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.

M1 with the CFF290 Classical Cassegrain (Jan. 2019)

This is 37x720" with the CFF290 Classical Cassegrain reduced from f/13.5 to eff. f/8.1, taken with the SX-H9C and the 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.

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.

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.

Holoea! (November 2017)

This is the western half of the open cluster M36.  Please find the curious object that looks like a comet with an upward sweeping tail.  Look at about 6:30, halfway from center to lower left edge.  This is Holoea.  The three different versions of the image highlight different parts of this faint object.  After you have found Holoea, please see the write-up below.

Holoea means "flowing gas."  This object was discovered in 1995.  No one is certain just what it is, yet.  Spectroscopy and radio interferometer observations suggest that the object involves a K2 star, two young stellar objects (YSOs) that are moving toward star status, and one pre-stellar condensation of gas that is beginning to glow. Just how those objects are together in the sky is not clear yet, but something, probably one of the YSOs, is ejecting gas outward at 650 kilometers per second!  The system is considered a valuable information source for the stage of star formation between (i) condensing gas cloud and (ii) the point at which a YSO no longer accretes gas.

This image is 17x720" with the SXVF-H9C and Astronomik CLS filter through the CFF 290 Classical Cassegrain at f/8.1.  I thought I might make a color image, but the object is so faint that color would not have been pretty.

Reports are that Holoea has grown brighter, and perhaps it has since the 1950s, but my full-visual-spectrum image suggests it is around magnitude 18.5, something close to the measurement taken in the 1990s.  The faintest stars in the image are around magnitude 20.

My report relies on 2 Jeff Kanipe & Dennis Webb, Annals of the Deep Sky 156 (Willmann-Bell 2015); O. Morata, Y.-J. Kuan, P.T.P. Ho, H.-C. Huang, E.A. Magnier, and R. Zhao-Geisler, Millimetric and Submillimetric Observations of IRAS 05327+3404 "Holoea" in M36, 146 The Astronomical Journal 1 (2013), at http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0004-6256/146/3/49/pdf ; and Magnier's original paper (1996) for the magnitude measured in the 1990s.  I learned of Holoea from Kanipe and Webb.

NGC 1514 (Fall 2017)

This lovely planetary nebula sits on the northern edge of the constellation Taurus, almost in Perseus.  It is visible in late fall and winter.  NGC 1514 was discovered by William Herschel in November 1790.  His study of it is supposed to have persuaded him that not all fuzzy deep sky objects were unresolved groups of stars; this one, he thought, looked like something else.

Perhaps what persuaded him was the very bright star at its center, such a contrast to the nebulosity surrounding it.  The star at the center is a spectroscopic double star.  A study released in 2017 shows that the two stars have a highly eccentric orbit of about 9 years!  (Thanks, Mike Ressler, for the tip (see the comments).)  This study followed other studies that suggested an orbit as short as 10 days (2003) or that the two stars did not orbit each other at all (2016).

In 2010, a NASA infrared telescope revealed that NGC 1514 has two, symmetrical rings around it.  The rings are located outside of the nebulosity shown above and glow in a part of the spectrum not picked up by my camera.  It is proof that even well-studied objects can present new mysteries.

This image is 19x600" through an OIII filter with the SXVF-H9 and 36x720" through an Astronomik CLS filter with the SXVF-H9C.  All sub-frames were taken through the CFF 290 Classical Cassegrain at eff. f/8.1 in Fall 2017.

M43 (Nov. 2017)

Here is M43, the nebulosity surround in NU Orionis, the brightest star in this image.  NU Orionis is a B-type star and radiates UV radiation that probably makes M43 glow.

This image is just 16x240" through the CFF 290 Classical Cassegrain at eff. f/8.1 on a night of about average seeing, which means that 2453mm is too long for the seeing conditions.  It was shrunk 14% to accommodate the poor seeing conditions.  Still, it is an interesting image.  M43 is always overlooked for its near neighbor M42.

M13 (May 2017)

Well, here is a close-up of the great globular cluster in Hercules.  This is 15x300" with the CFF290 Classical Cassegrain and SXVF-H9C, shrunk about 8%.  The great photogenic thing about M13 is that none of the stars are bright enough to blow out the pixels in a 5-minute exposure, yet that same exposure captures some pretty dim stars.  Great target!

M27, Dumbbell Nebula (May 2017)

M27 is found in Vulpecula and is one of the best telescopic sights of summer.  I have "discovered" it many times: most notably in 11x80 binoculars from the desert east of Reno and with an 80mm refractor in Bear Lake, Idaho.  Here is what it looks like with a color camera from my backyard in The Woodlands, TX, with narrowband data added.  I gathered 9x720" in H-alpha and 8x720" in OIII with the SXVF-H9 and combined this with 25x360" taken with the SXVF-H9C.  Of course, this is the big scope, the CFF 290mm Classical Cassegrain, at an effective focal length of about f/8.  The filters are Astronomik.  Guiding was done with an SX-OAG on a Takahashi NJP.

