NGC 1893 and Sim 129 & 130 (Nov. 2020)

The very young open cluster NGC 1893 sports five O-type stars (the five brightest stars across the center of the cluster in front of the nebula).  The cluster also produced a number of hot B-type stars.  Together, these stars (especially the O-type stars) power the glowing gas behind them.  See especially this study: https://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0703706.pdf 

Infrared and X-ray images of the area show more stars behind the the dark clouds of gas and dust that cross the face of the nebula.  https://arxiv.org/pdf/0807.0116.pdf  Studies also strongly suggest that NGC 1893 harbors many pre-main-sequence stars and some protostars, https://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.0269.pdf, and young stellar objects, https://arxiv.org/pdf/1207.5632.pdf.  The cluster is probably 4-5 million years old, though star formation is probably ongoing.

The two cometary globules (or tadpole nebulae) are from left to right Simeis 129 and 130.  The nebula behind the cluster is called IC 410.

This image is 63x15" (15.75 hours) with the 203mm f/4.95 Synta-ONTC Newtonian, an Astronomik CLS filter, and Atik 460 EXC camera.

M33 (Nov. 2020)

This one is 41x900" with the Atik 460EXC through the 203mm Synta-ONTC Newtonian at f/4.95, using an Astronomik CLS filter.

IC 1805 (Sept. 2020)

IC 1805 is an open cluster set in the complex cloud of nebulosity from which the stars formed.  This is 14x900" in late September with the Atik 460EXC and 203mm Synta-ONTC Newtonian at f/4.95.

Some Sisters, X/M45 (Oct. 2020)

 

This is, of course, part of M45.  In the Fall, the wondrous large and bright Pleaides are high overhead.  I am always thrilled to see the nebulosity in just 360" exposures.  This is 18x360" with the Atik 460EXC and 203mm Synta-ONTC Newtonian at f/4.95.

IC 5146, the Cocoon Nebula (August 2020)

This is 36x900" with the Atik 460EXC through the 203mm Synta-ONTC Newtonian at f/4.95 and an Astronomik CLS filter.

NGC 7048 (Sept. 2020)

I didn't know about this button on the sky until I turned the camera on it late one night.  The moon was 72% waxing, and I needed a fairly bright target.

This image is 16x10' with the Atik 460EXC through a 203mm f/4.95 Synta-ONTC Newtonian and an Astronomik CLS filter.

NGC 457, the Owl or ET Cluster (Sept. 2020)

NGC 457 is one of my favorite open clusters.  Through a telescope, it is stunning, partly because of the contrast between the brighter stars and the dimmer diamonds.  This image is 19x300" with the Atik 460EXC through the 203mm f/4.95 Synta-ONTC Newtonian and an Astronomik CLS filter.

The Dark Tower of Scorpius (Sept. 2018)

 

This is the Dark Tower, a cloud of gas and dust from which stars are forming.  Its glow is produced in reaction to ultraviolet radiation from NGC 6231, a cluster of young, bright stars off the screen to the left.  The Dark Tower doesn't really have a catalog designation or number, and it actually stretches a bit further to the left off this image. It's just an unnamed but interesting area of the sky.  The whole complex is perhaps 5,000 light years away.  NGC 6231 and the nebula can be seen (if you can see them) near the first (not the last) sharp curve of the scorpion's tale.

Grus Triplet (Summer 2018)

I've been saving this data till I could look at it again with a better eye.  This data comes from an observatory in Australia.

These three galaxies appear in the constellation Grus (the crane).   They are, from upper left to lower right, NGC 7582, 7590, and 7599.  The trio and one other companion, NGC 7552 (off the top of this frame), lie about 60 million light years distant.  The quartet is gravitationally interactive, and these three show tidal effects from each other's pull.  https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf/2005/01/aagi011.pdf.  One tidal tail stretches almost all the way from NGC 7582 to NGC 7590, but the tail is too dim and the wrong part of the spectrum to appear in this image.

NGC 4302 (Hubble Legacy Archives), May 3, 2000

 

This image is from data in the Hubble Legacy Archives.  These are single exposures from the space telescope at three different wavelengths (with the F450W, F555W, and F814W filters), combined to create an RGB file.

NGC 4302 is about 55 million light years away and appears in the constellation Coma Berenices.  The boxy center of the galaxy suggests a central bar.  NGC 4302 is a Seyfert galaxy.

NGC 4302 appears next to NGC 4298, another galaxy, and at least one study has shown a bridge of radio emission moving between them, evidence of some interaction.

