View allAll Photos Tagged SPIRALGALAXY
At 2.73 million light-years away, the Triangulum Galaxy is considered part of our local group - and is the 3rd largest galaxy in the neighborhood. Although its area in the sky is roughly 4 full moons, its low surface brightness make is extremely difficult for unaided observation - requiring dark skies.
Messier 33 (NGC 598) - Triangulum Galaxy
H11 regions: NGC 588, NGC 952, NGC 959, NGC 604
20181103 - Newtown, PA
Nikon D5500
WO-61 w/Flat61
77 x 45s @ 1600iso
Regim Sig1.6, darks and flats
Color preserve stretch - Affinity Photo
RG_M33-Sig16_rncl-cps3_c50-50r-95q
50% crop - 50% full resolution
A very hungry looking dark nebula.
OTA: Astro Physics RH305 f3.8
GUIDER: ZWO ASI6200
GUIDE CAMERA: ZWO ASI174mm guide camera
FILTERS: Astrodon LRGBHα filters
ACCESSORIES: OPTEC Gemini rotating focuser
MOUNT: Bisque Paramount MEII
LOCATION: M & K Observatory, NSW
©2021JKLOVELACE
To see more of my work and to buy prints visit www.jklovelacephotography.com/pages/space
This is M31 the Andromeda galaxy. At 2.5 million light years away it is the furthest object that can be easily seen by the naked eye and it's existence has been known for over a thousand years.
Now it is headed our way.
In about 4 billion years it will collide with our own Milky way to produce a new combined giant elliptical galaxy. Until then we can just enjoy the view.
This image was taken with a small (80mm) telescope about 10 feet from my back door. Want to know how it’s done? This is a good place to start - astrobackyard.com/beginner-astrophotography/
The Andromeda Galaxy is big and bright, visible to the naked eye under dark skies and photographically spectacular, especially when captured using telescopes with a wide field of view.
Telescope: Tele Vue 76mm Refractor with 0.8x Focal Reducer (383mm focal length)
Camera: QSI 683wsg
Mount: iOptron iEQ45 Pro
Integration: 100 minutes each of RGB (20 x 5mins)
Software: PixInsight 1.8.8
The graceful, winding arms of the majestic spiral galaxy M51 appear like a grand spiral staircase sweeping through space. They are actually long lanes of stars and gas laced with dust. Such striking arms are a hallmark of so-called grand-design spiral galaxies.
In M51, also know as the Whirlpool galaxy, these arms serve an important purpose: they are star-formation factories, compressing hydrogen gas and creating clusters of new stars.
Discovered by Charles Messier in 1773, M51 is located 31 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Canes Venatici.
Messier 51 (The Whirlpool Galaxy) NASA
Equipment:
Astro-Tech AT80EDT f/6 ED Triple Refractor Telescope
Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro Computerized GoTo Telescope Mount
Orion 50mm Helical Guide Scope & StarShoot AutoGuider
ZWO ASI294MC Pro Color Camera
Orion 38mm clear-aperture Field Flattener
PHD2 Guiding Software
SharpCap Pro
Thank you for your comments,
Gemma
The Andromeda galaxy, is the nearest neighbouring galaxy, to the milky way. Consisting of one trillion stars and 2.5 million light years distant, its immense gravity has the milky way locked in an irresistible pull toward its final destination, crashing into the Andromeda galaxy and being completely merged into the much bigger galaxy. M31 45 stack 20 sec iso 6400.
Messier 81 Bode's Galaxy. A spiral galaxy 12 million light years away from Earth . Messier 82 is a starburst galaxy also known as the Cigar Galaxy 12 million Light years away from Earth Both are in the constellation Ursa Major . I've no idea what the shooting star is, possibly a satellite. Taken by my son with a Seestar S50
Messier 81 is a spiral galaxy approx 12 million light years away.
Messier 82 is a starburst galaxy at the same distance and has a cigar shape.
