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5x120s, 10 minutes of light, Pentax K3, LX200 10" w/ 0.63x corrector.
Captured from the Salome airfield near Quartzite, AZ
Often imaged but rarely mentioned, Messier 43 is a large star forming region in its own right. It's just part of the star forming complex of gas and dust that includes the larger, more famous neighboring Messier 42, the Great Orion Nebula. In fact, the Great Orion Nebula itself lies off the lower edge of this scene. The close-up of Messier 43 was made while testing the capabilities of a near-infrared instrument with one of the twin 6.5 meter Magellan telescopes at Las Campanas Observatory in the Chilean Andes. The composite image shifts the otherwise invisible infrared wavelengths to blue, green, and red colors. Peering into caverns of interstellar dust hidden from visible light, the near-infrared view can also be used to study cool, brown dwarf stars in the complex region. Along with its celebrity neighbor, Messier 43 lies about 1,500 light-years away, at the edge of Orion's giant molecular cloud. At that distance, this field of view spans about 5 light-years. via NASA ift.tt/1J7ut2C
M55 is a globular cluster in the constellation Sagittarius. The image is out of focus. :(
50x240s
QHY8L
GSO RC8 f/8
Sky-Watcher NEQ6-Pro
Messier 55. Apilado de 128x15segs (32min), f:400mm @ F/5.7, ISO 1600. Canon 1000D +Celestron 70/400, montura CG4. 02-10-2012
This "little" globular cluster is often overshadowed by its flashy neighbour in the sky, the Dumbbell Nebula (Messier 27). So I took pity on this little guy and imaged him. M27 is in a tiny constellation called Sagitta (the arrow), which is right within the band of the Milky Way.
M71 is a very loose globular and is relatively easy to resolve - so loose if fact, that until the age of disco it was believed to be an open cluster. M71 has a high metallicity for a globular cluster, and at a distance of 12,000 light years, it is one of the closest to us. It is about 26 ly across, and considering that the closest star to the Sun is 4 ly away, you can imagine how star-filled the sky would be if you lived on a planet within this cluster.
As a nice bonus, there's a magnitude 6.2 star very close to M71 (the bright one at the right-hand edge of the image), making it very easy to get precise autoguiding!
This new image of the reflection nebula Messier 78 was captured using the Wide Field Imager camera on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory, Chile. This colour picture was created from many monochrome exposures taken through blue, yellow/green and red filters, supplemented by exposures through a filter that isolates light from glowing hydrogen gas. The total exposure times were 9, 9, 17.5 and 15.5 minutes per filter, respectively. #L
Captured 24 Oct 2019, Staunton River star Party, VA, Bortle 4, C8 f6.3, Mallincam DS10c camera, clouds clear, transparency good, seeing good, no filter, E20sec, HCG20. PS edits.
from Wikipedia
Messier 74 (also known as NGC 628 and Phantom Galaxy) is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Pisces. It is at a distance of about 32 million light-years away from Earth. The galaxy contains two clearly defined spiral arms and is therefore used as an archetypal example of a grand design spiral galaxy. The galaxy's low surface brightness makes it the most difficult Messier object for amateur astronomers to observe. However, the relatively large angular size of the galaxy and the galaxy's face-on orientation make it an ideal object for professional astronomers who want to study spiral arm structure and spiral density waves. It is estimated that M74 is home to about 100 billion stars.
Messier 2 or M2 (also designated NGC 7089) is a globular cluster in the constellation Aquarius, five degrees north of the star Beta Aquarii. It was discovered by Jean-Dominique Maraldi in 1746, and is one of the largest known globular clusters.
M2 was discovered by the French astronomer Jean-Dominique Maraldi in 1746 while observing a comet with Jacques Cassini. Charles Messier rediscovered it in 1760, but thought it a nebula without any stars associated with it. William Herschel, in 1783, was the first to resolve individual stars in the cluster.
M2 is about 37,500 light-years distant from Earth. At 175 light-years in diameter, it is one of the larger globular clusters known. The cluster is rich, compact, and significantly elliptical. It is 13 billion years old and one of the older globulars associated with the Milky Way Galaxy.
With the Moon out it's harder to image faint fuzzy stuff, so I figured that M92 would make a decent target, given that it's made of point sources and thus can better burrow its way through the Moon's sky wash. In addition it was well-placed in my sky and it is a spectacular object. It's often overlooked because it's so close to M13, which tends to steal the show.
After a week of experimentation I'm starting to get the hang of using ImagesPlus, which was used to create this image from 25 15-second subframes.