learned a lot.  If you know where to look, you can see the jet from the active galactic nucleus streaming down and to the right of the center.  I was surprised to see it, but the 12.5" RC did a nice job picking it up. Of course, this galaxy can be imaged from Texas, but not well.  It is a much better target from Australia.

The Wizard Nebula and NGC 7380 (Oct. 2018)

Here is another target shot while waiting for other things to rise.  This is 11x1200" with the SXVF-H9 through the Synta-ONTC 8" and an Astronomik 6nm H-alpha filter.

Bubble Nebula, NGC 7635 (Oct. 2018)

Here is another Bubble Nebula, a target I've shot many times, but I had some time before my primary target rose, so why not?  This is 14x1200" with the SXVF-H9 through the Synta-ONTC 8" f/4.95 and an Astronomik 6nm H-alpha filter.

Comet 38P/Stephan-Oterma, 9:52:06 t0 10:18:21 UT, 11-03-2018

About the time I meant to stop imaging on Nov. 3, 2018, I noticed this comet on the SkySafari map and that Gemini, the comet's current location, was near zenith.  This is 24x60" of the comet through a CLS filter in front of the SXVF-H9. The telescope was the Synta-ONTC 8".  I could see the comet move between frames, which was pretty neat. The comet has an orbit of 38 years, so if you are >50, like I am, you may not want to miss it!

The Goosehead Nebula in IC 1848 (October 2018)

This is 11x1200" with the Synta-ONTC 8" and the SXVF-H9 through an Astronomik 6nm filter.

The Helix Nebula (Summer & Fall 2018)

This is the Helix Nebula from down under.  I have an earlier image of this, taken from an observatory north of Huntsville, TX, but I did not have enough time there.  Also, I was shooting through a lot of air, even here in Texas.  This image above, taken at nearly 3x longer focal length through less air, shows the knots in the inner part being washed away by the stellar outflow of the hot star at the center.  Showing those knots was my goal from long ago, now fulfilled in this image.  This is a bi-color image, a combination of narrowband H-alpha and OIII frames.

IC 2944 & IC 2948 (Summer 2018)

The cluster upper left of center in this image is called IC 2944, and the nebulosity surrounding it is known as IC 2948.  Bright, O-type stars in IC 2944 power the nebula, and around the cluster's bright stars sit a number of Bok globules being worn away by the ultraviolet light of the stars.  These globules in particular are known as Thackeray's Globules, after their discoverer. The objects pictured here are found deep in south Centaurus and are not visible from Houston.

The data for this image comes from New South Wales and is 27 hours of narrowband, including 10 hours of H-alpha, through the 12.5" RCOS telescope.

Here is the H-alpha data from the set.

NGC 4755 (Summer 2018)

NGC 4755, sometimes called the Jewel Box Cluster, lies about 6,400 light years away and is visible in our constellation Crux.  Well, it is visible if you can see Crux, which I cannot much from Houston, as Crux sits nearly at the horizon when at its northernmost.

The golden star near the middle is DU Crucis, an M2 supergiant. Many of the other stars, including the three, brightest blue stars, are type B supergiants.

North is up. The cluster is supposed to be quite young, less than 20 million years old, and perhaps much less than that.

This image is RGB 4,4,4x300" with the 12.5" RCOS from MPAstro in New South Wales.  Someday I'd like to see this beautiful cluster with my own eyes.

NGC 6334 (Spring & Summer 2018)

These clumps of nebulosity are called NGC 6334 and remind some of a cat's pawprint.  This area, which appears in Scorpius, is too far south for me to capture well with the camera.

Notice that the cloud seems to be blowing every which way; it's hard to see what exactly is powering the emission. Recent studies, especially this one, show that the area is packed with O- and B-type stars that could cause the emission. Also, the region is bursting with new star formation.  It's a very exciting place.

This image is 14x1800" Ha and 16:16:16x1200" RGB with the 12.5" RCOS from MPAstro in New South Wales. The Ha was combined with the RGB.  In this area, the H-alpha emission is overwhelming compared to the blue and green, though there is some blue and green there, perhaps some reflection as well as OIII glow.