Messier 81 has magnitude 6.94
Messier 82 has magnitude 8.4
Both are in the constellation Ursa Major.
Total exposure time 1 hour 50 mins, a combination of 8, 9 and 10 minute subs at ISO 400.
Equipment: 8 inch Newtonian Reflector on AVX mount and Canon 500D.
Guided with ZWO 60mm guidescope and SSAG and PHD 2.6
Stacked in DSS and finished in CS2.
The Deer Lick Galaxy, NGC7331, is a spiral galaxy around 40 million light years away in the constellation Pegasus. While most spiral galaxies have spiral arms that rotate in unison, the Deer Lick Galaxy's arms rotate in an opposite direction to the central region, and is probably caused by infalling material. The Deer Lick galaxy is one of the brighter galaxies at magnitude 10.4, and has several smaller galaxies appear close to it. However, these galaxies are roughly 10x farther than NGC7331.
Stephan's Quintet is a grouping of 5 galaxies, one of which is much closer to us at 40 million light years than the other four which lie around 300 million light years. The farther galaxies appear more yellow due to the increased redshift from the expansion of the universe.
Details:
Scope: TMB130SS
Camera: QSI683-wsg8
Guide Camera: Starlight Xpress Ultrastar
Mount: Mach1 GTO
L: 19x10min
RGB: 12x5min each
6.3 hrs total exposure
Another astro image - the clouds cleared last night, despite the forecast saying it would be overcast, so I stayed up all night and grabbed 6 hours or data collection on Andromeda. It's not finished as I need to collect further data to refine the image further and collect some data in the hydrogen (red) spectrum to show the nebulae within the spirals. So it's a work in process but still my best to date on this celestial object.
The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is a barred spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years from Earth and the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way. The galaxy's name stems from the area of Earth's sky in which it appears, the constellation of Andromeda.
The mass of the Andromeda Galaxy is of the same order of magnitude as that of the Milky Way, at 1 trillion solar masses and it has a diameter of about 220,000 light years.
The number of stars contained in the Andromeda Galaxy is estimated at one trillion, or roughly twice the number estimated for the Milky Way.
The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are expected to collide in around 4.5 billion years, merging to form a giant elliptical galaxy or a large lenticular galaxy.
Also visible in this shot are two satellite dwarf galaxies, M32 and M110 (the two other fuzzy star formations to the left and just below Andromeda).
ZWO ASI 2600MC Pro, gain 100, cooled to -10degC
William Optics GT81 with Flat 6AIII
Optolong L-Pro filter
ASIAir Pro guided
HEQ5 Pro mount
98 x 180s lights
40 darks
50 flats
50 dark flats
Stacked and processed in Pixinsight, then PS and LR for final touches
M101 is a galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major whose spiral structure has been partially disrupted by tidal interactions with neighboring companion galaxies. This image was taken over a couple of clear nights from Seattle, WA in March of 2020.
Telescope: Celestron EdgeHD 8" @ f/7
Camera: QSI 683wsg
Mount: Astro-Physics Mach 1
Integration: 2.5 hours (30 x 5 mins) each of RGB
newton skywatcher 150/750 pds canon eos 600D modificada con filtro baader bcf, sobre neq6 pro2.
3,5h de integración dividida en subtomas de 30, 60, 120, 240 y 360 segundos
Intriguing cloud in the morning sky over Darmstadt, Germany. It reminds of the shape of a barred spiral galaxy.
Camera: Canon PowerShot G12.
Edited with GIMP.
⭐ Explored on September 1, 2022.
La foto della Psiche, del 28 marzo 2014, è stata scattata all'interno della Galleria Nazionale d'arte Moderna (GNAM) di Roma
M 51a The smaller object is Dwarf Galaxy NGC 5195 (M51b) They are 31 Million lightyears away in the Constellation Canes Venatici
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features a spiral galaxy, named UGC 10043. We don’t see the galaxy’s spiral arms because we are seeing it from the side. Located roughly 150 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Serpens, UGC 10043 is one of the somewhat rare spiral galaxies that we see edge-on.
