Deepsky
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The Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31) is the nearest large galaxy to our own Milky Way and one of the most magnificent objects in the night sky. Visible as a faint small smudge from a dark site on a moonless night, M31 is a gigantic aggregation of hundreds of billions of stars at a distance of about 2.5 million light years.
Once thought to be a nebula inside our own Galaxy, its true nature was discovered by Edwin Hubble in 1925, which measured the distance of this "island universe" by studying a special class of pulsating stars known as Cepheids.
M31 is classified as a spiral galaxy with its galactic plane inclined about 13 degrees to our line of sight, and it is therefore seen nearly edge-on. It has, as our own Galaxy, a number of smaller satellite galaxies, the most prominent of which are M32 (the bright, star-like concentration at bottom right at the edge of the spiral arm) and M110, the more extended bright patch at upper left. Astronomers have found evidence of a massive black hole at the center of this galaxy (as is the case for our own Milky Way).
They have also calculated that we are in a collision course with our grand neighbor in space: approaching each other at a speed of about 100 Km/sec, the two galaxies will collide in about 4 billion years and maybe merge into a giant elliptical galaxy.
Image Details:
Telescope: Orion EON ED 80/500 refractor
Mount: Modified Vixen Sphinx (NexSXW)
Camera: Canon EOS 20Da
Light frames: 19 x 3 mins (total: 57 mins), ISO 1600, Daylight WB, no filter
Guiding: Skywatcher 80/400 refractor, Skywatcher Synguider autoguider
Processing: DSS 3.3.4, Adobe Photoshop CS6
Greetings human creatures, of the planet you call "Earth". I have come a long way to adorn your skies, to make you gaze up into the starry firmament to admire my mysterious nature.
You have given me the strange name "NEOWISE", because a few months ago a space telescope in orbit around Earth, first spotted me as I was approaching your planet, hundreds of millions of miles away. But this is not where I come from. My cradle is located far beyond the orbits of the furthest planets and asteroids, where billions of small, icy bodies, relics of the solar system's formation, move lazily around the Sun. Although the Sun from that far is just a speck of light, its gravitational attraction keeps these frozen bodies in orbit.
Thousands of years ago, perhaps after a tiny nudge from a passing star that slightly deflected my orbit, I started ever so slowly my plunge towards the Sun. I have silently travelled the coldness of space until I first crossed the orbits of the gas giants and then entered the inner solar system, heading towards the central star.
The Sun's heat slowly but steadily warmed my frozen surface and finally my true nature was revealed: an enormous mass of ice, mixed with rocks and dust. As the icy crust that covers my nucleus began to sublimate, gases and dust particles started to form an atmosphere around my solid nucleus. The steady flow of the solar wind pushes the dust and gas into two magnificent tails: the curved, yellowish dust tail and the more straight, blue ion tail, extending for millions of miles into space, opposite the direction of the Sun. And now you can see me in the night sky not as a dark, frozen mass but as a dazzling comet, changing position in front of the distant stars from night to night.
It will not be long before I disappear from the night sky, to return to the depths of space. In the coming weeks I will become increasingly dimmer and harder to spot and my tails will diminish. I will return, but it will not be until thousands of years in the future.
People used to fear comets: for eons, comets were considered sinister omens, heralding the death of kings, and announcing the start of wars and disaster. It took the genius of giants like Isaac Newton and Halley to realize that comets, are simply celestial bodies travelling in elongated orbits around the Sun.
I apologize for not being too splashy and bright like other famous comets, like Hale-Bopp or Halley, to name just two of them. But still if you can get at a dark place, with little or no light pollution from man-made lights - hard to find nowadays - you can still see me maybe with your naked eyes or even better with binoculars. And who knows how long it will be until the next bright comet arrives, so do not miss this opportunity!
So, farewell and stay safe. You will soon forget me, but I will leave something behind, to remind you of my apparition. Specks of dust from my tail will continue around my orbit and will eventually slam into Earth's atmosphere and burn like a meteor. So, the next time you see a meteor in the night sky, it could be one that has been part of my once prominent tail. And if you do, do not forget the wish!