NGC 3324 and Nebula (Spring & Summer 2018)

Cluster NGC 3324 sits just northwest of Eta Carinae, from our perspective. Astronomers have wondered whether it is part of the Eta Carina nebular complex or not, because it sits so close by, but studies suggest the cluster and the Eta Carina complex are part of the same. The cluster of stars that is NGC 3324, just above center of the nebula here, contains three O-type stars known as HD 92206 B, A, and C (from left to right). 92206 A and B are type O6.5 V.  92206 C appears to be O7.5 V with a close binary companion of type BO V. These stars light up the emission nebula, hollowing out a bubble with their strong stellar winds and UV radiation. A, B, and C are each X-ray sources. Source. This study found about 500 stellar X-ray sources in the area, about 150 of which are probably young stars belonging to NGC 3324 and to another local cluster. These clusters probably comprise several hundred stars each. Only a few show up in the image above, however.

Data for this image comes from Martin Pugh's observatory, and is SHO = 10, 14, 10 x 1800" with the RCOS 12.5" telescope.

IC 5070, The Pelican's Eye (August 2018)

This image is 12x1800" with the SXVF-H9 through the Synta-ONTC8 and a 6nm Astronomik H-alpha filter.  Of course, this is the most interesting portion of the Pelican Nebula.  Those of you who know where to look can find a number of Herbig-Haro objects in this image.  Here is a good identification page from a very similar (but even deeper) image: https://www.astrobin.com/252817/ .

NGC 6910 in H-alpha (August 2018)

This image was taken with an H-alpha filter to capture the background clouds, but the subject of the image is NGC 6910, the cluster of stars in the middle.  Sometimes it is called the Rockinghorse Cluster, and it does suggest that shape when viewed from the top right corner of the image (that is, from the northwest).

This image is 9x1200" with the SXVF-H9 through the Synta-ONTC8 at f/4.95 and an Astronomik 6nm H-alpha filter.

IC 5146, the Cocoon Nebula (August 2018)

This target in the constellation Cygnus carries emission signal, but it not strong.  What you see here is the H-alpha emission.  In full spectrum images, though, much of the nebular glow is reflection.  The bright star in the middle is a young, B-type star that powers the nebula.  It is surrounded by young stars forming from the disrupted dust and gas in this region.

This image is 9x1800" with the SXVF-H9 through the Synta-ONTC8 f/4.95 reflector.

NGC 6193 and 6188 in Ara (Spring & Summer 2018)

Here is a beautiful region of the constellation Ara in the southern hemisphere.  Near the top is star cluster NGC 6193.  The cluster is dominated by what look like two bright stars.  The lower star is HD 150135, an O-type star that burns very hot and is much larger than our sun.  The upper, brighter star of the two, however, HD 150136, is special.  HD 150136 is a triple system of O-type stars with masses of 62.6 ± 10, 39.5 ± 6.3, and 33 ± 12 solar masses, for a total of 102 ± 16 solar masses.  Source.  That's a big star.  Moreover, the two larger components are in a close orbit of 2.67454 days.  Same source.  That's so close the stars must be almost touching.  It's no wonder they generate fireworks, including X-rays.  The system generates enough UV radiation to light up this cloud, NGC 6188, including the ionization front shown in this image.

Data for this image comes from the 12.5 RCOS system in New South Wales.

Eta Carinae and Neighbors (Spring 2018)

This is such a fascinating field.  In the center shines the star Eta Carinae, a giant luminous blue variable star and its companion that together partly power up all the emission nebulae you see here.  In the upper left is cluster Trumpler 15, upper center Trumpler 14, and around and down from Eta Carinae the large cluster Trumpler 16.  Sprinkled throughout the field are Bok globules and globulettes.  In a few places, such as just to the left of Trumpler 14, you can find Herbig-Haro objects. I've studied the field quite a bit, and I'm still learning.  I recommend the entries on this area in Kanipe and Webb's Annals of the Deep Sky.

This image was constructed with excellent data gathered by my friend Martin Pugh at New South Wales, Australia.  See his website here.  The telescope is a 12.5" RCOS, the camera a SBIG 11000M, and data for this image is in narrowband as follows: 13x1800" + 3x1200" (Ha); 14x1800" (OIII); 14x1800" (SII).

