NGC 2903 Spiral Galaxy
A magnificent spiral galaxy with TEC 140 and Atik 460
Many astronomers consider NGC 2903 the best and brightest galaxy that isn't included in the famous Messier list and are surprised Messier himself didn't include it in his catalogue. It is very photogenic and brighter than several other galaxies that are included in Messier's list such as M65 and M66. It is located in Leo to the right of the "sickle" of Leo and is about 30 million light years distant.
Full resolution image here (opens in a new tab). If you open the full resolution image you will see many tiny, remote galaxies in the depths of the Universe.
Technical Detail
Imaged with my TEC140 telescope and Atik 460 CCD camera with Astrodon E series LRGB filters on the 25th and 26th March 2022. The data set is as follows with the luminance binned 1x1 and the RGB at 2x2:
Lum 24 x 300s ; Red 12 x 180s ; Blue 9 x 180s ; Green 34 x 180s
(yes, I know that's a lot of Green! I overdid the green because I misconfigured the NINA automation software but decided to throw it all into the image anyway).
This gives a total integration time of four hours and 45 minutes in total exposure.
Developed in PixInsight for all pre and post processing. Since it is a good data set all I did after preprocessing was combine the master LRGB files, apply DBE to remove background gradients (and since I am in Bortle 5 sub-urban neighbourhood there are security lights going on and off all night). I then applied Blur Exterminator and some noise reduction. I then stretched the image and applied a bit of colour saturation. That's all I did. It took about 45 minutes in total and most of that time was waiting for WBPP to complete.
Rosette Nebula In A Very Wide Field
Image taken with a Samyang 135mm DSLR lens and QHY268C Colour CMOS camera in January 25th 2023 when high to The South. A total of 30 x 120s exposures at F4. I used NINA software for image acquisition and processed in PixInsight. I wanted to set the Rosette in a very wide field so as to see the surrounding nebulosity.
I have imaged The Rosette Nebula before with a FSQ85 telescope which can be found here.
Sh2-171 with FSQ85 Telescope and G2-8300 CCD camera
Sh2-171 is a star forming region in the constellation of Cepheus in the far northern hemisphere of the sky.
Imaged here with Takahashi FSQ85 and G2-8300 with Astrodon HaRGB filters.
M33 Galaxy in Triangulum FSQ85 with G2-8300
M33 is a galaxy about 2.8 - 3 million light years away in the constellation of Triangulum. Along with M33, it is one of the Local Group of galaxies with which our own Milky Way galaxy shares the local universe. M33 is the most distant object that the human naked eye can see, appearing as a ghostly white smudge on a very dark night from clear skies. It is a magnificent spiral galaxy about half the size of our own galaxy and because of its close proximity to us it appears very large in our skies and is am oft-photographed object by many, myself included.
I've imaged M33 multiple times. For example, with the same FSQ85 telescope here and also at a closer image scale with the TEC140 refractor here.
This time I have set the galaxy in a slightly wider field by utilising the FSQ85 0.73 reducer. I used the Moravian G2-8300 CCD camera and Astrodon RGB filters all binned 1x1. I did not use a separate luminance channel.
The data collected for the image was collected from my backyard observatory in Nottingham, UK on 4/5 and 8th of November 2021 and is a modest data set of 15 x 300s exposures in each of the three filters to give a total integration of nearly four hours. However, because of the proximity of M33 and its brightness this data set has revealed a very pleasing, detailed and colourful result. What do you think?
Image data captured with NINA automation software and processed in PixInsight.
Close Up Study of The Great Andromeda Galaxy M31 with TEC140 and FSQ85
M31 is one of the most favoured and popular imaging targets in the night sky; it is bright, large and very photogenic. I have imaged this galaxy numerous times, for example, in this LRGB version and in this OSC version. Since the galaxy is so large, each of these images is set in a wide field, one of 3 degrees horizontally and 2 degrees vertically across the field of view which equates to six times the diameter of the full moon. Many newcomers do not appreciate how large these objects are in the sky. Large but VERY dim!
The above image is at a resolution of 4.16arcsec/pixel. On such a large object as M31 this allows the entire galaxy to be imaged in one field of view on a wide field refractor such as the FSQ85 but does not allow for a "closer in" and more detailed image.
In order to do the latter, I created a mosaic of four panels to image the right hand side "west" of the galaxy at the greater resolution with my TEC140 and Atik 460. All I needed is the luminance data and then I could use this to blend with the lower resolution OSC data at the top of this post in Photoshop.
Each of the four luminance panels is a total of 90 minutes of 300 sec exposures captured with the TEC140 and Atik460 CCD camera with a Astrodon luminance filter. The luminance image above is a total of six hours of imaging time. I then processed these four images and knitted them together in PixInsight. I then registered this four-panel luminance with the OSC data at the top of the post and then used it as a luminance layer to give the best of both worlds; the colour of the OSC/FSQ85 wide field image with the detail of the TEC140/Atik460 image!
I hope you like it! :)
M108 Galaxy in Ursa Major, TEC140
M108 is a galaxy about 45 million light years away in the constellation of Ursa Major. It is sometimes called the surfboard galaxy because of its resemblance to a surfboard. Note the huge number of tiny, distant galaxies in the background. These are hundreds and in some cases up to two billion light years away from us.
