M78, Leo I, and Hickson 44 (the NGC 3190 group)

On the night of January 29, I set up the 6" f/5 newt with the Astro Tech Coma Corrector and the SXVF-H9.  I wanted a shot of Leo I.  But I set up early, and Leo I was not up yet.  M78 was positioned just right, so I shot a couple of hours.  Leo I came up, and I began to see wispy clouds.  Oh, bother.  I went ahead, anyway.  After a couple of hours, the scope needed a meridian flip. I flipped over and centered Leo I and found an annoying reflection in the the center of the image.  It was Regulus, I'm betting, but I have no idea where the reflection was coming from within the telescope.  I obviously have some study to do.  Anyway, there was no way to avoid the reflection that night, so I just moved to another target, one of my favorite galaxy clusters, Hickson 44.  Because of all the moving around, I was only able to get about half the time on each object that I would like, and truthfully M78 needs about ten more hours and a darker sky.  Anyway, here are the three images nonetheless, processed, cropped, and otherwise fixed for best presentation.  No color here; the H9 is a monochrome and I was shooting for luminance, only.  Also, please note that the wispy clouds stayed with me for the rest of the night.

 M78, 17x7', a reflection nebula teaming with new stars about 1300 to 1600 light years distant.

Leo I, 14x7', a small galaxy about 800,000 light years away.  The bright star to the left (south) of the galaxy's location is Regulus.

Hickson 44, 22x7', a galaxy cluster 72 to 111 million light years away.

Telescope: Orion 6" f/5 Imaging Newtonian with GSO Coma Corrector (effectively at f/5.5)
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9
Filter: IDAS-LPS2
Guiding: SX Lodestar, SX OAG
Mount: Takahashi NJP
Software: Nebulosity, Maxim DL, Photoshop CS3
Location: The Woodlands, TX

NGC 3193, 3190, and 3187 (1-1-2011)

This is (at least) three of the galaxies in Hickson 44, a galaxy group in Leo (from the Hickson catalog). I have always thought this trio intriguing because of the different shapes shown (and also because it would fit in my small camera field). NGC 3193, upper left, is an elliptical galaxy that is nearly featureless. NGC 3190, by contrast, is a spiral galaxy that we see almost edge-on. It sports a prominent dust lane and smaller dust lanes branching off on the left. To the right of NGC 3190 is NGC 3187, also a spiral galaxy whose shape has been disrupted by other galaxies in the group, probably including NGC 3185, not pictured here. Most recent estimates put this group of galaxies about 80 million light years from us. Cite. My favorite image of the group is here.

This image was taken on my first night out with the Orion 10" newt. Camera was the Atik 16. An IDAS LPS2 filter was also used. The image is just 22x2'. The background is bright because I did not have enough signal yet (in just 44 minutes of exposure) from the galaxies to cut out skyglow noise.