NGC 7380, commonly known as the Wizard Nebula, is an open cluster of stars with associated emission nebula in the constellation Cepheus, about 8,500 light years away from Earth. Continue Reading... "NGC 7380"
NGC 225
NGC 225 is an open cluster of young stars about 2,200 light years away in Cassiopeia. Many of the stars in this cluster are binaries, though as the cluster ages gravity may disrupt some of these pairs. This is an active star forming region. There are some interesting pillars in… Continue Reading... "NGC 225"
NGC 7822
NGC 7822 is a young star forming region 2900 light years away in Cepheus. It exhibits many interesting dust clouds and elephant trunks. In the top right corner is the open cluster NGC 7762. This is 63 hours of data taken with my little scope. Continue Reading... "NGC 7822"
The Crescent, Cooked Three Ways
With all of the rich targets available in the Milky Way this time of year, I thought to myself, why not image one I already did again? This time, I went a little extra on it. NGC 6888, commonly called the Crescent Nebula, is the result from the stellar wind… Continue Reading... "The Crescent, Cooked Three Ways"
A new take on old data
I’ve spent the last couple of months focused on other household projects, and the observatory needed it’s yearly maintenance. While waiting for the next new moon, I decided to brush up my processing skills on some old data from 2021. The Iris Nebula is a reflection nebula in Cepheus that… Continue Reading... "A new take on old data"
M106
Messier 106, also known as NGC 4258, is a prominent intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation Venatici. It is around 24 million light years from Earth, with an apparent magnitude of 8.4 and an apparent size of 19 arcminutes, or about two thirds the apparent diameter of the Moon. M106… Continue Reading... "M106"
IC 405, the Flaming Star Nebula
I took a chance on this guy, as I wasn’t sure how it would turn out. I am glad I did! I ended up getting over 42 hours on this target from October through December. The Flaming Star nebula is a an emission and reflection nebula about 1,500 light years… Continue Reading... "IC 405, the Flaming Star Nebula"
M51, yet again
New year, new reprocess of my M51 data from 2021! My take last year left something to be desired. The photometric color calibration did not usually work well for me, so this year I wanted to give it another try with the spectrophotometric color calibration, in addition to the improved… Continue Reading... "M51, yet again"
NGC 7640
NGC 6740 is a barred spiral galaxy 27 million light years away in the Andromeda constellation. This is a galaxy that I rarely see imaged, even though it is over 10 arcminutes in length. After imaging most of the big, common targets, I wanted to give some time to a… Continue Reading... "NGC 7640"
My journey in processing, featuring the Deer Lick
Possibly my favorite part of the hobby of astronomy is the continual improvement of a wide range of skills needed to produce images. The image processing stage makes all of the patience of hardware acquisition, maintenance, fine-tuning, and operation worth it. I would like to take my favorite targets, the… Continue Reading... "My journey in processing, featuring the Deer Lick"