Details:
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Camera: Canon EOS 550D, mounted on tripod, unguided
Lens: Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II@f2.5
Frames: 32 x 8 secs each, ISO 3200
Processing: Developed in Lightroom Classic 9.3, stacked with Sequator (set to Accumulation, Align stars) and final processing in Adobe Photoshop v.21
NGC 281 is an emission nebula located in the constellation of Cassiopeia. E. E. Barnard discovered this nebula in August 1883. At the center of the Nebula lies open star cluster IC 1590, which contains several massive stars, each many times the mass of the sun. These stars are extremely hot and produce large amounts of ultraviolet radiation. The radiation and the strong stellar winds erode the nebula from the inside out, giving it its shell-like appearance. Colloquially, NGC 281 is known as the Pacman Nebula, for its resemblance to the video game character.
Its estimated distance is about 10,000 light-years away from us.
Thanks to everyone for viewing - clear skies!
Telescope: Orion EON ED 80/500 refractor
Mount: Modified Vixen Sphinx Equatorial Mount
Camera: Canon EOS 20Da
Filter: Astronomik CLS
Guiding: Skywatcher 80/400 refractor, Skywatcher Synguider
Light frames: 15 x 6 mins (total: 90 mins), ISO 1600, Custom WB, calibrated with darks
Date: September 29th, 2019
Processing: DSS 4.2.3, Adobe Photoshop 2020 with Astronomy Tools Actions Set (spikes added to the brightest stars).
The Veil Nebula is the remnant of a supernova explosion that occurred thousands of years ago. At its peak, the "new star" could have been as bright as the crescent Moon but it soon faded to become invisible to human vision. Discovered by William Herschel in 1784, the Veil Nebula is the expanding cloud of the gases of the exploded star, plowing through space and exciting interstellar atoms to glow with characteristic light - red for atomic hydrogen and blue-green for oxygen.
The distance to this object is not accurately known but has been calculated to be about 2,000 light years away.
The Veil nebula is an extended object and consists of different parts, each catalogued with a different name. This image was shot with a small refractor telescope and a DSLR camera and depicts the eastern part of the Veil, which is often referred to as the Network nebula. For an image of the western part of the Veil (NGC 6960), see: www.flickr.com/photos/georgebok/49715381951/in/dateposted...
Thanks to everyone for viewing - clear skies!
Telescope: Orion EON ED 80/500 refractor
Mount: Modified Vixen Sphinx
Camera: Canon EOS 20Da
Filter: Astronomik CLS
Guiding: Skywatcher 80/400 refractor, Skywatcher Synguider
Light frames: 13 x 6 mins (total: 78 mins), ISO 1600, Custom WB, calibrated with darks
Date: September 6th, 2019
Processing: DSS 4.2.3, Adobe Photoshop 2020 with Astronomy Tools Actions Set (spikes added to the brightest stars).
About 10,000 years ago, a bright new star appeared in the stellar firmament on a place that we now consider part of the constellation Cygnus (the Swan). It shined brilliantly for a few weeks before becoming so dim again to be invisible to human vision. Astronomers have calculated its position and age by studying the light reaching us from an extended filamentary cloud of interstellar gas known as the Veil Nebula. It is catalogued as entry 6960 in the New General Catalogue of Deep Sky Objects and classified as a supernova remnant, the expanding debris from the exploded star, plowing through interstellar matter and exciting hydrogen (red color) and oxygen atoms (blue - green) to make them glow. The distance to this object is not accurately measured but is about 1,500 light years away.
The Veil nebula is an extended object and consists of different parts, each catalogued with a different name. This image was shot with a small refractor telescope and a DSLR camera and depicts the Western part of the nebulosity, which is often referred to as the Witch's Broom nebula, the Filamentary nebula or the Lace-Work nebula.
