The ET Cluster

The ET Cluster (NGC457) is an open star cluster in the constellation Cassiopeia and lies over 7,900 light years away from the Sun. It has an estimated age of 21 million years. The cluster is often referred to as The ET Cluster (due to its resemblance to the movie character), or The Owl Cluster. The two bright stars, magnitude 5 Phi-1 Cassiopeiae and magnitude 7 Phi-2 Cassiopeiae can be imagined as the eyes.

30/10/2013
9x300sec Subs, Darks, Flats and Bias

M103 - Open Cluster in Cassiopeia

First light with my new William Optics Zenithstar 80 APO!!!

The clouds must have spotted the new toy and moved in quickly to spoil my fun, so I only managed a single 60sec shot of this nice little cluster. At first glance, the star colours stand out much better with this refractor than photos taken through my Skywatcher reflector, in particular the Red Giant star in the middle of the cluster. Hopefully the clouds will part again soon so I can have another go!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

M67 Open Cluster

Taken 7.3.10 by Tim Beale using a Canon DSLR on a Skywatcher 8" Newtonian. 11 frames taken and stacked then processed in Photoshop.
This is almost a first attempt at astrophotography.