This edge-on viewpoint makes the galaxy’s disk appear as a sharp line through space, with its prominent dust lanes forming thick bands of clouds that obscure our view of the galaxy’s glow. If we could fly above the galaxy, viewing it from the top down, we would see this dust scattered across UGC 10043, possibly outlining its spiral arms. Despite the dust’s obscuring nature, some active star-forming regions shine out from behind the dark clouds. We can also see that the galaxy’s center sports a glowing, almost egg-shaped ‘bulge’, rising far above and below the disk. All spiral galaxies have a bulge similar to this one as part of their structure. These bulges hold stars that orbit the galactic center on paths above and below the whirling disk; it’s a feature that isn’t normally obvious in pictures of galaxies. The unusually large size of this bulge compared to the galaxy’s disk is possibly due to UGC 10043 siphoning material from a nearby dwarf galaxy. This may also be why its disk appears warped, bending up at one end and down at the other.
Like most full-color Hubble images, this image is a composite, made up of several individual snapshots taken by Hubble at different times, each capturing different wavelengths of light. One notable aspect of this image is that the two sets of data that comprise this image were collected 23 years apart, in 2000 and 2023! Hubble’s longevity doesn’t just afford us the ability to produce new and better images of old targets; it also provides a long-term archive of data which only becomes more and more useful to astronomers.
@NASAHubble
Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
A mosaic of two LRGB images of spiral galaxies M98 (NGC 4192) on the right and M99 (NGC 4254) on the left. Data taken over the nights of 2023-04-19 and 2023-04-20. Celestron Edge HD 925 at focal length 535 mm with Hyperstar; Atik 414-EX mono camera with Optolong CCD filters. Preprocessing in Nebulosity; stacking, registration, mosaic composition, and initial processing in PixInsight; final touches in GIMP.
Taken from my Bortle 8/9 backyard in Long Beach, CA
45secs, ISO2000, f/5.6, 400mm (Stack of 25 images)
Camera: Canon 70D
Lens: Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II
Used "Skywatcher Star Adventurer Motorized Mount" for tracking. No Calibration frames taken, images stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and processed in Photoshop.
Balken Spiralgalaxy M 106 NGC 4258
This time I tried again to add some HA data to the normal data.
Details are:
Mount: SkyWatcher HEQ5 Pro
Guiding: ZWO ASI 120MM Mini USB 2.0 Mono Camera - Orion 50mm Guide Scope
ASCOM.EFW2 Filter Wheel
Filter: LPS-D2 - Filter & Filter: Zwo Ha 7nm
ASCOM.EAF.Focuser
Camera: Canon EOS 70D (full spectrum modified)
Askar 80 PHQ F7.5 Quadruplet Astrograph Telescope
Focal length: 600mm
ISO 800 - f7.5
17 hours total Integration
LPS-D2: 13.5 hours
H- alpha: 3.5 hours
Darks: 40 frames
Flats: 40 frames
Bios: 40 frames
DarkFlats: 40 frames
Bortle 5/6
Apps: N.I.N.A. > PHD2 > ASCOM > EQmodern
Jupiter (and Saturn just to the upper left of it) are setting.
Except for the fall fishery on the Humber River, in this area, the fly fishing season for Atlantic salmon closed on September 7th. So we took the truck camper down to the south coast of the island ... to the Sandbanks Provincial Park near Burgeo ... for a few days of R&R. I didn't take any of my scopes ... which was a mistake because the campsite we chose had a great view of the sky ... practically a dark sky site ... and the seeing was excellent (the stars bright and steady with no twinkling at all).
