M106

There are a handful of Galaxies that present themselves at such an angle you get to see the the immense spiral structure, dust lanes and nebulae in all their splendour at once. M106 is one such beauty right above us this evening. 5 minute sub exposures controlled via the ASI air pro2 reveal some amazing structure in the spiral arms and dust. Numerous other fuzzies are clearly visible within the frame and one immediately caught my eye as the first frame came in is Ngc4217. Believed to me associated to M106, Ngc4217 is viewed edge on and has a very prominent dust lane splitting it in two from our perspective.  At 60 Million light years plus away, appears to me in sub frames very much like M104 The Sombrero Galaxy, my meagre 554mm focal length does not do it justice. Ohhhhhhhh for an 11" SCT. 

The screenshot is the a 5 minute sub frame for the ASI Air Pro. A revolutionary micro computer that has dedicated software for communication, Imaging, Guiding, Auto focus, Scope control and filter wheel (not used). The latest beta release now includes planning to allow multiple targets unattended. A typical imaging session starts with rolling back the dome shutter and power up. I have connected a TP Link travel router to provide greater wifi signal for control inside the house. It takes a minute or so to run it's start up and connect to my tablet. This connects automatically to the ASI Air pro and we are away. My permanent set up means polar alignment is not required every session so I can go straight to target and plate solve. I start a plan in tonight's case M106 from there I leave the obsy and return inside the house. It starts will cooling the main imaging camera to -10 then runs the auto focus routine, guiding initiates and starts guiding using multiple stars, when the guiding has settled the autorun of imaging begins. I have auto focus set to run every hour as in the dome I don't think I need the temperature probe.

 Currently into hour 2 and I have rejected a couple of frames as there are a few gusts of wind that cause the guiding jitters. So averaging at just over .50 arc sec guiding very happy with that. Just opened Carte du Ceil to identify a very faint dot around mag 15 to the north west of the galaxy. It identifies it as PGC 39615 a mag 16.05 irregular galaxy. I really enjoy seeking out  and identifying the obscure and faint within an image. 

The dogs go hunting.

As mentioned in the previous post this was the first time in a month the kit had been powered up. A fellow Breckland AS member has emailed an alert stating a new type II supernova has been discovered near the core of the barred spiral galaxy M106 in Canes Venatici (the hunting dogs). A quick set up and focus gave me the scope pointing near verticle. PHD had it's guide star and ran its set up. A few minutes later everything was ready to go. I programmed my usual 20 minute exposures and left it to it. I returned after the first image to find everything had gone haywire. PHD had lost its star nearly 15 minutes earlier. I spent the next hour running tests and shorter subs not to capture anything worth keeping. All I could manage was 3 x 3 minute exposures. Even these show elongated stars. Very annoyed.

 It appears that a star 23.5 million light years away a rare red supergiant star ended it's life in the most violent way. Nuclear fusion burns in it's core creating heavier elements. Fusion stops at the production of iron from Silicon. With no more energy being created to continue cooking the elements, Gravity takes over, collapsing the star and the resulting shockwave tears the star apart. Barely visible here the nova is situated just to the left of the bright core.

The only that redeems itself is the capture of a few NGC's. NGC 4248 just below M106. below him the pair NGC 4231 & NGC 4232 Bottom left is NGC 4217 & lower right NGC 4220.