M81 & M82 Again

I never get bored of these beautiful galaxies nestling themselves about 12 million light years away M81's (ngc 3031 Bodes Galaxy) A near perfect arm structure circles all the way to it's core. I can also see a 3 dimensional structure like water going down the plug hole to be swallowed up by a raging black hole of about 70 million solar masses. However only one super nova found in recent years found in 1993.

M82 (cigar galaxy ngc3034) also positions itself at the same distance. Recently well about 200 million years ago the pair were interacting resulting in a large amount of gas being funneled into its core. Also known as the starburst galaxy as it produces stars at a rate 10 times faster that our own Milky Way.

The 3rd member of the group the much smaller and fainter NGC 3077 @ mag 10.6 has a very fine wispy structure this is a result of again tidal interaction between its parents many millions of years ago.

I can also confirm a few more faint fuzzies as you can see from my labelled picture.
down to an amazing mag 15.6 Unheard of from an amateur just 10 years ago.

Comet 2009 R1 McNaught

Congratulations go to Rob McNaught this is his 51st comet discovery during the course of the Siding Springs Survey. Expected to get another couple of magnitudes brighter by the end of the month just about when us Brits lose it.

I had a quick go the other morning around 2.45 when the moon was up and it had just risen over a neighbours rooftop. Knowing my luck the next week set of nights off I get will all be cloudy so get it while yuo can!!

Here is a stack of 6 x 30 second exposures at ISO400

Not an amazing pic but just glad to have seen it. Enjoy while you can.

M81 & M82 2 Hours

Hi again all,
Had a great night of clear skies again last night so from midnight I captured another 1 hours worth of photons. Again we have 60 x 1 minute exposures unguided and a master produced. I then combined both masters and done a little cropping due to camera alignment. Had to remove as we had our daughters 8th birthday party to capture. I am preety amazed at the result stars image is a little smoother and stars rounder too?

M81 & m82

Hi Everyone,
Had some good news on the work side of life. I will moving my shift pattern onto days by July. Finally I will become an astronomer again. Have a new nickname from the family too bless em I am now known as Astro Geek. On a week of rest this week cant get my sleep pattern right either probably due to an enormous wisdom tooth excavating through the side of my face. Good news is its coming out Monday morning after a 12 hour shift.

Enough of my woes. Here's the good stuff.

Went outside last night and the weather man said it was going to be clear so I believed him and rolled back the roof of the observatory and let the scopes equalize

I had a re balance and alignment done a month or so ago. I done a couple of test shots to focus etc. I set Images plus to 60 x 1 minute unguided exposures.

I lost a couple of shots over the course so here is a 58 minute taken in JPEG no flats no bias or darks as I had to bin them all due to the new field flattener.

My aim is to go out tonight and do another hours worth and see what that looks like when co added. So here is the first hours worth. Beware this could fall flat on its face and all I end up with is this image.

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