Sh2-202 (Sharpless 202) Samyang 135mm
This image shows Sh2-202 glowing to the left of centre with the top of the Soul Nebula at the bottom. Several other Sharpless Catalogue objects are also visible together with a few objects from the VdB catalogue.
Image Technical Data
This image was captured from my back yard with my widefield rig consisting of my Samyang 135mm lens with Moravian Instruments G2-8300 CCD camera and Astrodon RGBHa filters. I used my NEQ6 mount. The data was acquired when the object was overhead from Nottingham UK on 29 November 2019. All data acquired in one imaging run and all exposures binned 1x1 and 300seconds:
Ha(3nm) 180 mins, Red>50mins, Blue>45mins,Green>45mins
I hope you like it!
M33 With TEC140 Refractor
I have completed several images of the famous Triangulum Galaxy - M33, over the years. This is one of the most photographed objects in the sky and with good reason; it is a beautiful face on spiral galaxy that is the second closest major galaxy after Andromeda. It is bright and colourful and responds well to all types of imaging, whether with a DSLR or CCD, camera lens or telescope. It is probably the second "go to" target to photograph for astro photography beginners after the Andromeda galaxy.
The image below is a version captured with the TEC 140 refractor and Atik 460 CCD camera and is the total of about 12 hours of LRGBHa data captured from my backyard observatory in Nottingham, UK in 2018. You can see it fills the frame very nicely.
Image Technical Data
Image acquired spring 2018 and 2019 seasons over several capture sessions due to very wet and persistent cloudy weather) in my backyard in Nottingham, UK. It was acquired with TEC 140 refractor with Atik 460 CCD camera and Baader HaLRGB filters on my MESU 200 mount. Guiding was via off-axis guider.
A modest data set with everything binned 1x1 so as not to need so much luminance so a bit of an experiment! Did it work?
Luminance 10 x 300s 1×1; Red 9x 300s 1x1; Green 10x 300s 1×1; Blue 9x 300s 1x1; Ha 12 x 900s 1x1
Data processed with PixInsight and Photoshop and data collected with SGP Pro and guided with PHD2.
Here is another version of M33 with a wider field FSQ85 refractor:
https://thekirkshouse.com/m33-the-triangulum-galaxy/
The Horse head Nebula
A famous, indeed iconic nebula in the constellation Orion, The Horsehead was not even discovered until 1888 with the advent of astro photography. It is very faint to see visually with a telescope.
The image above was captured with my TEC 140 refractor and Atik 460 CCD camera with Astrodon RGB and Ha(3nm) filters. It contains a total of 120 minutes of Ha data and 45 minutes each of RGB data, everything binned 1x1 with 5 minutes exposures.
M97 - The Owl Nebula TEC 140
The Owl Nebula is a planetary nebula in the constellation of Ursa Major, one of three planetary nebulae in the Messier catalogue. It is visible as a faint smudge in amateur telescopes but the colours are not evident visually. It is called The Owl Nebula because of the resemblance to the face of an owl. 6 hours and 30 minutes of LRGB in this image
The annotated version above shows many distant galaxies in the same field of view as M97, although obviously these are very much more distant.
The HOO version above shows the Owl Nebula with Hydrogen Alpha mapped as Red channel and OIII mapped to Green and Blue to create the HOO palette colours. 3 hours and 30 minutes of HaOIII. This HOO image could really do with more data added to it in the Ha and OIII channels and I hope to do this next spring hopefully.
Image Technical Data
This image was captured with TEC 140 refractor and Atik 460 CCD with Astrodon LRGBHaOIII (3nm) filters during Spring 2020 (during the coronavirus lockdown in the UK) from my backyard in Nottingham. Mount is my MESU 200 guided with OAG. There is a quite a lot of data in these images as follows. Everything binned 1x1:
Lum 20 x 600s; Red 13 x 30s; Green 12 x 300s; Blue 13 x 300s; Ha 12 x 600s; OIII 9 x 600s
NGC4565 - The Needle Galaxy TEC 140
Located in the constellation of Coma Berenices, The Needle Galaxy is an almost edge on galaxy about 40 million light years away. Much detail can be seen in the dusty lanes of the edge-on spiral arms.