The bright star at center is 52 Cygni, which is unrelated to the nebula itself since it is located much closer to the Earth, at about 200 light years. It is therefore a foreground star, just as all the other visible stars of our Milky Way Galaxy. The spikes by the way are an artifact, usually produced by images of reflector telescopes, but in this case digitally added with computer software for aesthetic reasons.
Thanks to everyone for viewing - clear skies!
Telescope: Orion EON ED 80/500 refractor
Mount: Modified Vixen Sphinx
Camera: Canon EOS 20Da
Filter: Astronomik CLS
Guiding: Skywatcher 80/400 refractor, Skywatcher Synguider
Light frames: 10 x 6 mins (total: 1 hour), ISO 1600, Custom WB, calibrated with darks
Date & Location: 9/5/2019 - Chalkidiki, Greece
Processing: DSS 4.2.3, Adobe Photoshop 2020 with Astronomy Tools Actions Set (spikes added to the brightest stars).
Messier 20 (M20, NGC 6514) in Sagittarius is a magnificent deep sky object that combines an open cluster of stars, an emission nebula (red), a reflection nebula (blue) and a dark nebula that divides the emission nebula in three parts, thus giving it the name the Trifid Nebula. The Trifid Nebula lies in a rich area of the Milky Way, with adjacent Messier objects M21 (open star cluster, at upper right) and M8 (Lagoon, a part of which is visible at the left edge) visible in the same binocular field of view. The region is also filled with other emission nebulae such as NGC 6526 (top left) and Sh2-26 (bottom left).
The Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes revealed hot, young energetic stars at the central region emitting radiation and stellar jets that tear apart the gas and dust from which stars are born.
M20 is estimated to be about 5200 light years away, at which it spans a diameter of about 10 light years across.
Clear Skies to all!
Image Details:
Telescope: Orion EON 80mm/f6.25 ED refractor
Camera: Canon EOS 20Da, no filter
Mount: Modified Vixen Sphinx (NexSXW)
Guiding: Skywatcher SynGuider with 80mm achromatic refractor, mounted side by side
Exposure: Total 16 mins (8 x 2 mins), Daylight WB, ISO 1600, calibrated with darks and bias frames
Location: Vavdos, Chalkidiki - 14/07/18
Processing: DSS 4.1.1, Photoshop CS6
The Lagoon Nebula (also known as M8 or NGC 6523) is a giant interstellar cloud in the constellation Sagittarius, around 4,077 light-years from Earth, give or take.
This image was captured over two hours on an icy and dark night in outback NSW, Australia.
Open star cluster NGC 6939 (bottom center) is visually located close to the star Eta Cephei inside our galaxy, but in reality it lies more than 4,000 light-years away from us (this value is a bit uncertain). Its apparent magnitude is 7.8, meaning it can only be seen with binoculars or with a telescope.
By pure coincidence, less than one degree away lies the face-on galaxy NGC 6946 (center of image), an entirely separate galactic system outside our own Milky Way, at an estimated distance of about 25 million light-years (according to recent measurements). Because many supernova explosions were recorded at the last 100 years in this galaxy, it got the nickname of "Fireworks galaxy".
Both objects were discovered by William Herschel in 1798.
Thanks to everyone and clear skies!
Details:
Telescope: Orion EON 80ED
Camera: Canon EOS 20Da
Mount: Vixen Sphinx
Filter: Astronomik CLS
Guiding: Skywatcher 80/400 refractor - SkyWatcher SynGuider
Light frames: 12 x 5 mins (total: 60 mins), ISO 3200, Custom WB, calibrated with darks
Date: 25 October 2019
Processing: DSS 4.2.3, Adobe Photoshop 2020 with Astronomy Tools Actions set (spikes added to the brightest stars)
The Triangulum Galaxy (known as Messier 33 or NGC 598) is a beautiful large spiral galaxy in the constellation of Triangulum. It can be (barely) seen with the unaided eye as a faint small smudge only under a truly dark, transparent sky. It is thus one of the most distant objects visible to the unaided eye, since its distance is calculated to be about 3 million light-years. However and due to its relatively large apparent size (almost as large as the area covered by four full Moons), it has a low surface brightness and therefore it is a difficult object to observe under less than ideal conditions.