Technical Information
I imaged M108 from my backyard observatory in Nottingham, UK on 4-5 April 2021 (two imaging sessions) when M108 was almost directly overhead. Conditions were very cold and frosty with good seeing and transparency. I used my TEC140 refractor and Atik 460 CCD camera with Astrodon E series Gen LRGB filters (1.25"). There is almost 9.5 hours of data in this image consisting of:
Lum > 42 x 300s; Red > 24 x 300s; Green > 24x300s; Blue 24 x 300s
Everything was binned 1x1.
Image data was captured using Sequence Generator Pro software and the equipment was was guided using OAG on my MESU 200 mount. Processed with PixInsight.
I hope you like it!
Full size image here (opens in new tab).
M3 Globular Cluster in Canes Venatici
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M63 - The Sunflower Galaxy
M63 is a magnificent spiral galaxy located in the Northern constellation of Canes Venatici, about 30 million light years away. The galaxy is a member of the M51 group. There are lots of faint galaxies in the background.
Technical Data
Full resolution image here (opens in new tab)
M63, often called the Sunflower Galaxy because of its resemblance to that flower, is a spiral galaxy about 27 million light years away in the constellation of Canes Venatici. It is a member of the M51 group of galaxies.
I captured the data for this image of the galaxy from my back yard observatory in Nottingham, UK over the nights of 4th and 5th of May 2021 when M63 was high near the zenith. Most of the data was captured in the middle of the night on an automated basis whilst I was asleep in bed! I used my TEC140 refractor and Atik 460 CCD camera with Astrodon E Series LRGB filters. I used off-axis guiding on my MESU200 mount.
Integration is a total of nine hours comprised of:
Luminance > 30 x 300s binned 1×1 ; Red > 22 x 300s 1×1 ; Green > 24 x 300s 1×1 ; Blue > 24 x 300s 1×1 to give a total of about 8.5 hours of integration time. Captured with SGP pro and processed in PixInsight.
Annotated and inverted versions of the galaxy shown above. The annotated version shows the many, extremely distant background galaxies present in the image, some of which are billions of lightyears away.
The finder chart to the left shows the location of the galaxy.
The image at the top of this page is 42 arc-minutes in width and 32 arc-minutes in height at an image scale of 0.927 arc-seconds/pixel.
ISS solar transits with Lunt T60Ha telescope and ASI174MM camera
I captured two ISS transits of The Sun on the weekend of 12-13th June 2021. Both images and videos were taken with my Lunt Systems T60Ha Hydrogen Alpha telescope and ASI174MM camera.
The transit above was not quite visible from my back yard and so I had to put all the gear into my car and drive about three miles from where I live. I set up about twenty minutes early to ensure I was ready and there were no technical gremlins. I was not quite located exactly where the ISS crossed the precise diameter of the sun - I was about 300m away! Yes, a very small change of position on the Earth's surface really does make that much difference to the visible track of the ISS across the face of the sun. The ISS was about 520km away when this sequence of images were taken.
The ISS moves much more quickly than the slowed down image would suggest. It crosses the disk of the sun in only about 2/3 of a second. Literally blink and you will miss it. I started the image capture about 30 seconds ahead of time to ensure the camera is running at a high rate prior to the ISS' arrival and to account for any error in the ISS' arrival calculations. As it happens the ISS transit finder tool https://transit-finder.com/ is accurate to the split second. By the way, an iPhone connected to a 3/4G network is accurate to within a few thousandths of a second.
To the left is a composite image of the camera exposures, running at 124 frames per second. The ASI174MM camera has an electronic shutter that captures the entire 1936x1216 HD frame in buffer and then scans that entire frame before transmitting the frame over the USB3 bus at 5Gigabits/second before capturing the next frame. A high speed laptop with a solid state SSD is required in order to write images at this data rate.
The day afterwards, Sunday 13th June, there was another ISS transit, this time visible from my back yard, albeit as a chord across the sun and not across the diameter (to get a full diameter I would have had to travel with my gear about a mile away). I could have again driven out in the car, but I quite liked the idea of the ISS crossing a chord. This mage is below. The sky had been perfectly clear and hot all morning before the transit and all afternoon afterwards, but just about 30 seconds before the ISS transit occurred the only cloud in the entire blue sky decided to pass in front of the sun! Had the transit occurred ten seconds before or ten seconds later I would have missed it. Fortunately there was a tiny thin bit in that cloud that allowed me to capture the transit, although some faint cloud is visible. I kind of think that the wispy cloud adds to the atmosphere of the image, wouldn't you agree?
The Sun, 16 June 2021 in Ha with Lunt 60THa and ASI 174MM
This is a 10000 frame capture of the Sun with good seeing at 13:10 UK time in Nottingham. I used my Lunt 60Tha and my ASI174MM camera at 16-bit and 65 fps. The day was very hot - by UK standards - at about 28C and quite humid. I was able to use 92% of the frames which I stacked in Autostakkert. Post processing in IMppg and Photoshop CC. The image capture is a full disk and disk and proms are from the same capture.
