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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Dynamic Duo Venus & Mercury

Had a break in the cloud coverage to take this pic of Venus & Mercury
taken @ 85mm with a .5 second exposure on the 8th April at 20.14
I would have liked to wait a little longer for a darker sky, but the clouds kept rolling in.

Sorry there has'nt been much activity here recently still stuck doing nights. Hopefully a light at the end of the tunnel coming soon though.

Good to see my fellow bloggers are producing some great work while I am locked (literally) inside. Take a few minutes to look at their stirling efforts please.

M51 Whirlpool Galaxy NGC 5194

After many hours of adjusting and checking the cameras are fixed correctly and square to the scope I have come to the conclusion that the generic Field flattener I had bought just doesn't work I know it was for a f5.5 to f6 scope and my scope is f6.7 but I lived in the vein hope that it wouldn't be that bad. Alas to no avail. Last week I put out a cry for help on UK Astro Ads and asked if anyone had a William Optics Mk3 field flattener which is dedicated for my scope. I had a reply from a really nice chap who said he had one, and a generic William Optics field flattener for refractors as well. He offered the mk 3 to me at a good price and offered to post both of them for me to test. I like so many others have had a few bad transactions on such sites so I as of course a little unsure when I clicked the pay pal button and duly paid up. A couple of days later a package arrives and you know that feeling you get in your stomach when you think things are about to go hideously wrong. I sat staring at the box while I drank my coffee and reluctantly opened it. What a surprise 2 immaculate field flatteners. Having hurdled our youngest happily playing on the carpet in front of me I grabbed the keys to my observatory and had a play. I attached my Canon T fitting to it and connected to scope focussed on a neighbours chimney and checked it out for defects. Last night we had a fantastic clear night despite the fear of a few hundred tonnes of Icelandic volcanic ash about to land on me I set about focusing using my live view and one of my fellow members who makes superb quality Batninov Masks see Keiths Astro over to your right. Now lets try this thing out. a quick 30 seconds to see if everything was there. I took 7 x 3 minute guided exposures and a few darks and started to stack. Here below is the summation of those Images of M51. Slightly over processed I know for a short duration image. BUT Astounded, Amazed, Totally shocked I have star shapes to the edge of the field I am so pleased to finally have an image that doesn't need 80% cropping. Now the bad news. I have had to dump my entire collection of Darks,Flats and Bias frames to start a new with the new Flattener. My Sincere thanks goes to Dr John and his faith and trust in mankind.(the flattener I didn't require now posted back)

NGC6939 NGC6946

After Spending some time in the realm of Hercules I let a finger decide in what direction I should travel. I headed north skimming slowly across the underbelly of Draco when a globular caught my attention. Near to it was the wispy tendrils of a galaxy. It was very faint but as the moon was setting behind the trees skies were lovely and dark. After confirming where I was I took a quick test shot and yippee a lovely little face on galaxy lent me a few photons of it's light.
now the tekkie stuff

Spiral Galaxy NGC 6946 and Open Cluster NGC 6939 are located about 2 degrees southwest of Eta Cepheus.
NGC 6946 is a 9.7 magnitude spiral galaxy that was discovered by William Herschel on September 9, 1798 and is about 10 arc minutes in diameter.

It is a relatively close galaxy at a distance of about 10 million light years, and was once suspected by Edwin Hubble of being a member of the Local Group of galaxies that includes the Milky Way, but today it is not believed to be a member. Because we are looking at it through the plane of our own galaxy, it is highly obscured by dust.

NGC 6946 is sometimes called the Fireworks Galaxy because of the number of supernovae that have been discovered there and the galaxy's prodigious rate of star formation.

By contrast, open cluster NGC 6939, seen about 40 arc minutes northwest of NGC 6946, is located inside of our own galaxy at a distance of approximately 5,800 light years. It is just by coincidence that these two objects lie close to each other in the same line of sight.

NGC 6939's total brightness is about 8th magnitude and it contains about 80 stars in its 8 arc-minute diameter and its brightest member is about 12th magnitude.

We have here 92 30 second unguided frames No Flats or darks. total 46 Minutes

It feels so good to get out there again!!!!!

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

Just My Luck

Well the title say's it all. As a defender of her majesty's realm, I have been dealt a rather long series of night duties, probably going to extend till june! But what really bugs is that for the last 7 nights we have had lovely clear crisp cold skies and yes I am working. Every week I am off on rest week is cloudy damp and miserable you can see where I am coming from now. Here's hoping for a clear hour or so next week . I want desperatly to try the 50mm f1.8 lens and capture some photons.Oh well better get in the shower and get ready for another 12 hour stint. Hope to post something a little more interesting soon. Many thanks to all my followers and visitors from all over our little blue spot (as seen by voyagers 1 & 2. So enjoy the clear skies for the next few days because its me who jinx's the whole thing and finds us cloud not you.

Aurora from 42,000 feet

40th Birthday Pressie

What an amazing day we had. Myself and fellow Breckland astronomical society member John Gionis (link to his blog to your right) Set off at 3.00pm in the pouring rain, anticipation high and nervous at the same time. Our mission as we chose to accept it was to take a little flight in a specially converted 737 fly up to about 32,000 ft and do a few loops around the Orkney Islands to view the most spectacular event of the Aurora Borealis. The trip was arranged through the only company offering such tours http://www.auroraflights.co.uk/







We were treated to talks from "The Sky At Nights" imaging specialist Mr Pete Lawrence and the magazine's reviews editor Mr Paul Money. Pictured Paul Lawrence.




[Photo]The pre-flight presentations were held in Radisson Blu Hotel, Stansted Airport. Paul Money provided a 30 minute talk on the stars and constellations that would be visible during the flight while Pete Lawrence explained the connections between the Sun and the Aurora.The activity predictions for tonight were fairly subdued. The vertical component of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF), known as Bz, had swung south earlier in the day and this gave us some hope for the flight. If Bz points south, the IMF and Earth's magnetic field can connect and auroral displays are more likely to occur. If Bz is north, the fields oppose one another and the aurora tends to be quiet.During the flight, the stars looked beautifully crisp and clear with Paul Money and Pete Lawrence providing an enthusiastic commentary on what could be seen in terms of the stars, constellations and any auroral activity outside the plane. Fortunately, on this occasion, the southerly Bz did work for us and a display was seen. We did make a small course correction by climbing a bit higher and travelling a little futher up to the Faroe Islands at 62°00’N. Although rays and curtains were not very evident this evening, the display did show a lot of horizontal banding and this was seen to change throughout the flight. Pete attempted to photograph the aurora and a couple of his images are shown here.