But I did have my Nikon D810 and lenses with me ... and my tripod ... so I set it up and grabbed a few shots of the Milky Way with the setting Jupiter and Saturn just to the left. This is just a single shot ... not a group of stacked images. And I never took any Darks or Flats with which to calibrate the shot. Turned out alright, though.
The other bright 'star' just above the treetops ... situated in the Milky Way ... is not a single star but actually a group of stars situated in the Lagoon Nebula. You will see that if you look at the larger version. You can even make out the red area of the Nebula.
Oh, and by the way, I didn't light paint those trees. :-) They were fortuitously lit by lights around the Park Office and Comfort Center. So that worked out great.
One more thing, I believe I caught some of Elon Musk's Starlink satellites in the shot. If you look down near treetop level over on the left in the larger version, you'll see four sets of bright dots all in a row.
NGC 4565 is an edge on spiral galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices. First recorded by William Herschel in 1785, it is sometimes known as the Needle Galaxy because of its thin shape Also. because of the shape and where it is located some refer to it as Berenice's Hair Clip. It is approximately 40 million light years from earth and like our own Milky Way galaxy it has a diameter of about 100 thousand light years.
If you look closely, there are actually many other galaxies in this shot. Just to name a few, NGC 4562 is in the upper right corner and IC 3543 and IC 3546 are in the upper left. All told, there are more than two dozen galaxies in this area.
This is only twenty-one 90 second shots stacked and processed with PixInsight and PhotoShop.
NGC 891 (or Caldwell 23) is an edge-on spiral galaxy in the constellation Andromeda. It is about 32 million light years away. It is larger and has a higher star formation rate than our Milky Way Galaxy.
This was a long project from my backyard in Long Beach, CA. I took data in both January and December 2022 with a Celestron Edge HD 925 with 0.63x focal reducer for a focal length of 1530 mm. The camera was an Atik 414-EX with Optolong LGRB CCD filters. Preprocessing in Nebulosity; registration, stacking, channel combination, and initial processing in PixInsight; final touches in Photoshop (no Topaz Labs).
Exposures used from each filter are as follows.
L: 74 x 2 min
R: 36 x 3 min
G: 23 x 3 min
B: 31 x 3 min
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captures the spiral galaxy NGC 105, which lies roughly 215 million light-years away in the constellation Pisces. While it looks like NGC 105 is plunging edge-on into a collision with a neighbouring galaxy, this is just the result of the chance alignment of the two objects in the night sky. NGC 105’s elongated neighbour is actually far more distant and remains relatively unknown to astronomers. These misleading conjunctions occur frequently in astronomy — for example, the stars in constellations are at vastly different distances from Earth, and only appear to form patterns thanks to the chance alignment of their component stars.
The Wide Field Camera 3 observations in this image are from a vast collection of Hubble measurements examining nearby galaxies which contain two fascinating astronomical phenomena — Cepheid variables and cataclysmic supernova explosions. Whilst these two phenomena may appear to be unrelated — one is a peculiar class of pulsating stars and the other is the explosion caused by the catastrophic final throes of a massive star’s life — they are both used by astronomers for a very particular purpose: measuring the vast distances to astronomical objects. Both Cepheids and supernovae have very predictable luminosities, meaning that astronomers can tell precisely how bright they are. By measuring how bright they appear when observed from Earth, these “standard candles” can provide reliable distance measurements. NGC 105 contains both supernovae and Cepheid variables, giving astronomers a valuable opportunity to calibrate the two distance measurement techniques against one another.
Astronomers recently carefully analysed the distances to a sample of galaxies including NGC 105 to measure how fast the Universe is expanding — a value known as the Hubble constant. Their results don’t agree with the predictions of the most widely-accepted cosmological model, and their analysis shows that there is only a 1-in-a-million chance that this discrepancy was caused by measurement errors. This discrepancy between galaxy measurements and cosmological predictions has been a long-standing source of consternation for astronomers, and these recent findings provide persuasive new evidence that something is either wrong or lacking in our standard model of cosmology.
