M63 Sunflower Galaxy

The first clear night in 5 weeks. I was desperate to get out and roll back the roof. M63 was my target. A central disk surrounded by a wealth of short spiral arm segments. A cropped 30 x 2 minute guided exposures at Iso 800. I am not really happy with the image. Sky quality was not amazing. I was just glad it was clear. I think a revisit will be required soon!

A new view of the moon

Recording video from the DSLR is by no means new technology. Indeed most intermediate and top end cameras now employ full HD recording. Though my poor old 40D does not have such a luxurious feature. Many full moons ago I owned a 300D and I found a programme that allowed video recording, provided you do a hack to the firmware, Having read several posts from disgruntled owners I thought better of it and stuck to the Phillips TOUcam the original egg shaped model I might add. (For sale if anyone wants it) for my lunar and planetary fun. Used with my Orion Optics 10" reflector then. Having moved onto to the refractor and the wonderful wield field images it produces the moon soon became an annoyance rather than the orb of beauty it is. So recently I was trawling the popular social network site and saw an advert to cheap DSLR's a few clicks and some disappointment later I saw an advert for LIVE VIEW recording. No firmware hacks just a simple programme to install and connect to the DSLR. To test it I had set the camera up on a tripod facing outside. Open live view and your pic appears on the screen. Leaving the camera lens on auto focus allows you to tweak it using the controls on the laptop. Pressed record and bingo a very high quality recording. This is the part that really got me though!!!. I zoomed the lens onto a flower and hit the 5x magnifcation button on the programme to adjust the focus once happy I pressed record again leaving it set to zoom. I played back the video expecting to see the full frame but no I had an amazing video form 5x mag from the live view. The recording was about 20fps and incredible. You would think I worked for the company or getting a commission for the programme sales by now. But sadly no as it is free. I immediatly thought that through my modest 90mm refractor and additional help in magnification would be a bonus. A break in the clouds a few nights ago allowed me to test. Here are the results. Camera set to manual 200iso and 1/160th sec exposure. I have a 2" barlow for the close ups. Each video was about a minute and Registax processed around a thousand frames each time. Nothing more added than a wavelet sharpen. Link to the programme can be found here.  http://sourceforge.net/projects/eos-movrec/

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)

If it wasn't for bad luck

       I would have no luck at all. Is how the saying goes. Mystic Malc predicted a couple of weeks ago that we would indeed have a good week of clear skies last week. So we did, BUT I was not going to see any of them. Last monday to this Sunday inclusive was my first set of  nights on the night shift this year. Here continueth the run of bad luck.
      So if we skip back to last May I dismantled my observatory and packed everything away while we moved and of course missed Sn2011dh in M51 last June. Whilst I was building the new observatory last September I missed sn2011fe in M101.
      On the 23rd of Feb this year I imaged a wide field inc M95

and of course saw no Supernova See pic.Tonight is my first night at home again and guess what the clouds have rolled in. Am I destined to miss every Supernova.




To continue the run of misfortune. Last night 10/4/12 saw a reasonably clear. Google said the clear sky wouldn't last so I hastily set up and focussed on a set up star. Here in is where the problem lies M95 was a good 60 degrees across the sky and I completly forgot to refocus. Looks like a tenth of a mm out. But the good news is I have managed to get my first image of the sn2012aw.

Galactic Globulars M3,M53

I cant believe the good run we have had over the last week five from five here in Sunny Norfolk. I am feeling a bit gutted too as I have missed Breckland Astronomical societies first star party & I have a week of night to do starting tonight so the skies are bound to get even better!!. I shouldn't complain either as I have addeed a handful of Pics to my own messier chart

Having bagged a few galaxies this week I turned my attention to the old and weary (globulars) that is....

M5 & M53 became the clusters of choice.  

                      M5

Astronomers like Messier, Kirch, Koehler & Bode all described their first observations of M5 back in the mid 1700's as a nebula without stars. It wasn't until 1783 when William & Caroline Herschel viewed through their 7  & 20 foots reflector. it was resolved into the myriad of stars we can capture today. Although Caroline still mistook it for a comet.

 M53 & Ngc 5053

M53 and NGC5053 are shown in this field. M53 is the bright globular cluster in the centre; NGC5053 is the dimmer globular cluster in the lower right. ngc5053 is about 53,500 light years distant from Earth which is close to the distance of M53. This puts both globular clusters relatively close to each other in space. I had made a slight miscalculation and thought I could not fit both in the same field of view. I only looked at the framing of M53 in my test image. I will have to have another go sometime framing them both appropriately.

Sombrero M104

I have never imaged the Sombrero galaxy before. I was still quite low in the sky early Thurday morning I could only manage 13 Minutes before the realisation that I had work the next day. I will revisit and give a great deal more scope time on this wonderful galaxy. Anyway here is a cropped image just to say I have bagged another one.  Adios Muchacho's.

M98, M99

Discovered in 1781 the M99 (centre) galaxy has a normal looking arm and an extended arm that is less tightly wound. Floating like a cloud in the blackness of space some 50 Million light years away. The upper right of the picture gives us M98 A similar looking galaxy but from our perspective it is viewed nearly edge on. A little further at 60Mly. A blue shift has been measured at 140km per second. This means this galaxy is coming our way closing in every day. Dont panic it will still take 352 Trillion 183 Billion 933 Million 935 Thousand 630 years to reach us.

This image is a composite of 2h 30m in 3 minute guides exposures at Iso 1600 Deeps sky stacker processed in Images plus 3.82 and a RC Astro Gradient xterminator applied.

M101

M101 is relatively large 70% larger in comparison to our own galaxy. Lying approx 21 Million light years away. With over 3000 HII regions the galaxy is undergoing massive star formation.
My Image Is just 36 minutes composed of 12 x 3 minute unguided exposures at Iso 1600. Time was approaching 1.00am and some light cloud was approaching. I am always amazed at how much detail is captured on such a short lenth of exposure. I cant wait to get more!

M59, M60 Galaxies

The last couple of nights have been wonderfully clear. It's a shame I have had to work too next day, I closed up both nights just after 1.00am up again for 6.00am. My first target was was a couple of fuzzies of the virgo cluster. M59 and the mamoth eliptical galaxy M60. Harbouring one of the largest black holes ever found at about 4.5 billion solar masses. My image shows M60 and NGC4647 overlapping but there is no evidence to suggest the 2 are or have interacted in the distant past. At 55 Million light years away who know whats going on today.

1hr 15 minutes at ISO1600 has revealed a wealth of detail I am pleased with. I hope to revisit and pick up a few more photons soon.

3rd Tail for Comet Garradd

I was looking at a Nasa pic of the day today and the wonderful image was of of the heavenly interloper Comet Garradd. The image was taken on Feb 24th http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120303.html and shows a 2nd Ion tail. My image of the comet was taken on the 22nd Feb and my previous pic was a stacked image using deep sky stacker aligning on the comet and tracking the stars.I see no sign of a 3rd tail. I reprocessed stacking the comet only and allowed the stars to trail. To my amazement I could see the hint of a newly formed Ion tail. I have not seen the tail on images prior to this so I may have captured the first jets of plasma as they slam into the magnetic fields in the solar wind.

Moon & Venus

Taken on the evening of the 25th Feb The moon passes close by the planet Venus At the time this was taken the moon was 248,819 miles Venus was 87,104,049 miles away making the moon a cool 350 times closer to us than venus. I just about managed to fit them into the same frame. I deliberatly over exposed the picture to get earthshine.It is caused by sunlight that reflects off the Earth onto the Moon's night side.