SN 2011fe Supernova in the Pinwheel Galaxy M101 - 21:30hrs 17/09/2011

Not the best photo I've ever taken but it was just a quick attempt at finding the Supernova in the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) before it fades. Shining at around Mag 10, it stands out easily against the dim spiral arms and is even brighter than the central region of the galaxy.
This is a Type Ia Supernova, which is an explosion of a white-dwarf star in a binary system. The Pinwheel Galaxy lies at a distance of about 23 million light years.
The image is a stack of only 3 frames (with the usual equipment) as the clouds rolled in on-cue and covered it up! Being low in the North West is also bad for me since this is the direction of Pontefract and all the sky glow that goes with it. I will return to photograph M101, minus supernova (unless there's another one!), in the Spring when it will be in a much darker area of the sky.

Comet C/2009 P1 (Garradd) - 21:00hrs, 17/09/2011

Comet Garradd is now moving from the Coathanger towards Hercules, here it is in 'no man's land' between the two. It seems to have developed a slightly more promenant tail since I last photographed it.
The image is a stack of 15 30sec exposures with a Canon EOS550D and Skywatcher 200p. A coma corrector and light pollution filter were also used.

Comet C/2009 P1 (Garradd) - 23:00hrs, 01/09/2011

After passing M71 in Sagitta, Comet Garradd is now moving past Brocchi's Cluster (the Coathanger) in Vulpecula.

This is a stack of 15 jpegs straight from my camera, taken through a 70mm Televue Pronto refractor. The Coathanger is too big to fit in the field of view of my Skywatcher 200P! It's the first time I've used a refractor for astrophotography and the resulting image is by no means perfect, I seem to have blue halos around the bright stars. The frames were stacked based on the stars which means I've got slight trailing on the comet itself and shows just how fast it's moving. The total equivalent exposure time is 21 minutes.

Comet C/2009 P1 (Garradd) - 23:00hrs, 27/08/2011

This is an image of Comet Garradd passing M71 in the constellation of Sagitta. Being in the middle of the MilkyWay, the backdrop of stars really enhances the shot. M71 is the 'loose' Globular cluster in the upper left corner of the image, while the star Zeta Sge lies in the bottom right.

Taken, from my back garden, with a Canon EOS550D on a Skywatcher 200P using a coma corrector (essential for star fields like this!) and light pollution filter. It's a stack of 18 30sec frames with darks and flats, processed with DeepSkyStacker and the Gimp.

Another good photo opportunity is coming up during the first few days of September when this comet passes Brocchi's cluster, better known as the Coathanger. Stay tuned!

The Moon - 23:00 BST 14/08/2011

It may be the sworn enemy of the deep sky astronomer (me), but the Moon still makes a nice photograph!
Taken with a Canon EOS550d and Skywatcher 200P, the exposure is 1/1000sec at ISO100.
Even with no enhancement it's possible to see the different colours in the Mare, indicating different compositions of basalt. The bright rays from the crater Tycho (lower centre) show up really well when the phase is near full.

M29 - Open Cluster in Cygnus

This is M29 (also NGC 6913) in the middle of Cygnus, a nice little Open Cluster with a good background of Milky Way stars. Taken on 14th August 2011, the image is a stack of 13 30sec exposures using a Canon EOS550d on a Skywatcher 200P, a coma corrector was also used. I didn't bother with a light pollution filter as there was an almost full Moon in the sky drowning out all other sky glow! It's my first image using my newly aquired Vixen GPDX mount which is a great improvement over my other EQ5 in terms of tracking and stability. Even though it was a slightly breezy night I only had to throw away 5 shots due to non-round stars and one of those was due to a pesky satellite. The images were processed using Canon Digital Photo Professional, Deep Sky Stacker and then finished off with the Gimp.

The Leo Triplet

The Leo triplet is a group of galaxies about 35 million light years away. NGC 3628 is at the top, M66 bottom left and M65 bottom center.
This image, taken on 27th April 2011, is a stack of around 20 30sec exposures using a Canon EOS550d and my Skywatcher 200P, dark and flat frames were also taken. I had to over-process the image quite a bit to bring out some of the detail in the galaxies and this has highlighted uneven illumination in the background which I can't remove, 30 second exposures aren't really long enough for this subject but my mount won't track precisely enough for any longer.

Saturn - 27th April 2011

I used Registax to produce this image from a video taken using a Canon EOS550d Digital SLR. It's a first attempt at this kind of thing for me, so plenty of room for improvement, but the image clearly shows the Cassini division in the rings, the cloud bands, and maybe, just maybe, some of those white storms in the northern cloud belt.
The video output from the camera is .mov format, which Registax doesn't like, so it's a bit of a faff to convert them to uncompressed .avi, but, in true Yorkshireman fashion, I found some free software on t'internet to do the job.
I'll try and do a better job on Jupiter when it comes around in the Autumn.

