NGC 4438, 4435 (Arp 120) (April 2019)

These two are the most interesting in Markarian's Chain of galaxies near the heart of the Virgo-Coma  Galaxy Cluster. These two galaxies are about 52 or so million light years away. The background galaxies are much farther, as deep as 3 billion light years.  This image is 38x480" with the SXVF-H9, an Astronomik CLS filter, and the 203mm f/4.95 Synta-ONTC Newtonian. This is about as much galactic light as I can wrangle from the light pollution level of my backyard.

M56 (April 2019)

This image is 48x240" with the SXVF-H9 through an Astronomik CLS filter and the 203mm f/4.95 Synta-ONTC Newtonian. On a couple of imaging nights at 4 am, I needed just one more interesting target to call it a night, and here was M56 hanging over the trees.  With exposures of only 4 minutes each (to avoid over-exposing the stars), I could collect many exposures very quickly.  Here's the monochrome result.

NGC 4395 from the Suburbs (April 2019)

This image is 58x600" with the SXVF-H9C through the 203mm f/4.95 Synta-ONTC Newtonian. Notwithstanding the long exposure, the galaxy is dim, difficult to see against the background. That is because this galaxy is, in fact, very dim. The skyglow in my backyard is actually about the same brightness level as the galaxy's dimmer extensions, so this is probably the best I can do from the 'burbs. The image would be much better from a dark sky site. I've always wanted an image of this galaxy. Now I want a better one.

M65 (Spring 2019)

Here is M65 in Leo, from the backyard.  This is 33x600" with the SXVF-H9C through a Baader Mark II MPCC and the Synta-ONTC 203mm Newtonian at f/4.95.

Vela Supernova Remnant Fragment (Winter 2019)

A fragment of a remnant?  Yup.  This is a bi-color image with data from down under.