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Jones, A. Riess et al.; CC BY 4.0
Acknowledgement: R. Colombari
Messier 81 (M81) is a large spiral galaxy located in the constellation Ursa Major. It is referred to as Bode’s Galaxy as it was first discovered by Johann Elert Bode in 1774 and later picked up by Messier and added to his catalog. The magnitude is listed at a bright 6.9 and the distance is about 11,800,000 light-years away from Earth.
Messier 81 is the largest galaxy in the M81 Group, a group of 34 galaxies located in the constellation Ursa Major. At approximately 11.8 million light years from the Earth, it makes this group and the Local Group, containing the Milky Way, relative neighbors in the Virgo Supercluster. (Wikipedia)
Tech Specs: Orion 8" f/8 Ritchey-Chretien Astrograph Telescope, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO ASI290MC and ASI071MC-Pro, ZWO AAPlus, ZWO EAF. 108x 60 seconds at -10C plus darks and flats. Image Date: November 6, 2021. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
The Divine Cosmos
Interplanetary Travel
Youtube: The Moon Meditation
4K | Plutonia - Interplanetary Travel
Camera: Canon EOS Kiss X7i
Photograph by Yusuf Alioglu
Location: Outer space (space)
Messier 66 or M66, also known as NGC 3627, is an intermediate spiral galaxy in the equatorial constellation of Leo. It was discovered by French astronomer Charles Messier on March 1, 1780, who described it as "very long and very faint". This galaxy is a member of a small group of galaxies that includes M65 and NGC 3628, known as the Leo Triplet, or the M66 Group.
Age: 13.26 billion years
Magnitude: 8.9
Radius: 47,500 light years
Stars: 200 billion
Coordinates: RA 11h 20m 15s | Dec +12° 59′ 30″
Constellation: Leo
Tech Specs: Orion 8" f/8 Ritchey-Chretien Astrograph Telescope, Sky-Watcher EQ6R-Pro mount that is pier mounted, ASI071MC-Pro, ZWO AAPlus, ZWO EAF, 54 x 60 seconds at -10C, processed using DSS and PixInsight. Image Date: March 26, 2023. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W95), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
Old data processing of M106 galaxy ( 24/04/2020 ) .
Processed with the help of sp.la.sh.id, find him on Instagram: www.instagram.com/sp.la.sh.id/
Gear used:
■ Mount: skywatcher neq-6 goto with Rowan modification belt
■ Telescope: skywatcher 200/1000 F/5
■ Autoguiding: Asi 120mm
■ Total exposure: 2H25m || 29 X 300 seconds
■ Camera: modified canon eos 700d astrodon
■ Filter(s): no filter
■ Other optic(s): baader coma corrector
■ Software : Siril / PixInsight / photoshopCC
Looking deep into the universe, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope catches a passing glimpse of the numerous arm-like structures that sweep around this barred spiral galaxy, known as NGC 2608. Appearing as a slightly stretched, smaller version of our Milky Way, the peppered blue and red spiral arms are anchored together by the prominent horizontal central bar of the galaxy.
In Hubble photos like this, bright foreground stars in the Milky Way will sometimes appear as pinpoints of light with prominent light flares known as diffraction spikes, an effect of the telescope optics. A star with these features is seen in the lower right corner of the image, and another can be spotted just above the pale center of the galaxy. The majority of the fainter points around NGC 2608, however, lack these features, and upon closer inspection they are revealed to be thousands of distant galaxies. NGC 2608 is just one among an uncountable number of kindred structures.
Similar expanses of galaxies can be observed in other Hubble images such as the Hubble Deep Field, which recorded over 3,000 galaxies in one field of view.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Riess et al.
A Lost Life
My Interplanetary Memories
Interplanetary Travel
I think I'll be 38 in a few days. I stopped following the time zone in the world a long time ago. In the universe I am in, the time zone on earth has no meaning. Well, the concept of time, even when I was in the world, had no meaning for me lately. I found myself in an increasingly meaningless life. I was looking for a way out of this situation. That's why I accepted this space travel. To get away from the world, that is, my life.