M33's loosely-wound spiral arms are filled with numerous reddish HII regions (emission nebulae of ionized hydrogen), as well as bluish clouds of young stars. Many of them have their own NGC numbers, the most prominent being NGC 604 (visible at the lower left of the spiral at 8 o' clock position from the nucleus). NGC 604 has a diameter of nearly 1,500 light-years and is estimated that it contains at least 200 newly-formed hot stars.
The galaxy was probably discovered in the 17th Century by Giovanni Batista Hodierna and rediscovered later in 1764 by Charles Messier, who gave it the catalog name M33. It was among the first "Nebulae" identified as extragalactic objects and it was E. Hubble that measured its distance using pulsating stars known as Cepheids, that placed it well outside our own Milky Way.
M33 is the third-largest galaxy of the Local Group, after the Andromeda Galaxy and our own Milky Way, with an estimated diameter of 50,000 light-years, about half the size of the Milky Way. Some astronomers believe that M33 may be a remote but gravitationally bound companion of the Andromeda galaxy.
Image Details:
Telescope: Orion EON ED 80/500 refractor
Mount: Modified Vixen Sphinx (NexSXW)
Camera: Canon EOS 20Da
Light frames: 34 x 3 mins (total: 102 mins), ISO 1600, Daylight WB
Support frames: Darks, Bias
Guiding: Skywatcher 80/400 refractor, Skywatcher Synguider autoguider
Date & Location: 16/10/2018 - Chalkidiki, Greece
Processing: DSS 4.1.1, Adobe Photoshop CS6 with Astronomy Tools Actions Set (spikes added to brightest stars)
On a warm summer night looking south from a dark sky location, we can imagine a mythical creature straddling the celestial river (Milky Way): a half-man, half-horse Centaur, which represents the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer). Hidden among the dust lanes of our Galaxy’s spiral arms and placed at about 5,500 light years away, there is a cloud made of gas and dust that can be even seen with unaided eye or better with a pair of binoculars. This is entry #17 on Charles Messier catalogue of deep sky objects, also known as the Omega nebula (last letter of the Greek alphabet), the Swan nebula, the Checkmark nebula, the Lobster nebula or the Horseshoe nebula.
Astronomers besides calculating its distance are also telling us that the Swan nebula is a region in space consisting mainly from Hydrogen gas (HII region) and that it contains many young stars hidden inside (a stellar nursery, like the better known Orion nebula), that emit radiation and triggering the hydrogen atoms of the nebula to shine with its characteristic red light.
This image of the Swan nebula was taken with a small refractor telescope and a DSLR camera (see details below) and besides the main nebula it also reveals other wisps of nebulosity close by and of course the numerous stars of our Galaxy placed much closer to us than the nebula itself.
So, what’s your favorite nickname for this object?
Thanks to all for looking and clear skies to everyone!
Telescope: Orion EON ED 80/500 refractor
Mount: Modified Vixen Sphinx
Camera: Canon EOS 20Da
Filter: Astronomik CLS
Guiding: Skywatcher 80/400 refractor, Skywatcher Synguider
Light frames: 5 x 5 mins (total: 25 mins), ISO 1600, Custom WB, calibrated with darks
Date & Location: 2/9/2019 - Chalkidiki, Greece
Processing: DSS 4.2.3, Adobe Photoshop 2020 with Astronomy Tools Actions Set (spikes added to the brightest stars), finished in Lightroom CC
4 shots tracked with the Vixen Polarie then stacked in photoshop.
Exif is wrong, first shot was as it says, other 3 were 1'30" af f5.6, ISO 3200 :)
Lagoon Nebula (M8) in the constellation Sagittarius.
One of the finest star-forming regions in the sky, faintly visible to the naked eye.
