M3 - Globular Cluster - 01 May 2013

Here is an image of M3, a Globular Cluster in Canes Venatici (not far from Arcturus!), discovered by Charles Messier in 1764. It contains an estimated half million stars and is around 33,900 light years away.

The image, taken last night, is a stack of 50 1-minute exposures at ISO800, with darks, flats and bias frames on a Canon EOS550d, stuck on my Skywatcher 8" newtonian with a coma corrector. The whole lot was guided using PHD and a Philips webcam.  In the space of an hour I had to scrap 5 images with Satellite trails through them, which is surprisingly high given the small amount of sky I was looking at!

Stacked using DeepSkyStacker and processed with CS5 following Bill's excellent Open-Cluster tutorial guide. I can probably do a better job of this image and will try again when I have more time to fully understand Bill's methods, but I'm pleased with it for now!

The dim Galaxy in the upper right of the image is NGC5263, a Mag 13.4 spiral.

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!

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!

The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules - M13

The image was taken on 12th May 2010 using my 8" Skywatcher Newtonian and Canon EOS550d. It's a stack of 19 30sec. exposures at ISO800, with dark and flat frames. This is my first experiment with flat frames and it hasn't been entirely successful as a gradient can still be seen across the image, probably due to the way I did it!
To the bottom left of the image is the magnitude 12 Spiral Galaxy NGC 6207, a recent producer of a type II supernova (SN2004A).

The lower picture is the same data, but processed in a different way, and shows that there are many ways to skin a cat, in fact with processing astrophotographs there are many hundreds, so the final result is very subjective and dependant on the photographer, though we all try to maintain the correct colour balance, unless doing narrowband work. Is processing a Black Art? well, certainly it could be considered an Art, the shade of black I leave to you.

M3 - Again.....

Here's another picture of M3 to compare with Brian's below. I took this because I didn't want to stay up and wait for M13 to swing into view! It's still a fine example of a Globular Cluster though. Seven 30second exposures, taken using a Canon EOS550d (ISO1600) and my 8" Skywatcher, stacked with DeepSkyStacker and tweaked using the GIMP. 7th April 2010.

A second version of M3, reprocessed another way. Better? Worse? Very much in the eye of the beholder.

M3 - 100322

Taken with a William FLT98 and SX M25C on an AP 900GTPO mount. Guided by an H9C in a Vixen VMC260L. This is the first guided try with the AP mount and all seems to be working well. The exposure was 7x120sec, which isn't much but the night wasn't good enough to be worth more between clouds. Pre-processed and averaged in AstroArt4 and finally in Photoshop CS2.

M13

Estimated to contain from half to one million stars, this is sat on the right hand edge of the Keystone and the best Globular in the northern hemisphere.
Taken from Austerfield on 20.3.09, with an M25C and William FLT98. The exposure was 12x120sec. Acquired and processed in AstroArt4 and Photoshop.