Omega Centauri (Spring 2018)

Here is the Milky Way's largest star cluster: 10,000,000 or so stars and maybe a black hole (or not, a later study says), and perhaps the whole thing is the stripped core of a small galaxy.  It's also quite close, just 15,800 light years away.  The cluster is around 90 light years wide.  It is one of most amazing things I've ever seen in a telescope.  I observed it with a 15" f/5 Newtonian reflector from the HAS dark sky site in Columbus.  It is ablaze with stars!

I'm pleased that this image shows so many stars.  It gives some idea of the vastness one senses through the telescope.  This image is an LRGB= 5;6;6;8x600" with a SBIG 11000M camera through a 12.5" RCOS telescope in rural New South Wales.  Data was gathered by Martin Pugh who hosts an observatory there (details at https://www.martinpughastrophotography.space/remote-imaging-and-telescope-hosting).

Abell 39, or PNG 047.0+42.4 (Spring 2018)

Abell 39 is a ghosty planetary nebula and one of the few targets feasible from my backyard at this season when nights are so short.  This planetary is thousands of light years away and is a sphere perhaps 5 light years across.  See this great study from 2001 here.

This is just 9x1500" with the SXVF-H9, an Astronomik OIII filter, and the Synta-ONTC 8" Newtonian at f/4.95.

NGC 6888, Crescent Nebula, in Hα (May 2018)

This is 7x1200" with the SXVF-H9 through an Astronomik 6nm Hα filter and the ONTC_Synta Newtonian at f/4.95.  This has always been one of my favorite targets.  One of the neat aspects of this image is that the seeing was so good that the resolution of the sky was better than the 1.32"-per-pixel resolution of the imaging system; this image is undersampled and some of the stars are square.  It was an amazing night.  Seeing was nearly as good while I shot NGC 5585, posted below, with the CLS filter; to an extent, the Hα filter takes best advantage of good seeing.

Arp 117 (IC 983 & 982) & Arp 79 (April 2018)

I've always been fascinated by these galaxies.  They are out of my league for "pretty picture" imaging because my skies are not the best.  I think the dimmest spiral arm of IC983, the huge spiral galaxy on the left, is almost dimmer than my local skyglow.  Still, a guy can observe.

The thing is, these galaxies are amazing.  IC 983 and the smaller spiral IC 982 appear to me to be interacting.  Two of IC 983's spiral arms appear bent toward the smaller spiral.  In a way, these remind me of M51 and NGC 5195, which is Arp 85.  But whereas M51 is small, perhaps 50,000 light years across, IC 983 is huge, perhaps 400,000 light years across!  M51 is a mere 25 million light years away, but IC 983 is ten times further—254,000,000 light years away! Yet IC 983 still dominates the view in this image (taken with the exact same setup used to image M51 earlier this year; you can see how massive IC 983 must be!).

One thing that always intrigued me about IC 983 and Arp 79, the small spiral on the right, was that in most images I have seen, their spiral arms are bent at seemingly impossible, nearly 90-degree angles.  This seemed odd to me; how could gravity cause that?  Yet in my fairly deep and detailed image (equal to the most detailed images I've seen of these galaxies), the spiral arms of both galaxies look pretty normal, their angles normally curved.  I've decided that prior images suffer from lack of depth or over-processing.  I am happy to see this mystery ended.

This image is 28x720", taken over three nights (because these galaxies set behind a tree after three hours).  The camera was the SXVF-H9, and the scope was the CFF 290 Classical Cassegrain at f/8.1.

The best color images I've seen of this set are here and here.  The second of these is quite detailed.  Both are worth a look.

NGC 5585 (May 2018)

NGC 5585 is a satellite of M101, supposedly.  It lies at about the same distance, ~20-24 million light years, and not very far from M101 in the sky.  In this image, I can clearly see a spiral structure and a brightening at the galaxy's core.  The galaxy's image gives the impression of busy-ness, as if star clusters are popping up all over it.  As galaxies go, NGC 5585 is fairly small, probably only around 35,000 light years across.