Image details:
Telescope: Orion EON 80mm/f6.25 ED refractor
Camera: Canon EOS 20Da, no filter
Mount: Vixen Sphinx (NexSXW)
Guiding: Skywatcher SynGuider/80mm refractor
Exposure: Total 14 mins, Daylight WB, ISO 1600, calibrated with darks, no flats
The Lagoon Nebula (also known as M8 or NGC 6523) is a giant interstellar cloud in the constellation Sagittarius, around 4,077 light-years from Earth, give or take.
This image was captured over two hours on an icy and dark night in outback NSW, Australia.
📷 Camera: ZWO ASI533 MC Pro
🔭 Scope: SkyWatcher Esprit 80
🌏 Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro
📷 Guide Camera: ZWO ASI120MM
🔭 Guide Scope: Orion 50
🔥 Blanket: Plush pink polyester cotton blend from the motel closet
The luminance has been composed as a mosaic of approx. 200 frames recorded by the Subaru Telescope (filter 671nm, narrow).
RGB data from a former image:
SII: 20x900s
Ha: 17x900s
OIII: 16x900s
Takahashi FSQ106EDXIII and QSI683
Data: NAOJ, R. Colombari
Assembling and processing: R. Colombari
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The prominent ridge of emission featured in this dramatic skyscape is cataloged as IC 5067. Part of a larger emission nebula with a distinctive shape, popularly called The Pelican Nebula, the ridge spans about 10 light-years following the curve of the cosmic pelican's head and neck. This false color view also translates the pervasive glow of narrow emission lines from atoms in the nebula to a color palette made popular in Hubble Space Telescope images of star forming regions. Fantastic, dark shapes inhabiting the 1/2 degree wide field are clouds of cool gas and dust sculpted by the winds and radiation from hot, massive stars. Close-ups of some of the sculpted clouds show clear signs of newly forming stars. The Pelican Nebula, itself cataloged as IC 5070, is about 2,000 light-years away. To find it, look northeast of bright star Deneb in the high flying constellation Cygnus.
Source: APOD NASA
The North America Nebula (NGC 7000) is an emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus, close to Deneb. The nebula was discovered by William Herschel in 1786 and its shape is vaguely visible under dark, transparent skies with the help of a nebula filter. However, the distinctive reddish color, due to hydrogen atoms emission and its prominent shape show up in photographs of the area, which is incredibly rich in hydrogen-alpha emission nebulosity (the nebulosity visible at lower left is part of the adjacent Pelican Nebula, IC 5070).
Interstellar dust between the nebula and the Earth absorbs some of the light of the nebula and is therefore responsible for the shape of the nebula that resembles that of North America. Images from Spitzer Space Telescope in the infrared have revealed that young, massive stars are hidden behind the dark dust clouds that form the "Gulf of Mexico" area and might be responsible for the radiation that excites the hydrogen atoms and makes the nebula to glow.
The distance to the nebula is estimated to be about 1800 light years and its diameter about 100 light years.
Image Details:
Telescope: Orion EON 80mm f/6.25 ED Apochromatic Refractor
Mount: MG-Astro modified Vixen Sphinx (NexSXW)
Camera: Canon EOS 20Da
Light frames: total 1 hour (10 x 6 min), ISO 1600, Daylight WB, no filter
Support frames: 6 Dark, 12 Bias
Guiding: Skywatcher 80/400 refractor w/ Skywatcher Synguider standalone autoguider
Date & Location: 21/10/2017 - Chalkidiki, Greece
Processing: DSS 4.1.0, Adobe Photoshop CS6
The Milky Way core at 40mm on full frame D810A, Sigma lens, Celestron CGEM II EQ mount, ZWO guide camera, APT camera control, PHD2 guiding. APP processing with final tweaks in Photoshop. I wanted to see just how much detail I could get, this is 14 x 10 minute subs, ISO200, f/2.8.
The Witch's Broom(NGC 6960) - also known as the Western Veil Nebula in the constellation Cygnus.
Shot earlier today! Moon at 97% Full
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Andromeda Galaxy, or M31, is our galactic neighbour, just 2.5million lightyears down the road. While not an especially easy target for us southern hemisphere'rs to image, its colossal size, and stunning good looks make it worth trying.