Was I wasting the time I couldn't spend on earth in this huge darkness called space? What would I be doing right now if I stayed on Earth? Would I be sitting in a corner at home, waiting for the end to come? Or would I build a new life for myself and start feeling love again? Would I lay my head on the pillow every night by keeping my eyes on the woman I fell in love with and feeling her in my heart? Every morning when I woke up, would I watch my lover in his peaceful and quiet sleep until daybreak? Or would I live in my dream world as I do away from the world? I think this obscurity will one day be the end of me.
This space travel was a process where I lost not only my time but also myself. Maybe the only way I could hold on to life was through this interplanetary space travel. Because I cannot turn back time, I will never find an answer to these unknowns.
I think I need some courage and confidence.
Camera: Canon EOS Kiss X7i
Photograph by Yusuf Alioglu
Location: Outer space (space)
● Object specifications:
► Designation: NGC 2903
► Object type: Barred spiral galaxy
► Stellar coordinates:
-Ra: 9h 32m 09,76s.
-DEC: +21° 30′ 07.0″.
► Distance: /.
► Constellation: Leo.
► Magnitude: 9.01
● Gear:
► Telescope: SW 200/1000 F5
► Mount: IOptron CEM60-ec
► Camera: QHY294C
► Autoguiding: guidescope 50mm + ZWO asi
120mm
► Other optic(s): TS coma corrrector Maxfield 0.95X
► Filter(s): Optolong L-pro 2"
● Softwares:
► Acquisition: Nina
► Autoguiding: PHD guiding 2
► Preprocessing: PixInsight
► Processing: PixInsight
● Data acquisition:
► total +-7H, 5 min per capture
► Gain: 1601
► Offset: 60
► Cooling: -15°C
► Date(s): 25/02/2023 -> 26/02/2023 | 2 nights
La galassia a spirale M74 si trova nella costellazione dei Pesci: ha una magnitudine apparente di 9.4, risultando quindi uno degli oggetti più deboli del catalogo di Messier.
La sua distanza dalla nostra galassia (la Via Lattea) è di 30 milioni di anni luce: considerando quindi la sua dimensione apparente di 10.5'x9.5' (per confronto la Luna piena ha un diametro di 30'), si ha che la sua estensione reale è di 92000 anni luce.
Per via della particolare angolazione con cui si mostra, è possibile seguire i bracci a spirale dal centro fino alle deboli regioni esterne. Nei bracci a spirale sono visibili diverse regioni HII (regioni di formazione stellare): la più grande ha un diametro di 600 anni luce.
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M74 is a spiral galaxy in Pisces constellation, with apparent magnitude 9.4.
Its distance fom Milky Way is 30 million light years, so considering its apparent dimensions of 10.5’x9.5’ its real extension is 92000 light years. Due to its face-on view it is possible follow the spiral arms from the centre to the dim outer regions. Several HII regions are visible in the arms: the largest one has a diameter of 600 light years.
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Technical data
Image taken from August to November 2021 from Promiod (Aosta Valley, Italy)
RC12 GSO Truss (diameter 304mm, focal lenght 2432mm)
Mount GM2000 HPSII
CCD Moravian G3-16200 with filters Astrodon Tru-Balance Gen2 E-Serie LRGB
Exposures and sensor temperature:
L 10x600" bin2 -20C + 19x600" bin2 -25C
R 10x600" bin2 -20C + 5x600" bin2 -25C
G 10x600" bin2 -20C + 4x600" bin2 -25C
B 10x600" bin2 -20C + 4x600" bin2 -25C
Total exposure time 12h
Guide with OAG Moravian and Moravian camera G1-0301
Acquisition sw : Voyager, PHD2
Processing sw: Pixinsight 1.8, Photoshop CS5, StarXTerminator, Topaz DenoiseAI
The End of Another Dream
Interplanetary Travel
Every visit comes to an end. The excitement of a new discovery turns into a mild sadness as the end approaches. At the moment of separation, the sadness inside me turns into longing. Every day I spend on the planet comes before my eyes. My memories are fading fast. And, I want to go back to those moments again. But as I said, every visit comes to an end. Just as I have come to the end of my visit to this planet.
