NGC 6791 (July 9, 2022, UT)

 

This star cluster is one of the oldest open clusters in our sky, perhaps 8 billion years old, and lies around 13,300 light years away.  Estimates gives it a mass equal to 10,000 suns, and educated guesses suggest that at formation its mass was 10x greater.  A color-magnitude diagram included in the study linked below suggests that the cluster's stars are magnitude 14 and dimmer.  My image captures stars down to around mag. 19, but the cluster contains thousands more stars dimmer than that.

 See https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aae4e5/pdf.

 The red star to the upper right of the cluster is U Lyrae, a carbon star.

This image is 15x1200" with the 203mm Synta ONTC Newtonian at f/4.95, Atik 460 EXC, and Astronomik CLS filter.

M57 in 1200" subs (May 2022)

Here is M57 with 1200" subs.  Through an Astronomik CLS filter from my site, 1200" subs put the nebula itself at 75% to the right on the histogram.  Much more exposure would have started whiting out the primary target.  Anyway, M57 is a lot of fun.  You can see in this image a hint of the expanded shell if your monitor is set to show relatively dim things.  This is 12x1200" through the 203mm Synta ONTC Newtonian at f/4.9 and an Astronomik CLS filter with the Atik 460EXC camera.

M101 in 9x1800" (May 2022)

I decided to try 1800" subs on this dim galaxy in Ursa Major.  I've only seen it visually a couple of times, and it doesn't look like this in my relatively small scopes!  This is 9x1800" through the 203mm Synta ONTC Newtonian at f/4.9 and an Astronomik CLS filter with the Atik 460EXC camera.  Might be fun to go back next year and gather more data.  This image benefited from Noise Exterminator.

NGC 4490 & 4485 (April 2022)

NGC 4490 in Canes Venatici is nearby in a galactic sense: just a short 25 million light year trip.  NGC 4490 is joined in the sky by its smaller companion, NGC 4485.  The two are obviously dancing.

This image is 16x900" with the Atik 460EXC through the 203mm Synta-ONTC Newtonian and Baader MPCC Mk II at f/4.9.

NGC 1955, 1968, and 1974 (aka NGC 1991) (2018)

This data was gathered by Martin Pugh in Australia in 2018.  (I've taken my time with it.)  The scope was a 12" RCOS in an observatory in New South Wales.  It is 12 hours of Ha and O3, combined.  The NGC numbers refer to three clusters of stars beginning lower left and proceeding up and to the right, mixed in with three clumps of nebulosity.

M105, NGC 3384, NGC 3389 (Mar. 2021)

I've had this set for a long time.  The M105 group slips behind a tree too quickly for me to gather a lot of time on it, but I'm unlikely to get any more soon, and I like this image.  I observed the two brighter, elliptical galaxies with my 6" this spring, and they are obvious.  The dimmer NGC 3389 was invisible in our light-polluted skies with that scope.  I'm happy to catch more of it with the camera even in this short set.  This is 12x900" with the 203mm Synta ONTC Newtonian at f/4.9 using the Atik 460EXC and Baader MPCC Mk II.

Lunar Eclipse - Just Post-Mid-Eclipse (May 15, 2022)

This is one of the sharpest and deepest images of mine that night.  The moon passed through an interesting star field.