Astronomy and astrophotography by Val Ricks for the love of the sky and its Creator. For a better view, toggle F11 and turn off the lights.
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First image of this object.Larger.png)
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Well, this is much better than my last image of this nebula. The addition of guiding and a refractor with less light scatter help, and also the use of a filter to exclude some light pollution. I plan to save this image as luminance for color later.C1.png)
OK, this is my first color image with a monochrome camera, the first ever taken with my camera through my scope. It was taken in my own backyard. It is NGC281, a colorful nebula in Cassiopeia. The cluster of blue stars at the center of it lights up the gas surrounding it. Mostly, the glow you see comes from ionized hydrogen (and perhaps nitrogen). That's the red color. But to some extent the nebula reflects blue starlight, so the nebula shows not as red but purplish. Here is the red frame, taken through the H-alpha filter:Ha.png)
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If folks can't fit the whole of the Pleiades in their view, generally they shoot Merope, which lights up filaments of gas around it. A part of the Merope Nebula may be seen at bottom left. This, on the other hand, is the Alcyone Nebula, which lights up just northeast of Merope..png)