In fact, the whole frame is busy and shows a wide distance scale.  The bright star above left of the galaxy is HD238342, 680 light years away and magnitude 9.43.  The bright star on the far right, magnitude 8.85, is HD 125918 and is 5,100 light years away.

Beyond NGC 5585 are many more distant galaxies. Some of these are nearly 2 billion light years away.  They must be enormous and very bright.

This image is 22x720" with the SXVF-H9 through an Astronomik CLS filter, a Baader MPCC, and the ONTC-Synta Newtonian at f/4.95.

M56 (May 2018)

M56 is a globular cluster visible in the constellation Lyra.  It is 32,900 light years or so away from us.  It appears to be traveling opposite the direction of most things in the galaxy, orbiting roughly backwards around the center.  Probably it was ripped off a small galaxy that was swallowed billions of years ago by the Milky Way.

This is just a monochrome image.  I enjoy imaging globs so that I can compare them with each other, so I have several of these taken with the same telescope and camera setup.  Then I can see their relative sizes and how many stars I can make visible.  For instance, compare M56 with NGC 7006 and M13.

This image is 10x720" with the SXVF-H9 through the CFF 290 Classical Cassegrain and an Astronomik CLS filter.

NGC 4565 (April 2018)

NGC 4565 appears in the constellation Coma Berenices but is around 44 million light years away.  It is a very large spiral galaxy, which we see nearly edge-on.  It is famous for the dust lane and how its thin shape seems to taper away to nothing at the ends, which are actually extended spiral arms.

The galaxy in the upper left is NGC 4565A and is perhaps 3 million light years closer than 4565.  The piece of fluff directly below the center of 4565 but about level with the lower tip of 4565's left end is IC 3571, perhaps 20 million light years further away.  Other little galaxies in the image shine from hundreds of millions of light years' distance.

This image is 69x480", about 9.2 hours, through the ONTC-Synta Newtonian at f/4.95, with the SXVF-H9C camera and an Astronomik CLS filter.

Haumea from 6:55 am to 8:49 am UT, 3-31-18

Haumea is a dwarf planet that orbits beyond Neptune.  Its orbit is similar to Pluto's (though different in a couple of significant ways).  Haumea is smaller than Pluto, though, only about one-third as large.  And those studying it report that it is not spherical (as Pluto is) but is flattened in two directions. Haumea was discovered only in 2004.

In my image, Haumea is the short line 55% up and 40% from the left side.  That is how much the object appeared to move during the nearly two hours I spent imaging it.

Haumea is very dim.  When I took this image, it was only magnitude 17.31.  It was nearly 7.5 billion miles away.  I identified it by looking at the excellent chart from The Sky Live, the best website I know for finding the location of dwarf planets. I have included a screenshot from The Sky Live, taken at the end of my imaging run.

I have taken images of Pluto and now Haumea.  I hope to pick up some other dwarf planets beyond Neptune later.

The small galaxy at lower left is PGC 1519745; it is something like 1.2 billion light years away.

This image was taken with the CFF 290 Classical Cassegrain at f/8.1 in 480" sub-frames (14 sub-frames in all).  I took these on a nearly full moon, and I could barely see Haumea in the stretched sub-frames.  I'm glad calibration and stacking revealed a bit more!

M51 and NGC 5195 (April 2018)

Just another M51 and companion galaxy NGC 5195.  The grand spiral M51 lies perhaps 25 million light years from here.  M51 appears to be quite a bit smaller than our own galaxy. The companion, NGC 5195, is interacting with M51.  These two always amaze visually as well.

This image is 26x480" with the SXVF-H9 through CFF 290 Classical Cassegrain at f/8.1 and an Astronomik CLS filter.

M102 or NGC 5866 (March 2018)

This galaxy is known as NGC 5866 and probably is the 102nd item in Messier's list of not-comets.  There is some historical dispute about 102 being a duplicate of 101, but what I've read suggests that it is not.  I don't think anyone who had seen both through the eyepiece could believe these two were the same object.  M101 looks like a faint but fuzzy patch, or several of them, and M102 looks like a single flying saucer. Also, they are just not that close to each other.

M102 is about 47 million light years away.  We see it in the constellation Draco.

To the left and down from M102 is galaxy NGC 5866A, which is only about 27 million light years away, not connected at all to M102.