Elephant Trunk, IC 1396A (Summer 2020)

This dark cloud floats in front of a field of glowing hydrogen (red). 

This is 31x900" through the Synta-ONTC 203mm f/4.95 Newtonian and an Astronomik CLS filter with the Atik 460EXC.

Palomar 4 (April-May 2020)

Palomar 4 is fascinating—a very distant globular cluster of stars orbiting the Milky Way far outside our galaxy, 356,000 light years from us.

At that distance, the stars of Palomar 4 are very dim, from magnitude 17.9 down to magnitude 28.  Please note, however, that the two brightest stars in my image of the cluster stand out.  I noticed that the brighter of the two seemed much brighter than when I imaged the cluster in 2009, https://polarisb.blogspot.com/2009/03/palomar-4-final.html.  The star seemed so much brighter that I believed it must be variable.  I checked with the AAVSO, the world's experts on variable star light curves, and yes, both the two brightest stars in my image are variables.  Thanks to Brian Skiff and Sebastian Otero:
https://www.aavso.org/vsx/index.php?view=detail.top&oid=380883
https://www.aavso.org/vsx/index.php?view=detail.top&oid=380882

The cluster is relatively sparse as globs go.  See this deep image from the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey telescope, a 4m scope.

The whole cluster has less than 30,000 solar masses.  See https://arxiv.org/pdf/1205.2693.pdf.  This study also contains a color magnitude diagram that shows the cluster's star magnitudes.  Even the 4m scope attached to the DECam only reaches those as bright as mag 23 or 24.

In addition to Palomar 4, the image contains some deep galaxies.  To the right is PGC 1855809, mag 17.92 and 330 million light years away. Above that, and very dim, is PGC 1856336, mag 17.97, 2.2 billion light years away, and 167,000 light years wide.

To the left of Pal 4 is PGC 1846998, mag 16.18 and 330 million light years away.

Bottom left is PGC 1845035, at mag 17.69, 2.1 billion light years away.  The galaxy must be huge, 250,000 light years across. Another galaxy smudge, just left of PGC 1846998, is at the same distance.  It is a small smudge on my image, almost starlike.  It is called PGC 1846201 and at 2.1 billion light years is probably 150,000 light years across.

There are other galaxies in the image, but I did not identify them.

This is 11x900" with the 203mm Synta-ONTC Newtonian at f/4.95 and the Atik 460EXC.

M92 (July 2020)

M92 is about 27,000 light years away, about 16,000 light years above the plane of the galaxy and 33,000 light years from the galaxy's center.

One estimate I read said M92 may have 330,000 solar masses.

The galaxy in the lower right is PGC 59984, mag 15.21 and 390 million light years away.  The dimmest stars in the image are less than mag 19.

This is 8x600" with the Atik 460EXC through my 203mm f/4.95 Synta-ONTC Newtonian.  Frankly, I was waiting for another target to clear the trees, but this turned into an interesting project.

M8 (Spring 2019)

Amazing data from Martin Pugh's observatory in Australia: 17CDK, SBIG 11000M.

M27 (June 2020)

This is 13x900" from the suburbs with the 203mm Synta-ONTC Newtonian at f/4.95 and the Atik 460EXC.

M56 (May 2020)

Here's one I keep shooting, but I think this is the first color image.  M56 hits the imaging part of my tree-free sky at just the right moment each spring.  I seem to collect light from it over and over.

M56 is about 33,000 light years from us and contains a mass of 230,000 suns!  That's a lot.  It rises with the constellation Lyra, after M57, and before Cygnus.

This image is 12x900" through the 203mm Synta-ONTC Newtonian at f/4.95 with the Atik 460EXC camera.  The frames were taken between 2 and 5 am a few weeks ago.

Mercury Venus Moon Conjunction (May 24, 2020 UTC)

Mercury at top, Venus to the right, and can you see the moon peeking out between the cloud banks?  I looked through a telescope, too, and saw Venus's thin crescent and Mercury's waxing near-gibbous.

And here is the sunset beforehand:

Hoag's Object (May 19, 2020)

Can you see it?  Hoag's Object looks like a yellow star with a ring around it.

Hoag's Object is also called PGC 54559.  It lies in the constellation Serpens.

It is a galaxy, but astronomers were initially unsure how to characterize it.  Its discoverer in 1950, Arthur Hoag, thought it might be a galaxy or a planetary nebula.  Hoag also proposed that it was a galaxy gravitationally lensing another galaxy far behind it, bending the farther galaxy's light into a ring.

