M38 - Open Cluster in Auriga TEC 140
M38 is the third of three Messier Open Clusters in the constellation of Auriga, in the Northern hemisphere of the sky. The other two Messier clusters are M36 and M37. All of them are easily visible with binoculars and are seen as faint smudges against the darker background. If you read my post on the Constellation of Auriga you will see all three of the Open Clusters in the same image
Image Technical Data
Imaged from my back yard in Nottingham, UK on the 18th January 2020 whilst high overhead from my location. I used my TEC 140 refractor with Atik 460 cooled CCD camera and Astrodon RGB E Series Generation 2 filters. I used my MESU 200 mount guided with OAG.
All exposures binned 1x1: Red > 12 x 180s ; Green > 14 x 180s ; Blue > 13 x 180s. This gives a total integration time of just under two hours.
M39 Open Cluster in Cygnus - TEC140 refractor
M39 is an open cluster, about 1100 light years distant, in the constellation of Cygnus, The Swan. M39 is about 30 arc minutes in diameter, about the width of the full moon. The Cygnus constellation abounds in interesting objects and The Milky Way galaxy flows straight through it.
ImageTechnical Data
Imaged from my backyard in Nottingham, UK on the 16th October 2019 when it was high overhead from my location. I used my TEC 140 refractor and Atik 460 cooled CCD camera with Astrodon RGB E Series Generation 2 filters. I used my MESU 200 mount guided with an off-Axis guider.
All exposures binned 1x1:
Red > 15 x 120s ; Green > 12 x 120s ; Blue > 15 x 120s
I hope you like it! :)
NGC 6946 - The Fireworks Galaxy - TEC 140
NGC6946 is located on the border between Cygnus and Cepheus and is a fairly bright galaxy about 25 million light years away. It is dubbed the "The Fireworks Galaxy" due to the unusually high number of supernovae that have occured here - ten - that have been observed during the last century. Typically a galaxy would normally have one per century and it is not known why this galaxy has had ten times the average.
The galaxy is quite heavily obscured by dust within our own galaxy and this is probably the reason why it was not accorded the honour of a Messier catalogue number.
Image Technical Details
Imaged from my back yard in Nottingham, UK, during September 2020 whilst high overhead. I used my TEC140 refractor with Atik 460 CCD camera and Astrodon LRGB Generation 2 E series filters and a Ha (3nm) filter. Out in front of the filter wheel was an IDAS light pollution filter. MESU 200 Mount was guided with an off-axis guider. Transparency for the luminance was good but was poor for the RGB and Ha data.
Lum > 36 x 300s 1x1s ; RGB > 14 in each x 300s 2x2 ; Ha > 14 x 300s 2x2
Image capture in SGP and processing in PixInsight and Photoshop CC.
M37 - Open Cluster in Auriga with FSQ85
M37 is one of the three Messier Open Clusters in the Constellation of Auriga - the other two being M36 and M38. It is about 4500 light years away and contains several red giant stars, visible in this image, making it the richest of the three Auriga Messier Open Clusters. M37 appears high overhead from my 53 degree norther location during the winter months making it an ideal target for visual observations and imaging. It makes a fine site in a telescope and appears as a fuzzy ball in a pair of binoculars.
Image Technical Data
Imaged from my backyard in Nottingham, UK on the 9th February 2018. I used my Takahashi FSQ85 refractor and Moravian G2-8300 cooled CCD camera with Astrodon RGB filters. All expsoures are binned 1x1.
Red > 12 x 120s ; Green > 12 x 120s ; Blue > 12 x 120s
M44 - Praesepe - with FSQ85
M44 or "Praesepe" as it is called, is a famous open cluster visible in the late winter/ springtime in the constellation of Cancer - The Crab. It is often nicknamed The Beehive cluster since it resembles a swarm of bees when viewed in a wide-field telescope or binoculars. Along with M45 it is one of the most immediately breathtaking sights in the deep sky. At about 510 light years it is one of the closer Open Cluster to the Earth and is about 12 light years across and contains about 1000 stars. Note the tiny, distant galaxy in the bottom of the cluster PGC24400.
Image Technical Data
Imaged over two evenings, the 22 and 23 February 2019 from my backyard in Nottingham, UK. Conditions were far from ideal with a high, hazy mist that made transparency poor and subsequent processing difficult.
Captured with Takahashi FSQ85 and Moravian G2-8300 CCD camera with Astrodon RGB filters. All data binned 1x1:
Red > 14 x 120s ; Green > 16 x 120s ; Blue > 14 x 120s
Mounted on MESU 200 telescope mount and guided with OAG
Kemble's Cascade with Samyang 135mm
Kemble's Cascade (Kemble 1) is a chance straight-line alignment of 17 or so stars between the 5th and 10th magnitudes in the far northern constellation of Camelopardalis. The stars are of different colours and look lovely in a widefield telescope or binoculars. At the end of line of stars is the open star cluster NGC 1502. This asterism is named after the Franciscan monk and amateur astronomer Lucian Kemble. The cascade itself is about three angular degrees in length.
Image Technical Data
Imaged from my backyard in Nottingham, UK on 14 September 2020. Part of an automated capture sequence and the exposures were taken between 02:00 > 04:00 in the morning. Needless to say I was in bed asleep at the time :) I processed the images afterwards. I used Samyang 135mm DSLR lens connected to my Moravian Instruments G2-8300 CCD camera with Astrodon RGB Gen 2 E series filters on my NEQ6 mount. All exposures binned 1x1. No separate luminance (i.e. just RGB)
Red > 12 x 300s ; Green > 12 x 300s ; Blue > 10 x 300s
Total integration time is just short of three hours. Processed in PixInsight and Photoshop and captured with Sequence Generator Pro.