M42 - The Great Orion Nebula

This image is a stack of 22 30sec. frames taken on the 8th of January 2011 using my Canon EOS550D and Skywatcher 200P, unguided. It was quite a windy evening so I had to discard about 30-40 shots due to camera shake! The RAW files from the camera were enhanced slightly and converted to 16bit TIFFs using the Canon supplied software - Digital Photo Professional. From here they were stacked using DeepSkyStacker, together with Darks and Flats and then finished off using the GIMP. I used this convoluted method because DeepSkyStacker doesn't seem to work too well with the RAW images from my camera (maybe I'm doing something wrong?) but it works very nicely with TIFFs.
The center of the nebula is a bit over-exposed but all in all, quite a pleasing result....

Jupiter and Uranus - 08Jan2011

Not a spectacular image but it isn't often that you can fit six prominent Solar System objects into a field of view smaller than the Pleiades! On the left is Jupiter with the four Galilean moons, closest to Jupiter is Io followed by Europa, Callisto and Ganymede. On the right of the image is Uranus.
Taken with a Canon EOS 550d sat on my Skywatcher 200p. It was a 1 second exposure at ISO800.

Moon - The Southern Highlands. 14thJan2011

I took this image of the southern highland region using the WYAS 14" and my Canon EOS 550d. The seeing was quite bad but I managed to get a fairly sharp shot with a fast shutter speed. The craters Tycho (centre) and Clavius (with the arc of craters on the floor) are nicely illuminated. No processing has been done on the image other than cropping out the poorly lit RHS.

NGC 457 - the ET or Owl Cluster in Cassiopeia

A favourite cluster that looks like it's name, with a little imagination. I like to pick up the colour of the stars which is why I used 60sec frames on this. Longer exposures than 120sec or so, burn them out.
I used a William 98 and a SX M25C camera, guided by a Vixen 260L and SX H9C. Flats and bias frames used when calibrating and colour synthesising in AstroArt4. Further processing in Photoshop, including GradX and Noel's Actions.

Comet 103P Hartley - 101019

Taken with a William 98FLT on an AP 900GTO mount, 60 unguided frames of 60 sec each, then manually stacked on the comet in AstroArt and further processed in Photoshop. If you magnify the trails enough you'll see the individual star images. The long trails are indicative of the speed it's moving across our sky, though this should slow as it moves away from us and it should have started that on the 20th.
Not as bright as the pundits forecast, quite difficult to see in binoculars though easier in a telescope except when the Moon is as big and bright and close as it has been this week.
Brian

M42 - 101006

A clear but very dewy night with some high haze. I couldn't resist this. Always a difficult target because of its wide dynamic range. I tried to get a reasonable result without having to take a variety of exposure lengths, short to suit the Trapezium and long to suit the nebulosity. The equipment used was the WO 98 and M25C, but the work is mostly in the processing and this time I tried a self-devised DDP curve in Photoshop. I think with a modicum of success, but many more chances to photograph this target in the coming months.
The exposure was 15x120sec, perhaps between two stools? But the process is worth pursuing for this or other targets.
Stacking and calibration, flats and bias, in AstroArt and all the rest in Photoshop, including some GradX and High Pass sharpening.

M45 - The Pleiades in Taurus

This was taken on Saturday 11.9.10, with an SX M25C in a William 98FLT on an Astro Physics 900GTO, and guided by an SX H9C in a Vixen VMC260L.
Acquired in AstroArt and stacked and coloured there then processed in Photoshop.
It's really quite easy to get a reasonable result on this subject, and it suits a DSLR and short focal length telescope. The difficulty is as much in processing as in taking the photograph, because of the wide dynamic range, bright stars and faint nebulosity.
The exposure was 14x240 secs, hoping to strike a balance between the two. Perhaps the right way would have been to take two series, one short for the stars and the other long for the nebulosity. Some Noise Ninja was used, some Grad X and some pinching and a touch of High Pass sharpening. The photograph is uncropped.

Jupiter and Ganymede

Taken on Friday the 3rd of September with a webcam and a Vixen VMC260L, through poor seeing and thin cloud. Not the best with regard to quality, but interesting. If I'd caught the situation earlier I might have set up to do a longer series and made a video of it, but all well and good in hindsight.
The four were taken soon after each other and all within about 10 mins. Of course when I'd got home it cleared up, as always.
Processed in Registax and Photoshop.

Jupiter and Io - 100831

Taken on the 31st of August with a webcam and Vixen 260. A very hazy night, with seeing limited to about mag 3. But it has a steadying effect on planets, so more of a plus.
This is a good year for Jupiter as it rises quite high in the sky, after two years of keeping very low in the south, so make the most of it. It needs a long focal length, the big Meade should produce good results, and if the seeing is good, add a barlow.
Processed in Registax using 444 frames, out of 2000 taken.
That's Io in the bottom right hand corner.

M103 in Cassiopeia

Tricked by the Cloud God again into seeing it clear at home. A rotten night at the observatory, full of very dense haze/thin cloud, but you have to go out when there's a sign of it being clear. Well, I do.
This is a brightish Open Cluster that I've not photographed before and in such bad skies nebulae aren't really on, so clusters it had to be.
Taken with a WO98FLT and M25C camera on the 900GTO mount. Guiding was poor but not really needed at 120sec frames, 13 of them. Actually 20 were taken, but many were just too hazed to use.
The bright blue star lower right is Ruchbar in the W of Cass and the little cluster at the top edge is Trumpler 1. On the left there's what seems to be an empty patch, though stars can be seen there, a dark nebula? There's another on the right too.
Acquired in AstroArt and stacked and coloured there, final processing in Photoshop, without any sharpening. Uncropped except for stacking edges.