But the yellow-red center of Hoag's Object and the ring surrounding it sit at the same distance from us, so the system could not be a gravitational lens.  Also, the center is not bright enough to be that massive. Hubble images clearly show the yellowed, older center to be ringed by a blue crop of newer stars. Relatively recent studies have shown that the blue ring lights up the inner edge of a larger ring of hydrogen surrounding the galaxy. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1307.6368.pdf

Unlike some ring galaxies that seem to have formed from a collision, Hoag's Object seems peaceful, copacetic.  It is about 600 million light years away.

PGC 1659902 is on the far right, mag 16.68, 1.2 billion light years away.

PGC 1658877 is just above it and a little left, mag 18.11, 1.3 billion light years away.

PGC 1652138, almost directly below Hoag's Object in roughly the middle of the frame, is mag 17.14, 620 million light years.

Lower far left, PGC 1647373, mag 17.42, 1.3 billion light years.

I did not find labels for the other galaxies in the image.

The faintest stars in the image are < mag 19.

This is 11x900" with the 203mm Synta-ONTC Newtonian, taken with the Atik 460EXC.

Or try the inverted monochrome version:

Makemake, April 30, 2020, from 5:33 to 8:01 UTC

This image was taken on April 30, 2020, from 5:33 to 8:01 UTC.  Makemake is the short streak just above the center of the frame, next to a bluish star.  Here is a cut-out with the well-known space-arrow nebula pointing at the dwarf planet:

The image is 13x600" exposures, with 4 dropped frames within the named time frame. Camera: Atik 460EXC, Astronomik CLS filter. Telescope: 203mm Synta-ONTC Newtonian at f/4.95, Baader MPCC.

At the time, Makemake was 431.23 light minutes from eath.  It's light took 7 hours 11 minutes to reach earth.

Down is west in this image. The planet's movement was from up to down in this frame, the dwarf planet appearing to head west, in retrograde.

The dim star to the right and a little above where Makemake started is mag 18.65.

The bright galaxy at 1:30 o'clock from Makemake is PGC 140072, 1 billion light years away.

The galaxy just to its right at 4:30 is mag 18.35 PGC 1699049, 2.8 billion light years away.  It's companion just to the right is PGC 3802286 at 2.7 billion light years, mag 18.99.  I did not find information for the galaxy below them that forms with them an equilateral triangle.

The bright star to the left of Makemake is mag 12.41.

To the left and down at 7 o'clock from there is a mag 17 star, and just left of it another galaxy, PGC 1697253, mag 18.16, 1.8 billion light years.

Other than that, the spot of fuzz in the upper right quadrant of the large image is PGC 1702155, mag 17.2, 1 billion light years away.

The brightest star in the image is SAO 82643, mag 9.21, 289 light years away, type KO.

Below that is SAO 82639, mag 9.73, 960 light years distant, type G2.

And the bright star to the bottom right is TYC 1993-1675-1, mag 9.8.

Here is a screen shot from SkySafari.  (The dim galaxies show up only at a more minute scale.)

And here is a black & white inverted version:

M63 (April 2020)

I was fortunate to make a trip to an observatory north of Huntsville, TX, to meet a few friends and do some imaging.  I took my youngest son with me, and we camped.  The sky was hazy until 11:30, but I was anxious to do some imaging, so while waves of mild haze passed overhead, I took five 1800" frames of M63.  When it was over, I wasn't sure if I'd have anything, but this is more than I would get at home.  So light pollution at home v. intermittent haze at a much darker site?  Haze and darkness win.

M63 is about 29 million light years away in the constellation Canes Venatici.

You can see a real time warp in this image.  The bright star superimposed over the galaxy is HD 115270, just 3,300 light years away. M63 is 8,790x further away, at 29 million light years.  A fuzzy spot seemingly hovering within the left back curve of M63 (which we see only through M63's spiral arm) is PGC 4018103, a galaxy 1.2 billion light years.  That is 41x further than M63 and a lot older.

Other highlights include

• in the far upper left, PGC 2197647, 1.1 billion light years away; 
• the pair PGC 2196920 and 2196677, 920 million light years away, visible just above the bright red star above and to the right of M63; 
• PGC 2187167, 1.1 billion light years away at about 5 o'clock and one galaxy length away from M63; and 
• 2MASX J13145076+4142467, which is an elliptical at the far bottom right.  This last galaxy has a redshift-based distance of about 600-650 million light years.