This picture is a two year project, off and on. I acquired the luminance data in May 2019 with a view to completing the image then. However, cloudy weather then plagued the UK for weeks, and when it eventually cleared the object had vanished behind neighbouring roofs! So I had to park this image and wait a year to collect the RGB colour data in April 2020 (whilst my country [UK] was in lockdown due to the coronavirus).
Data used to build the image collected with TEC140 refractor and Atik460 CCD camera with Astrodon LRGB Gen 2 E-series filters. I used Off-Axis guiding on my Mesu 200 mount.
Data set is 20 x ten minute luminance (1x1) and 60 minutes each in R, G and B (2x2). Processed in PixInsight and Photoshop.
Lots of very faint background galaxies visible the image above and detailed in the annotated version below.
The North American Nebula with Samyang 135mm
Above is 120 minutes worth of Hydrogen Alpha data captured in five minute exposures with an Astrodon Ha 3nm filter and a Samyang 135mm camera lens on a Moravian Instruments G2-8300 CCD camera.
I then captured one hour in each of the Astrodon R,G and B filters with the same rig as detailed for the Ha image, again in five minute exposures. However, use of the superb Astrodon E series RGB filters produce a nice image and the colours are brought out quite nicely although it lacks a bit of punch and vibrancy.
The bright star to the right is Deneb.
In Photoshop I broke out the red channel and then blended it as a 50:50 mix with the Ha image (at the top of this page) before recombining back into RGB. I also saved a copy of this HaR constituent and then used that as a luminance layer to really make the image pop. I then used a series of high pass filters to reveal finer structures in the image.
M81 - Bode's Galaxy in Ursa Major with TEC 140
M81 is a face on spiral galaxy in the constellation of Ursa Major and it (and nearby M82) are the most northerly of the Messier objects. It is easily visible in binoculars as a faint smudge. Its open spiral arms and red HII star forming regions make it a popular target for amateur and professional astronomers alike. In this picture note at the four o'clock position the very faint satellite galaxy Holmberg II.
It is located about 12 million light years away, placing it outside of the local group and it is steadily receding from us.
I have imaged M81 in several settings. This picture was taken with my TEC140 refractor and Atik 460 CCD camera with Baader LRGBHa filters. It contains five hours of luminance of 900s exposure, two hours of Ha data and 90 minutes in each of RGB to give a total integration time of about twelve hours.
Three Galaxies in Draco
The Draco Trio is a group of three galaxies in the constellation of Draco, The Dragon. They are located about 120-130 million light years away.
This image was captured over the winter 2019-2020. I used my TEC140 refractor with Atik 460 CCD and Astrodon LRGB filters. The luminance is four hours of 15 minute exposures binned 1x1 and the RGB one hour in each filter binned 2x2. Mount is MESU200 guided with OAG with a QHY5.
M33 - The Triangulum Galaxy
This is about two hours each of LRGB (in each filter) with the Takahashi FSQ85 telescope and Atik 460 CCD camera with Baader LRGB filters. I did not use a Ha filter on this image. The data was collected on 29th November 2013 and it was the second light of the telescope (first light being The Double Cluster here). The telescope performs superbly and is very well colour balanced.
At a distance of about 2.8 - 3.0 million light years, M33 is the most distant object that can be viewed by the unaided eye and is visible in a dark sky setting as a very tenuous patch of light. Being a face-on galaxy, it has rather low surface brightness and it lacks a bright central core making it quite hard for beginners to find as they expect to see something much brighter and more colourful.
The two above images show an annotated and an inverted version of the galaxy.
The Double Cluster
The Double Cluster is located in the constellation of Perseus, near the border with Cassiopeia and is composed of the two Open Clusters NGC869 and NGC 884. They are visible faintly to the naked eye on a dark night and a wide field eye piece shows them superbly in the telescope as does a pair of binoculars if you hold them steady.
The clusters are very distant from us at about 7500 light years and are located outwards in the Perseus spiral arm of the galaxy. Were they as close as The Pleiades (at 450 light years) they would dominate the night sky!
The above image was taken with my Takahashi FSQ85 refractor and Atik 460 CCD camera with Baader RGB filters and contains 45 minutes of exposures in each of the RGB channels. I took these exposures in 2013 and this was the first light of this telescope.