Years ago, I dreamed of what I would experience when I embarked on this adventure. Now, I am living beyond the dreams I had years ago. I witnessed many cosmic events that I had not even dreamed of. The stardust storm I experienced on this planet was one of them. I couldn't even imagine this event. This space journey I took to find new civilizations was actually an escape for me. I can also say that this is my journey back to life. Throughout my space travel, I continued to live and, of course, to dream. Dreaming kept me alive. I dreamed as long as I lived. It's been a cycle for me. It's been a survival cycle for me. Dreams were a kind of survival kit for me. And I have come to the end of another dream. In fact, we all came to this end together. You did not leave me alone again. I am grateful to you for this. Now I am traveling towards a new dream. I need some time and seclusion for my next dream. I don't think I will take a long break. However, I won't be with you for a while. Thank you for not leaving me alone on this journey. See you in new adventures and new discoveries, take cares.
Youtube: The Moon Meditation
4K | Plutonia - Interplanetary Travel
Camera: Canon EOS Kiss X7i
Photograph by Yusuf Alioglu
Location: Outer space (space)
Fly Away From This World
My Interplanetary Memories
Interplanetary Travel
That day, a spiral galaxy view greeted me with the sunset. I tried to focus on this galaxy to get away from the questions that were forming in my mind. As this spiral galaxy rose in the sky, the questions about my past and myself became stronger in my mind. And, I started asking myself questions. My first question was. When will you return home, Yusuf? I thought long and hard about this question. And I couldn't find an answer for myself. Despite the long years that have passed, I still have not been able to give myself an answer. The question of when I will return home continues to haunt me. Moreover, I ask myself this question more and more often than before. When will I be able to return to my home, that is, to life?
Camera: Canon EOS Kiss X7i
Photograph by Yusuf Alioglu
Location: Outer space (space)
The Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101, M101 or NGC 5457) is a face-on spiral galaxy 21 million light-years (6.4 megaparsecs) away from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. M101 is a large galaxy, with a diameter of 170,000 light-years. By comparison, the Milky Way has a diameter of between 100,000 and 120,000 light-years. It has around a trillion stars.
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Constellation: Ursa Major
Right ascension: 14h 03m 12.6s
Declination: +54° 20′ 57″
Distance: 20.9 ± 1.8 Mly
Apparent magnitude (V): 7.9
Tech Specs: Orion 8" f/8 Ritchey-Chretien Astrograph Telescope, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO ASI290MC and ASI071MC-Pro, ZWO AAPlus, ZWO EAF, 45 x 60 seconds at -10C plus darks and flats, processed using PixInsight and DSS. Image Date: January 31, 2022. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
La galassia a spirale M61 (abbreviazione di Messier 61) si trova a 60 milioni di anni luce e con il suo diametro di circa 100.000 anni luce (simile a quello della Via Lattea) è uno dei più grandi membri dell'ammasso di galassie visibile nella costellazione della Vergine.
Particolarità di questa galassia è la struttura dei suoi bracci: essi mostrano diversi improvvisi cambi di direzione, dando quindi a M61 un aspetto quasi poligonale.
Nell'immagine sono visibile altre due galassie brillanti: NGC 4301 in alto a destra e NGC 4292 (in basso a destra): ma guardando bene, parecchie altre remote galassie sono visibili sullo sfondo.
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The spiral galaxy M61 (short for Messier 61) is located 60 million light-years away and with its diameter of about 100,000 light-years (similar to that of the Milky Way) is one of the largest members of the cluster of galaxies visible in the constellation of Virgo.
