These earthly godfathers of Heaven's lights, that give a name to every fixed star, have no more profit of their shining nights than those that walk and know not what they are.

— William Shakespeare

Astrophotography

The dark side of photography. Deep space and planetary imaging. Occasionally some day light pictures of the Sun.

NGC6027dI

NGC6027dI

This one hour image unguided taken Friday evening, June 19, 2010 with Orion 80ED mounted on a Celestron CGEM goto mount.  I attempted to image these galaxies before and decided I would try again last night.  The galaxies known as Seyfert Sexteltt in Serpens Cauda looked like they were merging some 49,000 ly distance.  Located near ra 15h 59m  dec +20d 43', they appear in the center of this image (sort of triangle appearance).   Actually wanted another two galaxies merging, but this one was a challange with this scope.  Next time I may try imaging with the

M51_2hrExposure SN2005cs

M51_2hrExposure SN2005cs

Took your advice Joe and image M51 for 2 consecutive hours, guiding did not work again, so I did it the OLD FASHION WAY, 120 one minute combined images in MaximDL/CCD.   Was a great night until the Moon came up causing a hazy sky throughout the East and Southeastern skies.  Tried guiding with the software that came with the mount after completing the above image, it showed that it was guiding, star did not go outside the crosshair.  I did not image as it was already 1:30 am Monday and I was tired.

M51

M51

Taken Tuesday evening from Whiting, NJ, thru my trusted Orion 80ED on a Celestron CGEM mount.  Set up to do a one hour exposure, due to high "not so thin" clouds I was forced to close after 28 minutes, which is what this exposure totals.  

NGC3623 aka M66 along with M65

NGC3623 aka M66 along with M65

First night out in quite awhile, this image was taken thru my Orion 80ED on my Losmandy GM8.  My intention was to image M66 (upper spiral) but with such a wide field I also caught M65.  This is only a raw 23 min image, first since last fall.

Rosette Nebula

Rosette Nebula

Rosette Nebula AKA NGC numbers: 2237, 2238, 2239, and 2246. Within the nebula, open star cluster NGC 2244

NGC2237 & NGC2244

NGC2237 & NGC2244

Two hour exposure h-alpha filter

Horsehead Nebula

Horsehead Nebula

One and one half hour guided exposure of the horsehead in orion in Halpha light. 5" scope at f/4.

IC 1396

IC 1396

The elephant trunk.

Pac man Nebula

Pac man Nebula

The pacman nebula, NGC 281 in Cassipea last night.
Real high in the sky around 11pm. Two hour exposure.
Notice the globules in the upper left section of the nebula.

bubble nebula

bubble nebula

The bubble nebula in Cepheus from tonight clear sky and last sunday. Three hours through H-alpha.