M92

 M92 is considered to be one of the oldest globular clusters in the Milky Way with it's 300,000 stars forming over between 12 & 13 billion years ago. The entire cluster is 100 light years wide and any planet orbiting one of those stars would live in perpetual daylight, never knowing the larger universe that exists beyond.

A bit of a disaster

I like to post the good and the bad so here goes. M92 was the goal here but the data is very poor. I think that I have accumulated frost on the CCD sensor that has corrupted the entire data set. 45 x 60 subs through each RGB filter was just impossible to calibrate. I assumed firstly that it was a setting in Pixinsight that I was unfamiliar with, quite possible considering it is so new to me but after a new set of flats, dark flats and calibrated in both DSS & Pixinsight the results were just the same. I will take the data to Breckland Observatory this week and let a few of our resident Pixinsight experts have a play too. Here is the data anyway. Full size image and crop.#notimpressed. However I was happy with the focus. Win win.

Nova Her 2021

Thank you Chris Bailey a fellow member of Breckland Astronomical Society for sharing the link yesterday of a new Nova found in the constellation of Hercules. Just 9 hours 9 minutes later I was imaging this myself. Spot the odd one out?, ok a little help then. Not the cataclysmic event of the type 1a Supernova exploding, this one appears to be a white dwarf star swallowing some extra material and brightening considerable in a very short time.

30 x 2 minutes frames captured from 22.03 last night from my home observatory using my Skywatcher Ed100 triplet, ZWO ASI294mc pro, ASI Air pro.

M13

A beautifully clear night on Saturday in Saham.  M13, a globular cluster composed of several hundred thousand stars tightly bound by gravity and at a ripe old age of 11.66 billion years old some of the oldest stars in the galaxy. I am getting used to the new set up now, better balance and thus better guiding numbers. RMS 0.4 for 30 1 minute exposures.

New Life in an old focuser

I tested a replacement focuser for the 110mm unfortunately it doesn't fit due to the 4" fitting on the 110. Having removed the existing I decided to have one more bash at trying to get the darn thing moving. I have the technical diagram for the focuser and decided to adjust the bolts that state should only be adjusted by an engineer. What the heck it's busted so what's the worst I can do. Fix it!!!!!

So 20 minutes later I have a reasonably smooth movement going, readjusted the tension to take the weight of the field flattener and camera. On it went and bingo it worked in both directions. I don't think I want to remove the camera ever again.......

A rebalance of the scopes was required to bring back the Starlight camera back into operation. 
A lovely flat field test has resulted in sharp round stars at the edges of the frame too. I took 40 sky flats and created a decent master. Dark frames also captured for a full calibration. I like to use a median setting in Maxim DL as this gives best removal of hot pixels. 5,10 & 20 minute guided exposures have given me a very smooth finish. Processed in Photoshop. The best image of M13 I have taken has resolved stars to the core. The somewhat forgotten Ngc6207 is showing structure and threre are a few more little galaxies easily visible. A PGC galaxy 3515221 can also just be seen at mag 19.64. This side by side inverted image and CDC chart confirms its location.

An inverted image of the core

M13

A test of the set up was required. So I rebalanced and ran PHD of a target much lower in declination than M106. I wanted something bright and easy so M13 was an easy choice to make rising nicely in the North east. I ran the guide programme for 5 minutes with no issues. Fingers were crossed and I ran 5 x 20 minute exposures as a test run really. Calibrated in Maxim DL and processed in photoshop. All I done to process was levels and curves. No unsharp masks or colour correction. Very pleased the core of the structure was not overcooked. A close inspection of the image had shown a faint galaxy between M13 and NGC6207. Carte Du Ceil shows it to be a PGC (principle galaxy catalogue) designation PGC2085277 a mag16.15 galaxy some 2500 times further away than the galactic cluster M13. Delving deeper I found 31 in total as deep as 19.22. Some showing as a marginal brigtening of a pixel or 2 but still there. call up a 2 degree FOV in Carte du Ceil and see how many you can capture too. You may have to download a few extra catalogues though.

An old favourite

After studying M13 through your telescope, imagine now the sky as from deep within the cluster. We would see uncountable numbers of blazing stars, many as bright or brighter than our naked eye planets. Inhabitants on a planet inside M13 would probably know nothing of the Galaxy and other galaxies, as their view would be completely blocked by the brilliance of their own skies. To them, the Great Cluster in Hercules would be "the Universe".

I wanted to try a few exposures at a low Iso and see how well the processing would keep noise to a minimum. The sky has remained very dark as the DDP stretch in Images Plus increased and teased out more detail. I wanted to capture more detail in the core, under saturating the chip at 400 ISO has worked well. Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker this is only 10 x 2 minute guided exposures. (This time I remembered to refocus after the alignment setup)

M13

We have been graced recently with some great clear nights. 5 in a row at last count but tonight was the 1st without the wind. So on goes the canon. I have said now a couple of times this may be the last pic for a while as I am moving, but the clear skies just keep on coming!!!

Anyway onto the good stuff. This is a slightly cropped and DDP processed image of 20 x 300 second exposures at ISO400.

It never fails to amaze me the sensitivity of the cameras just seems to get better. We can now image detail in the nearby 12th mag ngc6207. No longer just a fuzzy blob next to it.

About 124 light years in diameter M13 contains a few hundred thousand stars.

M92, NGC6341

I dont really believe what I saw last night but from dusk till dawn we had a clear night temp hovered around +2. At around midnight i could see the old summer favourites coming into view. Dew heaters on and I focused on M92 somewhat overlooked because of its proximity to its big sister M13, I dont really know why because it's a wonderful sight in my 90mm.

At a distance of 26,000 light years only 900 Light years futher on than M13

16 variables have been discovered in this globular, 14 of which are of RR Lyrae type, while one of them is one of the very few eclipsing binaries in globular clusters.

Late last year I purchased one of the generic field flatteners. I have to say it doesnt work. will just have to save a few pennies for the Williams mk111 version.

Anyway Here is a cropped and stacked set of 76 unguided 30 second JPEGS Images giving a total of 38 Minutes. No darks of flats used.

It was just great to get outside and let some of the stresses of work float away