A peculiarity of this galaxy is the structure of its arms: they show several sudden changes in direction, thus giving M61 an almost polygonal appearance.
In the image, two other bright galaxies are visible: NGC 4301 at the top right and NGC 4292 (at the bottom right): but looking carefully, several other remote galaxies are visible in the background.
Technical data
GSO RC12 Truss - Aperture 304mm, focal lenght 2432mm, f/8
Mount 10Micron GM2000 HPSII
Camera ZWO ASI 2600 MM Pro with filter wheel 7 positions
Filters Astrodon Gen2 E-Serie Tru-Balance 50mm unmounted LRGB
Guiding system ZWO OAG-L with guide camera ASI 174MM
Exposure details:
L 47x300", RGB 16x300" for each channel, all in bin3 -15C gain 100
Total integration time: 7h55'
Acquisition: Voyager, PHD2
Processing: Pixinsight 1.8, Photoshop CS5, StarXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, BlurXTerminator
SQM-L: 21.18
Location: Promiod (Aosta Valley, Italy), own remote observatory
Date 19 April 2023, 18 February/11 April 2024
M74 (The Phantom Galaxy) was one of the first targets of JWST. This image is from my backyard in Long Beach, CA using a Celestron Edge HD 925 at focal length 535 mm with Hyperstar. I used Optolong LRGB filters with an Atik 414-EX camera to get the following stacks:
L channel: 178 25 s exposures
R channel: 65 75 s exposures
G channel: 59 75 s exposures
B channel: 60 75 s exposures
Preprocessing in Nebulosity with dark, bias, and flat frames. Registration, stacking, channel combination, and initial processing in PixInsight. Photoshop and Topaz Labs for final processing and noise removal.
Strange New Worlds
Interplanetary Travel
Youtube: The Moon Meditation
4K | Plutonia - Interplanetary Travel
Camera: Canon EOS Kiss X7i
Photograph by Yusuf Alioglu
Location: Outer space (space)
A Deep Sleep Under a Peculiar Galaxy
Planet Dokeia
Interplanetary Travel
Camera: Samsung Galaxy S8
Photograph by Yusuf Alioglu
Location: Outer space (space)
90 x 90 second exposures -135 minutes.
Gain 100, Offset 50 @ -5c
Guiding with PHD2/Primaluce 240 F/4 guider.
RA RMS error 0.62 arcsec
Dec RMS error 0.51 arcsec
Polar alignment error 0.3 arc minute (PoleMaster).
Resolution 0.987 arcsec/pixel
50 x darks
Flats not usable - see below.
Im now using a ZWO ASI2600MC Pro as my main OSC camera and SharpCap 4.0 as my acquisition software.
Still on the learning curve. After a few goes, I was able to use plate solving in SharpCap 4/ASTAP to GOTO M33 without star aligning the EQ6 mount (3-4 seconds at gain 700).
Optimal exposures are still a bit of a guessing game: 2 minutes (Gain 100, Offset 50 at -5c) seems to equate to 10 minutes on my uncooled modified Canon 80D so I tried 90 seconds here which seemed to work well.
I had less luck with my EL panel flats - I took 50 x flats at 3000ms/2200ms/1800ms and 1725ms but all were too bright and caused negative vignetting! - will try a range of lower values next time. the recommended values from the Smart Histogram tool seem way off to me.
Havent got my Moonlite electronic focuser fully setup to use the automated multi-star FWHM tool either. Will need to bench test that.
Also differential flexure somewhere in the system - stars were oval but guiding good. My guidescope rings only just grip the scope and I think they got loose as the night progressed, the scope got more vertical and temperature dropped.
I ran PixInsight’s FWHM eccentricity tool which told me there was no significant sensor tilt. Have replaced the guide rings with some spares
Apart from that, not too bad!!!