Equipment:
📷 Camera: ZWO ASI533 MC Pro
🔭 Scope: SkyWatcher Esprit 80
🌏 Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro
📷 Guide Camera: ZWO ASI120MM
🔭 Guide Scope: Orion 50
Image:
Lights 20x 60”, 10x 120”, 13x 240”
Darks
Bias
IG: @jay_a_daley
Web: jaydaley.com
FB: jaydaleyphotography
The Fighting Dragons nebula (NGC 6188) is located around nearly 4,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Ara.
This image was captured over five hours across two nights in outback NSW, Australia. I've edited this one seven times and am still not sure I'm happy with the final colour pallet so don't be surprised if you see another version here sometime soon.
Image:
75 x 240" light frames shot across two different nights
40 x 240" dark frames
40 x bias frames
Equipment:
📷 Camera: ZWO ASI533 MC Pro
🔭 Scope: SkyWatcher Esprit 80
🌏 Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro
📷 Guide Camera: ZWO ASI120MM
🔭 Guide Scope: Orion 50
🔥 Blanket: Plush pink polyester cotton blend from the motel closet
Μ45 Pleiades Open Star Cluster in Taurus
The blue reflection nebula that surrounds the stars is not the remains from the gas cloud that gave birth to the stars, but rather a chance cloud of gas and dust that the cluster is passing through.
Distance about 450 light years.
Details:
80 mm ED refractor/ Vixen Sphinx Mount
Canon EOS 20Da
14 x 3 min light frames, calibrated with dark frames.
ISO 1600, Daylight WB
Processing: Images Plus, Adobe Photoshop
210 minutes on the Pleiades, shot under bortle 3 sky. This is a result of two sessions combined.
Equipment:
- Skywatcher Black Diamond ED80 refractor with an .85x Reducer/Flattener
- Skywatcher EQ5 PRO SynScan GoTo mount
- Modified Nikon D300
- Orion Starshoot autoguider and Orion Mini 50mm guide scope
- PHD2 guiding with ASCOM drivers
Total frames:
- 70 light frames at ISO1600 x 180sec
- 75 dark frames
- 72 flat frames
- 80 bias frames
Processing Software:
AstroPixel Processor, PixInsight, and Adobe Lightroom for final touches.
NGC 7635 Bubble Nebula
Distance from Earth: 11,090 light years
NGC 7635 (sometimes known as the Bubble Nebula or C 11) is a diffuse nebula visible in the constellation of Cassiopeia, towards the border with Cepheus.
It is a HII region, at the southern vertex of which there is an empty structure, caused by the pressure of the radiation of a central star of blue color (spectral class O), SAO 20575, of ninth magnitude, whose stellar wind reaches 2000 km / s; it is a blue Giant, which is also responsible for the ionization of the nebula, which emits its own light. Its distance from the Sun is estimated at 11,000 light-years.
Meade RCX 14 "
Ioptron Cem120
Moravian G2-8300
Astronomik filters
NGC 1333 is the currently most active region of star formation in the Perseus molecular cloud. It was first discovered by Eduard Schonfeld in 1855 and is a bright reflection nebula in the western portion of the Perseus molecular cloud. The star BD +30◦549 illuminates NGC 1333 and was found to be a B8 spectral type. It is approximately 1000 light years away and is about 15 light years in diameter.
I rarely capture data on LRGB targets, so this has been a baptism of fire for me!!
Details
M: Avalon Linear Fast Reverse
T: Orion Optics ODK10
C: QSI683 with Baader LRGB filters
Luminance 60x600s
Red, Green and Blue 30x600s for each filter
Totalling 25 hours of exposure.
A nice evening under the stars with a moonless and cloudless sky in East Tennessee.
Nikon 500mm f/4P ED IF AI-S
Nikon 1.4 teleconverter
@ f8 30 sec 3200 ISO
51 x light frames
11 x dark frames
Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker.