This is 5x1800" with the Atik 460EXC through the 203mm Synta-ONTC Newtonian.

M57 (April 2020)

This is 12x360" with the Atik 460EXC through the 203mm f/4.95 Synta-ONTC Newtonian.  OK, another Ring Nebula---I will say this, though.  While I was shooting, I was also observing the Ring with my 6" Spooner Parallax Newtonian.  The Ring looked magnificent in the 6", though I could see no color.  Here's a monochrome image that is deeper than I could see but in some ways similar.  I used it as Lum for the image above.  Stars are pretty deep here, down to around mag 18.

Helix Nebula in SHO (Summer 2018)

The Helix never ceases to amaze.  This data is from a 12" RCOS telescope from New South Wales.

M13 (not deep) — First Light with Atik 460ex Color (April 2020)

This is M13 again.  I spent most of the night on something else, but it seemed a shame to waste the darkness when I could still be shooting, so I took 3x360" on M13.  It's not deep.  One can barely spot IC 4617, but this was a pretty good test.  I took this picture through an Astronomik CLS filter, a Baader MPCC (the first version), and the 203mm f/4.95 Synta-ONTC Newtonian. 

NGC 2442 (April 2019)

NGC 3953 (April 2020)

OK, so this is a galaxy just southeast of the Big Dipper's bowl.  It looks a lot like M109 and might actually be the galaxy discovered that we now call M109 (whose position was disputed for a long time).  NGC 3953 is a lovely spiral about 61 million light years away.

The image is a time machine looking back into the past.  Find the following beginning at NGC 3953 in the center:

Two galaxy lengths down and left, PGC 37256. No idea how far this one---perhaps it is near NGC 3953.

Above and a little left of NGC 3953, PGC 213900, mag 16.76, 710 million light years.

Below and a little right, PGC 2412642, mag 16.58, 710 million light years.

Immediately left of the galaxy, the small, horizontal "seed" shape, PGC 213899, mag 17.84, 340 million light years.

Below the galaxy, nearly at the bottom of the frame, PGC 2411483, mag 17.30, 970 million light years.

Directly far left of NGC 3953, elliptical, PGC 2407838, mag 17.85, 1.4 billion light years.

In the upper left corner, there are three galaxies.  Beginning at lower left, PGC 2406768, mag 16.69, 1.2 billion light years. Directly above that, PGC 2406922, mag 18.26, 1.2 billion light years. To the right and above that, PGC 2408846, mag 17.87, 1.6 billion light years.

In the bottom right, 1 galaxy length in from the bottom and 1 from the right, PGC 2415838, mag 17.96, 1.7 billion light years.

This image is 49x360" through a light pollution filter.

NGC 2841 (Jan. 2020)

NGC 2841 is found in Ursa Major, mostly down the bear's front leg.  Apparently this galaxy, about 46 million light years distant, is 150,000 light years across, half again larger than our own galaxy.

This image is 34x360" with the 203mm f/4.9 Synta-ONTC Newtonian telescope and the SXVF-H9 camera.

Comet C\2019 Y4 (ATLAS) (1:37-1:58 UTC on 4-1-2020)

And a single frame taken at 1:44 UTC:

Taken with the SXVF-H9 through the Synta-ONTC 203mm Newtonian at f/4.9.  Each exposure was 30 seconds through an Astronomik CLS filter.

NGC 2442 & some companions (2019)

NGC 2442 is in the constellation Volans.  It is not visible from Texas at all---too far south.  This data came from a remote observatory in Australia, gathered by an amateur whose standards for data are as high as mine or higher.

NGC 2442 is about 56 million light years away.  It has obviously been disturbed by something.  According to more than one study, that something is probably AM 0738-692, the galaxy to the left (also known as PGC 21457).  The small galaxy appears to have come from the right and moved to the left just above NGC 2442, probably within the last 300,000 years.  This passage disturbed the larger galaxy, and eventually the smaller one will swing back, crash again, and eventually combine with NGC 2442.  At least that is predicted by this study: https://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/9701015.pdf.

Another study suggests another cause and posts a deep image showing that NGC 2442's unusual arm extends much further than the other:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0103099.pdf
Here's the photo from that study:
https://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/ps/0103/0103099v1.f2.jpg
I can make my data do some of that:

A later study detected an intergalactic gas cloud in the area of NGC 2442.  It's possible that the gas cloud has come from NGC 2442 as part of its interactions.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/321453/pdf

Lots of other little galaxies are floating about, including some that I could not identify.