This image is 23x480" (just over three hours) with the SXVF-H9C through the ONTC-Synta Newtonian.

M66 (March 2018)

Galaxy M66 is 37 million light years away.  It appears in our constellation Leo.

The image also shows several background galaxies.  In the upper right corner you can find galaxy PGC 1417198, magnitude 17.18 and 1.2 billion light years away. In the upper left corner, galaxy PGC 3542444 shines at magnitude 17.95 and is 2.9 billion light years away! Wow! That must be some galaxy! Just below that and a little to the right is PGC 1423398, which is  magnitude 17.85 and 1.9 billion light years from us.  (These distances come from SkySafari.)

The dimmest stars in this image are +19 magnitude.

This image is 42x480" (5.6 hours) over two nights with the SXVF-H9C through the ONTC-Synta Newtonian and Baader MPCC II.

M66 was actually the first deep sky object I ever imaged eleven years ago. A year later, ten years ago this month, I obtained what I thought was a decent image. I posted about it here.

Quasar: QO957+561 A/B (March 30, 2018)

This is an image of the so-called "Twin Quasar."  The two dots near the center upper-half of the image are light from a quasar, a galaxy that is very far away,  The upper dot is called A and the lower one B. The light from B is combined with that of a galaxy that appears so close to B that my telescope cannot distinguish between the two.  But astronomers with larger telescopes have taken spectra of these light sources and discovered that they are very distant.

They are so far away that the expansion of the universe has red-shifted their spectra.  The two dots A and B have a red-shift measured at 1.41, and the galaxy that appears near B is red-shifted 0.355.  Astronomers have found a galaxy cluster in the line of sight at a red-shift of around 0.5.  We can translate these measurements into light years.  The light from quasar components A and B has been traveling 8.7 billion years.  The light from the galaxy appearing next to B left its source 3.7 billion years ago.  The galaxy cluster in the area produced the cluster's light around 5 billion years ago.  My image shows only A and B, not the galaxies in between us and them.  But a nice Hubble Telescope image here shows the galaxy near B and the background cluster.

This is a record for me.  I've never recorded light as old as 8.7 billion years!

What is even more remarkable, the galaxy and cluster between us and A and B acts as a gravitational lens.  A and B are actually a single light source! We see them as two because the strong gravity of the galaxy and cluster in between acts as a lens, bending the light from the far-away quasar into what we see as two images, A and B.  This is proof that gravity bends light, and it is a predicted effect of the theory of relativity.  The Twin Quasar was the first gravitational lens discovered, in 1979, and it is the first one I have imaged.

This image is 21x480" with the SXVF-H9C through the CFF Classical Cassegrain at f/8.1.  As always, the telescope performed wonderfully.  This image was taken under a nearly full moon.  The Twin Quasar is in western Ursa Major, however, so quite far from the full moon in late March.

I relied on this paper in writing this brief summary.

Lunar Eclipse, January 31, 2018

Trapezium E, 80mm

Tonight with a 5mm Vixen Lanthanum eyepiece in my SW80ED I saw the E star of the Trapezium blink in and out!

NGC 2403 (January 2018)

This galaxy is only about 8 million light years away and appears in our constellation Camelopardalis.  NGC 2403 is bursting with star formation, flowing gas, and other activity.

This image is 38x9' with the SXVF-H9C through the 8" Newt and Baader MPCC.  I am still tweaking this scope, but I like this image.

NGC 2174 and HD 42088 (Jan. 2018)

NGC 2174 is a bright emission nebula surrounding HD42088, a mag 7.55, O-type star in northern Orion.  Most large emission nebulae have an O-type star near their centers.  The orange star at lower left is HD252208, a type K star.  The brighter star at the top is also a type K.

This is a full spectrum image tempered by the Astronomik CLS light pollution filter.  The camera was the SXVF-H9C.  The image is a stack of 18x9' frames.

The telescope for this image is new, an 8" Newtonian reflector with parts gathered from various suppliers.  I am not finished tweaking the telescope yet, but I like this image.  I also like the speed of this scope.  Whereas my classical Cassegrain images (with reducer) at f/8.1, this scope images (with coma corrector) at f/4.9.