NGC7331 - In Pegasus

Not the best image I've ever taken, it was an attempt to try and capture Stephan's Quintet in the constellation of Pegasus. I didn't have a detailed enough star map to nail down the galaxy group with any precision, as there are no bright stars in the vicinity, so I had to centre the image on NGC7331 which is nearby and visible at the eyepiece. I have no Go-To trickery on the mount to help me in these situations but I enjoy the challenge of star-hopping anyway. If you look closely and use a bit of imagination you can see a few fuzzy patches where the quintet should be, about a third of the way along the top of the image from the right. There are also a few galaxies just below NGC7331 but I haven't identified them yet. This seems an interesting part of the sky but not one I'll rush back to as I don't have the equipment to do it justice yet! Processing has also exposed some large ring shaped gradient variations in the background, something I'll have to investigate further....
Taken with my usual equipment on 18th August 2010. Only 8 images stacked.

M71 - 18/08/2010

This is an image I took of M71, which is a loose globular cluster at a distance of around 13,000 light years in the constellation of Sagitta. Not a particularly fine example of a globular cluster but, lying in the middle of the Milky Way, it has a very rich backdrop of stars. It's a stack of 8 30second exposures with flats and darks, processed using GIMP. I would have stacked more frames but a slow moving faint satellite, which I only spotted later, ran straight across the shot over the period of about 8 frames!

Albireo - Beta Cygni

This blog seemed to be lacking in Double Stars, so what better place to start than Albireo, Beta Cygni, said to be the most beautiful double in the whole night sky. Albireo, at a distance of 380 light-years, can be found at the bottom of the 'Northern Cross' and is easily split with any telescope. The most striking thing about this double is the difference in colours, one gold and one blue, seperated by 35 arc seconds. It is still uncertain as to whether this is a true binary star, if it is then the orbital period has been estimated at around 100,000 years! The gold star is itself a double star, potentially making this a triple system.
The image, taken on 4th August, is a stack of 9 30second frames with darks and flats, processed (very lightly) using the GIMP. Skywatcher 8" Newtonian, Coma corrector and Canon EOS550d.

M27 - The Dumbbell Nebula

I took this image on the 4th August 2010, on a night of very good seeing conditions. It's a stack of 28 30sec. frames with darks and flats. Comparing this image to Brian's further down this blog shows how DSLRs (unmodified) are not as sensitive in the red region due to the filters in front of the sensor.
The Milky Way was clearly visible running through Cygnus and across to Cassiopeia, a rare sight from just South of Pontefract! I also saw two bright Meteors which could have been early Perseids since they both seemed to radiate from the direction of Perseus. The evening was capped off with a first look at Jupiter this season, despite being very low in the sky several cloud belts were easily visible, the SEB was still missing though.

Jupiter - 100729

This promises to be a good season for Jupiter, arching higher in the sky than the previous two.
Taken from Austerfield with an old Toucam 740 in a Vixen 260 at 3000mm EFL. Some 2000 frames were stacked in Registax and fiddled with there and in Photoshop.
The Southern Equatorial Belt continues to be absent and looks almost as though it has been "painted over". The black spot is the shadow of Ganymede.

M57 - The Ring Nebula

This is my first image of the Summer and is really just a quick test of the gadgets I've made/bought over the past few months. As usual, after spending several hours setting up the telescope and imaging bits then waiting for the sky to darken a bit, I only managed 5 minutes photography before the clouds rolled in and the Moon came out to play. The image is a single 30second exposure of M57, but taken through a coma corrector which, at first glance, seems to have done a good job. I've purposefully left the image un-cropped so you can see the stars right at the edge of the field, these would normally look like comets. 6 flats were taken with my new light box, which, when combined in DeepSkyStacker, have produced a nice evenly illuminated field. 2 dark frames were also taken but their effect isn't really visible in the image. The Ring shows slight colouring and, if you zoom in, the central star is just visible. I need more focal length for this object ideally. Equipment used: Skywatcher 8" Newtonian, Skywatcher Coma corrector, Canon EOS550d.

M29 - an Open Cluster in Cygnus

Taken on 23.7.10, a poor night of mixed cloud and clear, with lots of thin hidden cloud and haze, which shows itself as a streaky background. I'd done some collimation on the Vixen and needed a test and this was near where the mount was pointing at the time, the middle of Cygnus. I didn't have time to get the guide system into operation for fear of cloud attack so ran 30 frames at 60sec. No flats, which would have helped the background.
Sometimes called the Cooling Tower cluster, it's not particularly inspiring, quite small too, 10 arcmin and mag 6.6, so should suit the Meade's 3500mm FL, with a big enough chip. The Vixen's is 3000mm. 30 mins is what this took, and that should be plenty for most clusters, and Cygnus is full of them.