It has been quite a while since I did any deepsky images - the attraction of the planets proved too much!
I managed to set up my deepsky system last week and had a few trial runs to see if I could remember what was what!
This image of the beautiful nebulous region around Alnitak, the first (leftmost star) in Orion's belt, was captured last Friday the 20th January. Imaged in bitter cold conditions just before clouds encroached which heralded the arrival of milder but cloudy Atlantic air. The image shows the dark Horsehead nebula with the bright bluish grey reflection nebula NGC 2023 to its bottom left.
The brighter Flame Nebula, NGC 2024 or Sh2-277, an emission nebula, lies below bright star Alnitak in the image.
Imaged with my Esprit 120ED fitted with a field flattener and a ZWO 2600MC camera.
60x180s Gain 100 and Temp -10°C
Temp. matched darks with flats and dark flats for calibration.
Processed using Astropixel Processor and Photoshop 2023.
Thanks for looking!
Messier 81 (left) and Messier 82 (right) are a pair of interacting galaxies in the constellation Ursa Major. They are relatively close - astronomically speaking! - to our own Milky Way Galaxy, since their distance is estimated to be about 12 million light years. The two galaxies are separated by about 150,000 light years. German astronomer Johann Bode discovered them in 1774, thus M81 is also referred as Bode's galaxy and sometimes both galaxies are called Bode's Nebulae, although M82 is more often referred as the Cigar galaxy.
M81 can be seen with binoculars and small telescopes and a few observers have reported seeing it with just their naked eye under exceptional seeing conditions. With large telescopes M81 presents an exceptional sight, the "grand design" spiral arms becoming visible extending outwards from the core. Its mass has been calculated to be around 250 billion suns, while the galactic nucleus harbors a supermassive black hole with a mass of about 70 million suns.
Astronomers studying the motions of the two galaxies believe that a few hundred million years ago, a close encounter took place between the two galaxies. As a result, tidal forces have deformed the shape of M82 and triggered massive star formation, so M82 is classified as a prototype starburst galaxy. Photographs of M82 taken with large telescopes reveal a bipolar outflow of material emanating from the core of the galaxy, where the rate of star formation has increased ten-fold compared to "normal" galaxies.
M81 and M82 are part of the Messier 81 galaxy group, one of the nearest galaxy groups to our Local Group. Up to now 34 galaxies have been identified as members of this group, including M81, M82 and NGC 3077, the small galaxy seen at upper left. Our Local Group of galaxies (with the Milky Way and Andromeda as the largest members) and the M81 group are in turn members of a larger group, called the Virgo Supercluster of galaxies.
Thanks to all for looking - clear skies!
Image Details:
Telescope: Orion EON ED 80/500 refractor
Mount: Modified Vixen Sphinx (NexSXW)
Camera: Canon EOS 20Da
Light frames: 11 x 2 mins (total: 22 mins), ISO 1600, Daylight WB
Guiding: Skywatcher 80/400 refractor, Skywatcher Synguider autoguider
Date & Location: 2/5/2019 - Chalkidiki, Greece
Processing: DSS 4.1.1, Adobe Photoshop CS6 with Astronomy Tools Actions Set (spikes added to brightest stars)
A real gem in the night sky, this globular star cluster is M13 (13th entry in Charles Messier's catalogue of deep sky objects), the Great Hercules Cluster in the northern hemisphere sky. It is visible to the naked eye as a fuzzy patch of light under a clear, dark sky. Located about 25,000 light-years away from Earth, this globular cluster is made up of several hundred thousand stars and occupies a region of space that measures around 150 light-years in diameter. The stars of M13 are about 12 billion years old, an age comparable to the age of the Universe itself (about 13.7 billion years).
Look at it with a small telescope and the view is filled with countless sparkling stars. With larger telescopes and in deep exposures the tremendous number of stars becomes evident. One can only imagine the view from a hypothetical planet around a star close to the center of M13, a night sky filled with thousands of stars brighter than the brightest stars in our own night sky.
