Mike's Astronomy & Astrophotography

Some Deep Sky Images From Dark Sky Site Cherry Springs

2017-07-16T22:31:00.000-04:00

Took another trip to Cherry Springs, which is about 4-5 hours away. This site is so dark that I cannot yet image deep enough to see light in the background of my subs. I'm going to have to do longer exposures to try to get the faintest of faint light to show up on the camera. Such a cool site to image. The Milky way in the summer looks like a noisy wide field image with the naked eye! This is by far my favorite imaging and viewing location.

Here are a couple of images that I took there.

This is the Trifid Nebula, M20 in Sagittarius. This was done with only 5 - 3 minute exposures at iso 1600.

The next was M101. This rather deep image consists of 8 - 5 minute exposures at iso 1600.... All of the images were taken with the Orion 8" f/4.9 scope.

Following M101, I decided to go over to the Veil Nebula. I have trouble getting decent shots from home, so I thought I'd do my best to get a few of the parts of it from Cherry Springs. Did pretty well with these. The first is the Network Nebula portion. 16 exposures over 2 days. All are 5 minute exposures at iso 1600. You will see an odd thing with the stars. The stars in the center are tiny, and get a little larger the farther from the center you go. This is a problem with imaging with a short Newtonian. A coma corrector will fix that, and will be buying one as soon as I get back home.

Last but not least, here is the "Witches Broom" portion of the Veil, NGC6960. 18 - 5 min exposures, iso 1600. It intresting to note, the highest iso I can use from home at 5 minutes is iso 400, which makes the camera 4 times more sensitive, and the background brightness is much darker in the higher sensitivity images.

NGC4565, The Needle Galaxy

2017-05-16T23:28:00.000-04:00

The Needle Galaxy, a large barred spiral galaxy seen almost perfectly edge-on. The name was given to its narrow profile. This is a bright galaxy that Charles Messier missed. William Herschel discovered this galaxy in 1785.

NGC4565 is between 30 and 50 million light years away, and is about 100,000 light years across (One light year = about 6,000,000,000,000 miles) , and is located in the constellation Coma Berenices. The small galaxy on the top right is NGC4562.

This image is a composite stack of 10 - 5 minute exposures taken with a Canon T3 at ISO 400. The telescope used was an Orion 8", f/5 Newtonian reflector. It is about 16 X 2 arcminutes in size.

NGC2903 and Bode's Nebula

2017-03-22T22:50:00.000-04:00

Imaged two objects this evening, NGC2903 and Bode's Nebulae.

NGC2903 is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Leo, the Lion. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1784. It is relatively bright, at 9.7 magnitude, and is a fairly large target, About 13 X 6 arc minutes. It is about 31 million light years away.

The other object imaged was Bode's Nebulae. Also known as M81 and M82, these 2 galaxies were discovered by Johann Elert Bode in 1774,

M81 is a grand spiral galaxy, and is a large, bright object, at 27 arcminutes across from our perspective. It is about 7th magnitude, so it is visible in binoculars. It is the largest galaxy in the M81 group which contains about 30 galaxies,averaging about 11 million light years away.

M82 is a very interesting galaxy. Even though it is smaller, The core of M82 is an active starburst region. New stars are being formed there at an incredible rate. The starburst activity is thought to have been triggered by interaction with neighboring galaxy M81.

Visually, the 2 make for a rather striking pair. Both will easily fit in a 1 degree field of view, so this image was taken with a DSLR and an 8", f/5 Newtonian reflector.

Witch Head Nebula

2017-02-19T03:00:00.000-05:00

This is an object that I've been wanting to get for a long time, but havent had the equipment to do such a wide field shot until relatively recently. The Witch Head, IC2118 is a couple of degrees long, and is extremely dim.

For this faint reflection nebula, I used an Astronomik CLS clip in Canon filter on the T3. It consists of 25 - 5 minute exposures from my suburban sky. I could not detect it at all with no filtering.

I'm sure that from a darker site, I would be able to get more detail in the cloud formation, but I was able to get the basic shape.

Orion Nebula and the Rosette

2017-02-14T07:31:00.000-05:00

Some new images were taken last night. We had a nice clear night, which we havent had lately. I wanted to see if I could capture some of the faint dust around the Orion Nebula with some filters that I didnt have a year ago.

I was able to get some of the dust, but with little detail in the dust. However I was not even able to detect it before using the filter.

This image was taken with the Astro-Tech AT72ED with the .8 field flattener.

After imaging Orion, I thought I would go for the Rosette a little to the East of Orion in the constellation Monoceros. I've imaged this one a number of times before, but thought I'd do it again...

Nothing special with this one. I used the same equipment as I used on Orion.

2017-01-01T09:12:00.000-05:00

What better way to start a new year than to wake up at 4AM to take a couple pictures of Jupiter. I saw a post on Facebook from a prominent planetary imager talking about a newly discovered outbreak. If I'm not mistaken, this first image captured it. There is another one in the SEB too, but that one is facing away from this shot.

