homcavobservatory
M15_20180929_HomCavObservatory_ReSizedDown2HD
Messier 15 (NGC 7078) is a globular star cluster located in the constellation of Pegasus. Consisting of over 100,000 stars with a combined luminosity 360,000 times that of our Sun, it lies approximately 33,600 light-years from Earth and has a diameter of about 175 light-years. Although all globular clusters in the Milky Way are believed to be at least 10 billion years old; M15, at 12 billion years old, is believed to be one of the most ancient (by comparison our Sun is a 'mere' 4.6 billion years old). Having undergone a contraction known as a 'core collapse', M15's core is one of the densest concentrations of stars known, and there is on-going debate that it may actually contain an intermediate-size black hole.
Image Details: Taken by Jay Edwards at the HomCav Observatory in Maine, NY as a quick test shot. It is the first image of this object using our (vintage 1970) 8-inch f/7 Criterion newtonian reflector. Consisting of stack of very short 'subs', it is only 20 mins of total exposure time (excluding darks, flats & bias frames). The scope, connected to a Canon 700D DSLR, was tracked using a Losmandy G-11 mount with a Gemini 2 control system and auto-guided with a Celestron 80mm 'short tube' refractor and a ZWO ASI290MC auto-guider / planetary camera controlled by PHD2. Resized down to HD resolution with the bit depth lowered to 8 bits per channel, it is presented here with it's 'full-width' FOV, having only been cropped slightly vertically to match an HD format. Since it was only meant as a test shot of using the 8-in. newt. on this object, if given the opportunity to re-image it before it is lost to the sun's glare, I may try an HDR approach to reduce the core's brightness while still trying to maintain the outer halo (as well as rotating the FOV 90 degrees to better frame the blue star at the top of the frame). Given the limited amount of data used I was pleased with the result, and although somewhat truncated due to the camera's orientation, I liked the appearance of the cyan colored diffraction spikes on the star near the top of the frame.
M15_20180929_HomCavObservatory_ReSizedDown2HD
Messier 15 (NGC 7078) is a globular star cluster located in the constellation of Pegasus. Consisting of over 100,000 stars with a combined luminosity 360,000 times that of our Sun, it lies approximately 33,600 light-years from Earth and has a diameter of about 175 light-years. Although all globular clusters in the Milky Way are believed to be at least 10 billion years old; M15, at 12 billion years old, is believed to be one of the most ancient (by comparison our Sun is a 'mere' 4.6 billion years old). Having undergone a contraction known as a 'core collapse', M15's core is one of the densest concentrations of stars known, and there is on-going debate that it may actually contain an intermediate-size black hole.
Image Details: Taken by Jay Edwards at the HomCav Observatory in Maine, NY as a quick test shot. It is the first image of this object using our (vintage 1970) 8-inch f/7 Criterion newtonian reflector. Consisting of stack of very short 'subs', it is only 20 mins of total exposure time (excluding darks, flats & bias frames). The scope, connected to a Canon 700D DSLR, was tracked using a Losmandy G-11 mount with a Gemini 2 control system and auto-guided with a Celestron 80mm 'short tube' refractor and a ZWO ASI290MC auto-guider / planetary camera controlled by PHD2. Resized down to HD resolution with the bit depth lowered to 8 bits per channel, it is presented here with it's 'full-width' FOV, having only been cropped slightly vertically to match an HD format. Since it was only meant as a test shot of using the 8-in. newt. on this object, if given the opportunity to re-image it before it is lost to the sun's glare, I may try an HDR approach to reduce the core's brightness while still trying to maintain the outer halo (as well as rotating the FOV 90 degrees to better frame the blue star at the top of the frame). Given the limited amount of data used I was pleased with the result, and although somewhat truncated due to the camera's orientation, I liked the appearance of the cyan colored diffraction spikes on the star near the top of the frame.