The faint 12th-magnitude galaxy NGC 6207 can be seen below and to the left of M13. It is a spiral galaxy located about 40 million light years away that appears by chance close to M13. Between M13 and NGC 6207 lies another smaller and fainter galaxy - IC 4617, which is more than 10 times farther away than NGC 6207. Can you spot it?
Telescope: Orion EON ED 80/500 refractor
Mount: Modified Vixen Sphinx (NexSXW)
Camera: Canon EOS 20Da
Light frames: 28 x 3 minutes (total: 84 minutes), ISO 1600, Daylight WB, calibrated with darks
Guiding: Skywatcher 80/400 refractor, Skywatcher Synguider autoguider
Date & Location: 3/5/2019 - Chalkidiki, Greece
Processing: DSS 4.1.1, Adobe Photoshop CS6 with Astronomy Tools Actions Set (spikes added to the brightest stars)
Nikon D810 with Optolong L Pro filter
Nikon f4 500mm manual focus @ f5.6
Light 238 x 30 sec @ ISO 2000
Dark 50
Flat 50
Bias 50
Unguided on equatorial mount
M31 Galaxy
William Optics 73 leveled
William optics 50/200 guide with Omegon 224
Ioptron Cem120 mount
Moravian G2 8300 mark II camera with internal filter wheel
Astronomik filters
Cls CCD, R, G, B, Ha 6nm,
CLS 180x25 -5 °
CLS 300x25 -5 °
It has 900x30 -5 °
R 240x21 -5 °
G 240x21 -5 °
B 240x21 -5 °
Acquisition software Nina, Phd2, Ioptron commander and Vnc
Processing software
Pixinsight, Photoshop and star spikes
This is a photograph taken with a small refractor telescope and a DSLR of two Deep-Sky objects located in the Northern Hemisphere constellation of Cassiopeia, the Queen. Although they look like being close to each other, they are located far apart from each other, both of course belonging to our Milky Way Galaxy collection of stars and nebulae.
The object at center is M52 (Messier 52, NGC 7654), an open star cluster of about 200 stars at an estimated distance of about 4,000 to 5,000 light years. It was discovered by Charles Messier on 1774. These stars were born from the same interstellar nebula of gas and dust about 35 million years ago, so this is a young star cluster by astronomy standards. This object, visible with a small telescope or even binoculars under clear, dark skies is sometimes called the Salt-and-Pepper cluster.
To the right of M52 we can see the Bubble nebula (NGC 7635), which was discovered by W. Herschel in 1787. This object is located further away from M52, at an estimated distance of about 11,000 light years. The Bubble Nebula is a strange planetary nebula, formed from a fast stellar wind of a hot, young, massive star located inside the nebula. As the wind comes off the star, it pushes the surrounding gas to form a giant sphere that is surrounded by a molecular cloud. The high-energy ultraviolet light from the star ionizes the gas atoms, causing them to glow. The star that illuminates the Bubble is some 25 to 40 times as massive as our Sun and thousands of times brighter. This Wolf-Rayet star will probably end up exploding as a supernova.
The Bubble nebula is much dimmer than M52 and requires a large telescope to be seen. Finally, at the upper right we can see a smaller nebula, which is catalogued as NGC 7538, at about 9,000 light years, a region of active star formation containing a protostars with a mass of about 300 solar masses.
I photographed these two objects back in 2017 but this time I managed to collect about 1,5 hours of data with the use of a CLS light pollution filter, so hopefully a better result was obtained.
Thanks to everyone for viewing - clear skies!
Details:
Telescope: Orion EON 80ED
Camera: Canon EOS 20Da
Mount: Vixen Sphinx (NexSXW)
Filter: Astronomik CLS
Guiding: 80/400 Skywatcher refractor - SkyWatcher SynGuider
Light frames: 20 x 5 mins (total: 100 mins), ISO 3200, Custom WB, calibrated with darks
Date: 26 October 2019
Processing: DSS 4.2.3, Adobe Photoshop 2020 with Astronomy Tools Actions set (spikes added to the brightest stars).