I just cut out the cascade stars from the image above. Personally, I prefer it in the wider setting in the topmost image
The inverted colour version above may make it easier to see the "cascade" of stars and make it easier for you to find them in the main image.
I hope you like it!
The Veil Nebula - Samyang 135mm Lens
The Veil Nebula in Cygnus is the remnant of a supernova of a star about 20 times the mass of the sun that exploded about 20000 years ago. The nebula is a huge, very faint and diffuse object, about six moon widths in diameter and is located about 2500 light years away. Very few telescopes can capture the entire Veil Nebula complex due to the huge angular size that it presents on the sky and creating a multi-frame mosaic is a very time consuming process, especially in the UK where clear nights are such a rare and premium time. This makes DSLR lenses ideal and few are better or as cost effective as the Samyang 135mm that was used to capture this image.
Image Technical Details
The image was captured from my backyard in Nottingham in the UK on the nights of the 13th and 14th September 2020. I left the systems capturing data overnight on an automated basis capturing the Veil nebula and several other targets whilst I was asleep in bed :). I used a Samyang 135mm lens (Samyang = Rokinon in the US/Canada) connected to my Moravian Instruments G2-8300 CCD camera with Astrodon RGBHa (3nm) filters on my NQ6 mount. All exposures binned 1x1:
Red > 14 x 300s ; Green > 14 x 300s ; Blue > 14 x 300s ; Ha > 31 x 300s
Total Integration time of just over six hours. The total width of the image is about 8 degrees by 6 degrees with a resolution of 8.5 arcsec/pixel.
Above are the Ha images made with the Astrodon 3nm Ha filter in the 31mm version. You can see the exquisite detail this filter picks out.
The RGB image is made from 42 x 300s exposures. It carries the colour of the image but is boosted by the blending of the Ha data which adds the punch and vibrancy of the master image at the top of the page.
The Heart and Soul Nebulae Samyang 135mm
The Heart and Soul Nebulae are a well known and famous pairing of Nebulae in the late summer/autumn sky of the Northern Hemisphere. These nebulae are located far away - 7500 light years - in the Perseus arm of the galaxy, further out from the core of the galaxy than the Sun and are vast star forming regions rich in Hydrogen Alpha that gives the images the intense red glow.
All image data collected with a Samyang 135mm lens at F2.8 with a Moravian G2-8300 CCD camera. Below is the RGB image gathered with Astrodon RGB filters. All binned 1x1: Red 14 x 300s; Green 13 x 300s; Blue 14 x 300s. This gives an RGB integration time of 210 minutes or three and a half hours.
The picture looks nice but it does lack punch and vibrancy as it stands. It needs the addition of the Hydrogen Alpha data that will enhance the details.
Below is the Hydrogen Alpha channel that consists of 36 x 300s exposure with an Astrodon 3nm Ha filter with Samyang 135mm and G2-8300 CCD camera, collected with an Astrodon 31mm 3nm Ha filter. The amount of detail in this image is very evident. Below this is a starless version of the Ha image used to blend into the RGB image.
I finally created the blended HaRGB images by using layers of the Ha channel blended at different opacities as overlay and lighting layers in Photoshop. This gives the best of both worlds; the colour present in the RGB and the detail in the Ha image. The total integration time of the image is about six and a half hours.
Finally an annotated version of the image showing many Sharpless Catalog (Sh2) objects present.
The Heart and Soul Nebulae Samyang 135mm
The Heart and Soul Nebulae are a well known and famous pairing of Nebulae in the late summer/autumn sky of the Northern Hemisphere. These nebulae are located far away - 7500 light years - in the Perseus arm of the galaxy, further out from the core of the galaxy than the Sun and are vast star forming regions rich in Hydrogen Alpha that gives the images the intense red glow.
All image data collected with a Samyang 135mm lens at F2.8 with a Moravian G2-8300 CCD camera. Below is the RGB image gathered with Astrodon RGB filters. All binned 1x1: Red 14 x 300s; Green 13 x 300s; Blue 14 x 300s. This gives an RGB integration time of 210 minutes or three and a half hours.
The picture looks nice but it does lack punch and vibrancy as it stands. It needs the addition of the Hydrogen Alpha data that will enhance the details.
Below is the Hydrogen Alpha channel that consists of 36 x 300s exposure with an Astrodon 3nm Ha filter with Samyang 135mm and G2-8300 CCD camera, collected with an Astrodon 31mm 3nm Ha filter. The amount of detail in this image is very evident. Below this is a starless version of the Ha image used to blend into the RGB image.
I finally created the blended HaRGB images by using layers of the Ha channel blended at different opacities as overlay and lighting layers in Photoshop. This gives the best of both worlds; the colour present in the RGB and the detail in the Ha image. The total integration time of the image is about six and a half hours.
Finally an annotated version of the image showing many Sharpless Catalog (Sh2) objects present.
M96 Group in Leo - FSQ85
The M96 Group is a cluster of galaxies in the constellation of Leo. Not to be confused with the separate and arguably more famous Leo triplet. The M96 group contains three Messier galaxies (M95, M96 and M105) and many fainter galaxies in the background. The three main galaxies are about 35 million light years away and are easily visible in small telescopes.
Image Technical Data
Technical Information
Imaged from my backyard, March 2019, in Nottingham, UK. I used my FSQ85 refractor with 0.73 reducer and my Moravian instruments G2-8300 CCD camera and Astrodon LRGB filters. Mount is my MESU200 and guided with an Off-Axis guider. Image acquisition data:
Luminance 11 x 600s 1x1; Red 9 x 300s 2x2; Green 10 x 300s 2x2; Blue 10 x 300s 2x2