Sorry the image is a bit soft. I had problems attaining focus, but I believe he was referring to the bright white spot on the NTB near the CM.

The next image was taken about an hour later, with somewhat improved focus. Seeing appeared to be decent, but I believe the scope's optics were out of collimation. I hope I have that corrected now for the next imaging session.

There appears to be more detail on this one. I am quite out of practice imaging planets, the last one was Mars and Saturn last summer. I do try to get at least one early Jupiter image every season to see what changes have taken place. This year, there are some big changes. A number of belts are becoming more prominent this year. We should be seeing some really good pictures coming up later in the year.

NGC772, The Nautilus Galaxy

2016-12-20T08:14:00.000-05:00

Tried to get a din galaxy, something I havent tried to do in awhile. These objects typically take a lot of exposures to get them to come out well. This image however was taken using only 8 frames. I had clouds move in which cut my session short.

What you see here is a really large spiral galaxy, about twice the size of the Milky Way, but its about 130 million light years away. The light we are seeing left this galaxy during a time when early dinosaurs were roaming the Earth, when the first freshwater turtles appeared on Earth. The distorted spiral arm was caused by interaction with one of the fuzzy specks to the right of the galaxy, another satellite galaxy.

Various Objects Taken Under City Light Pollution

2016-11-06T08:09:00.000-05:00

This post shows that you dont need to have dark skies in order to take decent astro photos. The location this was taken, the 2nd magnitude star, Polaris was difficult to see. Areas to the South were even worse, and most of these objects were taken fairly low to the south.

The most southern object was the helix. These were taken in white light, with a Astronomik Clip in CLS filter.

Sure, its pretty dim, but with a few extra exposures, it can be had a little brighter.

The next object I tried was the Horsehead. It too was quite do-able from within city lights.

The Orion Nebula is a bright object and is an easy target from anywhere.

The blue dust surrounding the stars of the Pleiades, although quite faint is still within the city dweller's grasp.

The Cygnus Molecular Cloud

2016-10-04T07:58:00.000-04:00

A vast area of glowing hydrogen exists in Cygnus. This image was taken using white light as well as a wideband hydrogen filter. The small fairly bright nebula in the lower center part of the frame is the Crescent Nebula.

This area of the sky is quite large. It encompasses the area around the North America Nebula, Pelican Nebula and the Crescent, so this is actually only a small part of the cloud.

Iris Nebula, NGC7023

2016-08-06T07:34:00.000-04:00

The Astro-Tech focal reducer/field flattener that I'm using with my AT-72ED has threads to accept a 2" filter. I was looking thru Amazon and found a very low cost light pollution filter (in the $35 range). So I bought one. It is just enough to get some rather deep images from my moderately light polluted sky.

I have been having a great time taking wide field images, even of small objects that I would normally use a longer focal length. Take for instance the Iris Nebula. The bright part is only about 18 arc minutes in diameter, or about 1/3 the size of a full moon. What surrounds it, however is just as interesting. This image shows more of the dust that belongs to the Iris, but just isnt lit up like the bright part.

It takes a larger number of exposures to be able to see the unlit dust, as it is extremely faint, but I was able to image it rather well in this composite of 24 - 5 minute frames.

New stars form from within dust clouds, and that is what is lighting up the bright part of the Iris. You can see the light taper off as you move away from the bright stars in the center of the lit area.

Mars and Saturn

2016-06-10T21:08:00.000-04:00

The best Mars image I've ever taken. I'm shocked at the detail!

The NexImage camera is incredible! I actually had no idea that an 8 inch could pull this much detail out of Mars, and with it being so low in the sky this year, I got lucky with how well the seeing was.

Saturn was also incredible with this camera too, and this image is probably my best Saturn to date.

New Planetary Imaging Camera

2016-04-17T20:53:00.000-04:00

Received a Celestron NexImage 5 camera. I am quite impressed with the fine detail this camera sees, and I believe it will improve my planetary images substantially. The first image is the bottom of the moon as seen through the Orion 8" f/5 Newtonian.

Crater Copernicus.

Plato and the Alpine Valley

Jupiter tonight.

Jupiter Great Red Spot

2016-03-27T20:43:00.000-04:00

This capture captured the Great Red Spot.

Catalina C/2013 US10

2016-02-06T20:38:00.000-05:00

Not very often that I image a comet, but I caught one tonight! Stacked on the comet, so the stars are streaking.

Jupiter

2016-02-02T20:35:00.000-05:00

My favorite planet to image. Jupiter looks different every year,

This image is the result of combining 14,000 frames.

California Nebula and Wide Field Orion

2016-01-05T20:31:00.000-05:00

The last few days, I've been trying to image Orion. So far, I took enough mosaics to show the Orion Nebula and the Horsehead and Flame Nebulas in the same image.

This will be an ongoing project. The goal will be to attempt to get the entire constellation.

Took a break last night and imaged the California Nebula. This is a 2-frame mosaic.