B343 Fine, Summer 2015

B343 is an interesting patch of dust set against a background of glowing hydrogen in the constellation Cygnus.  Below the dark nebula and to the right lie ionization fronts formed in the hydrogen gas.  I think it's a pretty interesting area.

To the H-alpha set, which is used here as Luminance, I have added a night's worth of color with the SXVF-H9C.  The image looked better to me at 85% of original size, so no full resolution is posted.

Telescope: Astro-Tech AT111EDT and William Optics AFR-IV (eff. f/5.6)

Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9 (Ha 11x1500", 11x1200") and SXVF-H9C (55x420"); Alnitak Flat-man flats

Filter(s): Astronomik 6nm Ha & CLS

Guiding: SX Lodestar and SX OAG

Mount: Takahashi NJP

Software: Nebulosity, PHD, Maxim DL, Registar, Photoshop CS3

Location: The Woodlands, TX

M82 (Spring 2015)

Galaxy M82 is amazing because it appears to be exploding.

I considered a version of the image with the background darker, but in fact the background contains several very distant galaxies and perhaps a distant galaxy cluster.  I enjoy the presence of these faint fuzzies enough to put up with a bit of photographic noise.

Telescope: Astro-Tech AT111EDT and William Optics AFR-IV (eff. f/5.6)
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9 (Lum 65x300") (Ha 19x1200"); SXVF-H9C (34x300"); Alnitak Flat-man flats
Filter(s): Astronomik CLS, 6nm Ha
Guiding: SX Lodestar and SX OAG
Mount: Takahashi NJP
Software: Nebulosity, PHD, Maxim DL, Registar, Photoshop CS3
Location: The Woodlands, TX

M33 (October 2014)

This galaxy in Triangulum is a near neighbor, just around 2.8 million light years away.  It's so close it fills the view!  M33 is smaller than our own galaxy but contains numerous regions of gas and dust in which stars are forming.

M33 is just bright enough to be seen with mere eyes from a moonless sky away from all lights.  I've seen it from the SHSU Observatory.  The background sky in this image is bright (and contrast relatively low) because all of my data was gathered from my backyard (community of 100,000 just south of a city of 100,000 (including suburbs)).

This image combines monochrome full-spectrum sub-frames with color sub-frames I took in 2012.  I was glad to see the two data sets come together so well.  The combined mono and color frames were matched in Registar then combined in Photoshop.

Luminosity:

Telescope: Astro-Tech AT111EDT and William Optics AFR-IV (eff. at f/5.6)
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9 39x300", Alnitak Flat-man flats
Filter: Astronomik CLS
Guiding: SX Lodestar and SX OAG
Mount: Takahashi NJP
Software: Nebulosity, Maxim DL, Photoshop CS3
Location: The Woodlands, TX

Color:

Telescope: SV80ED (and William Optics 0.8x II fr/ff (eff. at f/5.6))
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9C (49x480"), Alnitak Flat-man flats
Filter: Hutech IDAS-LPS2
Guiding: Meade DSI Pro and Hutech 50mm
Mount: Takahashi NJP
Software: Nebulosity, Maxim DL, Photoshop CS3
Location: The Woodlands, TX

M51 (April 29, 2014)

Full resolution image here.

I know---I don't need another image of M51.  But I had a few hours and wanted to use the refractor.  I always like the look of stars taken through it.  Of course, with the H9C the scope is working far below full resolution.  And I seemed to get a lot of red in the galaxy.  Perhaps the sky was more transparent to Ha, or perhaps it was particularly opaque to blue.  Either way, here is the result.

Telescope: Astro-Tech AT111EDT and William Optics AFR-IV (eff. at f/5.6)
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9C 20x600"), Alnitak Flat-man flats
Filter: Astronomik CLS
Guiding: SX Lodestar and SX OAG
Mount: Takahashi NJP
Software: Nebulosity, Photoshop CS3
Location: The Woodlands, TX

M13 (June 5, 2014)

Full resolution image here.

Telescope: Orion 254mm f/4.7 Newtonian and Baader MPCC
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9C (33x240"), 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

M57 (April 2014)

Full resolution image here.

How many images of the Ring Nebula does one need?  I figure at least one for each telescope available, and perhaps one for each camera with each telescope.

Actually, I was shooting something else which set behind the trees around 4 am.  Rather than shut down for the night, I slewed to M57 for a short session.

There is something delightful about shooting relatively bright objects.  It's so easy to get a good signal-to-noise ratio.  Besides, M57 is so colorful!  Why not shoot it often?

Telescope: Orion 254mm f/4.7 Newtonian and Baader MPCC
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9C (14x180"), Alnitak Flatman flats
Filter: Astronomik CLS
Guiding: SX Lodestar and SX SFW+OAG
Mount: Takahashi NJP
Software: Nebulosity, Photoshop CS3
Location: The Woodlands, TX

While waiting for clouds to go away in March of this year, I pulled some data from the Hubble Legacy archive.  Here's a much more detailed image of the Ring Nebula from the Hubble Space Telescope, thanks to those who maintain the archive and the creators of FITS Liberator, version 2.

Full resolution image here.