This is 21x1200" with a 17 Planewave CDK and SBIG 11000m camera.

Galaxies behind M44 (Feb. 2020)

This is part of M44.  M44 is a cluster of stars just 610 light years away, and this is just a small part.  I've always found M44 intriguing through the camera: behind the cluster, peeking through its stars, are lots of little galaxies.  Some of these are far away.

The two bright galaxies sitting perpendicular to each others are PGC 24284 (horizontal) and PGC 2800946 (vertical).  PGC 2800946 is 16th magnitude, and about 220 million light years away.  At that distance, the galaxy is about 62,000 light years across.  PGC 24284 (horizontal) is about the same distance, maybe 5 million light years closer, and actually just a little larger than its companion.

Behind these two, though, other galaxies lurk.  Among them I see PGC 4172192, 1.8 billion light years away (mag. 18.18); PGC 4172171, 2.6 billion light years (mag. 18.44); PGC 4172165, 1 billion light years (Mag. 18.57); and PGC 3732412, 2 billion light years (blazing away at mag. 17.65).

Among these, I see a couple of galaxies for which I have no name.  I was unable to find them on any chart I have.

The dimmest stars in the image are less than mag. 19.  The brighest star in the image is TYC 1395-2047-1, magnitude 10.86.

This image is 7x720" with the CFF 290mm f/13.5 Classical Cassegrain reduced to f/8.1.  The camera was the SXVF-H9, and the subs were taken through an Astronomik CLS filter.  Galactic stats were taken from SkySafari.

Hubble's Variable Nebula, NGC 2261, Caldwell 46 (Feb. 2020)

I took up imaging partly because of light pollution. I just wanted to see more. So sometimes a nice picture is the goal, but sometimes I just want to make an observation. Here is one observation: Hubble's Variable Nebula. It's always a fascinating sight. It's a reflection nebula, and it changes from time to time as clouds get in the way of the star's reflected sunlight. It's a bright target, easily visible from the burbs. This image was 12x300" at a focal length of 2,350mm and a scale of 0.566 arsec/pixel. The telescope used was a CFF 230mm f/13.5 Classical Cassegrain.

NGC 3344 (February 2020)

This galaxy is only about 30 million light years away.  It is a grand spiral in shape but only about 65,000 light years across, about 2/3rds the size of our Milky Way.

There are several smaller galaxies—9 of them!—in the image along the right side of NGC 3344.  Most are around 770 million light years away, give or take thirty million.

The dimmest stars in the image are about magnitude 19.

On the night I took these frames, the seeing was not great.  At the resolution of the system I used, I could only shoot within 22 degrees or so of zenith.  This image was shot at a scale of 0.566 arcsec/pixel.  The image covers 12.8 x 9.72 arc minutes of sky.  I used 9x720" subframes taken with the SXVF-H9 camera at an effective focal length of 2,350mm.  The telescope used was the CFF 290 f/13.5 Classical Cassegrain.  The camera shot through an Astronomik CLS filter.

Sharpless 2-228 in Auriga (Dec. 2019)

This splash of glowing hydrogen is a sign of greater things to come.  Barely visible to the eye through large telescopes, this nebula is spawning stars.  Hidden in its dusty glow is a cluster of new stars waiting to be seen!

This image shows (i) the glowing gas of ionized hydrogen (6.5 hours of exposure) and (ii) stars and a little gas shining at the wavelength of ionized oxygen (5 hours of exposure).  But professional astronomers with access to infrared telescopes that peer through the dust and gas have taken images of the cluster of stars glowing within the cloud.  Here is a link to the infrared image of the hidden cluster.  Here is the study that produced the infrared image of the hidden cluster.

My image was taken with the Synta-ONTC 203mm Newtonian telescope at f/4.95 and the SXVF-H9 camera.  What amazing things we can see from our own backyards!

NGC 1931 (Sh2-237) in Bi-Color (Dec. 2019)

To the H-alpha, I added 6.5 hours of OIII, for a total of 13 hours.  This is a combination of those two stacks of data, with a synthetic green channel used to create a color image.  There is precious little OIII data in this object.  The stars there are too new to generate much loose oxygen that can be ionized.

NGC 1931 (Sh2-237) in H-alpha (December 2019)

This is the h-alpha stack, 6.5 hours worth.  The area is fun because it is actually covered with h-alpha, the glow of ionized hydrogen.  Studies of NGC 1931 suggest that two clouds of gas collide here, actually generating two swarms of stars.  You can see the bow shock of one of the clouds moving towards the other.