Heart and Soul mosaic

2015-12-05T20:18:00.000-05:00

Re-imaged the Heart and Soul using the AT72ED and .8 reducer to slightly widen the field. Created this mosaic to show the proximity of these 2 objects.

Messier 8 and Messier 20

2015-09-09T20:11:00.000-04:00

Two objects which lie near to eachother in the sky are the Lagoon and Trifid Nebulas. Both located in Sagittarius.

This object was the first image while using a .8 focal reducer/field flattener on the AT72ED.

Cherry Springs State Park

2015-08-13T19:59:00.000-04:00

Armed with a new telescope, I ventured out to Cherry Springs to get a few images. I concentrated only on big objects. This is the ideal location to get large faint objects because with the exceptionally dark skies, the background gradients are almost nonexistent.

I was totally happy with my NGC7000 image from the last post, so I didnt bother imaging that one again. I did want to get the Heart and Soul, which I was unable to do before this. Also wanted to get the Veil Nebula, to see how much of it I could get in one frame.

I warmed up with the Andromeda Galaxy before starting on the dim stuff.

Since Andromeda came out so well, I then went over to Cassiopeia and got the Heart. These emission nebulae are difficult to do in white light, but its so dark at Cherry Springs, that one does not really need any filters to do a decent job with them.

After the heart, I moved the scope a couple degrees over to the Soul Nebula. This one was a little brighter and required less image processing. I was able to image them both and they both fit in the frames.

Couldnt quite get the entire veil nebula complex in one frame, but I was able to get the witches broom and Pickering's Triangle.

NGC7000 - First Light With Astro-Tech AT72ED

2015-07-21T19:08:00.000-04:00

Purchased an Astro-Tech AT72ED. I havent imaged with a refractor since I first started doing planetary imaging back in 2010. This new little refractor is a wonderful piece of hardware. Its wide field views opened up a whole new realm of objects that I have not been able to image before.

For the first image, I opted to go with the North America Nebula. I was able to fit the majority of the North America and Pelican Nebula in the same frame, and the image came out fantastic!

The field of view is just under 2X3 degrees.

The nebula is a cloud of ionized hydrogen. The shape is formed by dust which hides portions of the cloud which gived this the shape of North America..

M64, M27 and M57

2015-06-06T17:51:00.000-04:00

Took a few images today of a galaxy and a couple planetary nebulas. The first one I'll feature is M64 in Coma Berenices. This 9th magnitude galaxy is about 25 million light years away. The Black Eye comes from a patch of dark dust which obscures the bright part of the galaxy behind it.

The next object is a fun one to image, and its been photographed to death. Messier 27, or the Dumbbell Nebula. It looks like an apple core to me... The remnants of a dead star is about 1350 light years away in the constellation Vulpecula. The central star is a white dwarf, and is the largest white dwarf known.

The 3rd object, I've imaged before, M57, the Ring Nebula in Lyra. This is an easy object because it is quite bright. Although bright, it is small. Although it can be seen in binoculars, they wont provide enough magnification to be able to tell what it is. A telescope 6 inches in diameter, and about 100 power will show its ring like appearance.

M104 in LRGB

2015-05-08T19:47:00.000-04:00

For this one, I used my Orion G3 with color filters (RGB) and my 6" scope. M104, also known as the Sombrero Galaxy is in the constellation Virgo, about 31 million light years away. The Sombrero is a spiral galaxy with a large central bulge, and a dark dust lane which makes it look like the Mexican hat.

I dont do too many LRGB images, because of the work involved. The object needs to be imaged 3 times, each with a red, green and blue filter, then combined to create a composite color image.

Leo, Hercules and Coma Berenices

2015-04-17T19:32:00.000-04:00

Was all over the sky this evening. I began the evening imaging the Leo Trio of galaxies (M65, M66 and NGC 3628. This is another favorite target by a number of imagers.

After taking a few frames of these galaxies, I aimed a little northeast of these to the constellation Coma Berenices and took a few shots of NGC4565, an edge on spiral galaxy about 43 million light years away.

The little galaxy on the right is NGC 4562.

Lastly, M13 was imaged. I tried something I've never tried before with a deep sky object. I used a 2x barlow, therefore doubling the focal length to 1400mm and also doubling the f-stop to f/10. The stars still look good with the long focal length, and they still appear to be pinpoints.

The barlow just might be worthwhile when imaging small objects.

Rosette Nebula 3/11/15

2015-03-11T19:08:00.000-04:00

Another object I've imaged before. I'm repeating these so that I have a record of improvements I've made in the different objects as I learn more about capturing and processing these images. The Rosette Nebula, SH2-275 or Caldwell 49 is a hydrogen rich region in the constellation Monoceros. Monoceros is located one constellation east of Orion.

This is a big object, over 1 degree in diameter. It almost will not fit in the field of view of a 700mm focal length telescope imaged by an APS-C crop sensor DSLR.

Orion Nebula

2015-02-02T18:54:00.000-05:00

Although this object has been imaged by just about every astro photographer, I thought this particular image of M42 is one of my best to date.