One of my last targets for galaxy season is the Draco Triplet. This is an interesting group of galaxies of different morphologies. I was able to get 26 hours of data on these over four nights in May. The prominent spiral galaxy, NGC 5985, is 140 million light years away.… Continue Reading... "Draco Triplet"
M101 is another prominent spring galaxy that I have wanted to do properly for a few years now. It was one of the first images I took with my equatorial mount and faster Newtonian, but I was still pretty green back then. This time, I took 33 hours of data… Continue Reading... "M101"
UPDATE: I’d like to thank Daniel Fiordalis and Astrospheric for receiving Astrophotograph of the Month for this image. If you are looking for the best astronomy weather forecast site and app, Astrospheric is it! The Leo Triplet is a group of three galaxies in the constellation Leo. But you didn’t… Continue Reading... "Leo Triplet"
Fully clear nights are still hard to find in this Ohio spring, although I have finally been able to begin a new imaging project. In the meantime, to keep my processing skills fresh, I decided to tackle another one of my favorite images that I have done, Abell 2151, the… Continue Reading... "Hercules Cluster, Redux"
There has not been a lick of clear skies for me since Thanksgiving week, and I have become mighty bored. One of my favorite images seemed like a good candidate to rework since I have new tools and new knowledge. I originally took 25 hours of data on Messier 51… Continue Reading... "M51 Redux"
The nearest proper galaxy to us, the Andromeda Galaxy, is a very large and bright object in the autumn sky. It’s visible with the naked eye outside of the city, and it spans about 2.8 degrees in the sky, making it appear six times larger than the full moon. It… Continue Reading... "Andromeda Galaxy"
I came back to my image of the Deer Lick Group and Stephan’s Quintet from last year due to the JWST reveal. While my original take on the image was not terrible for the tools and knowledge I had available at the time, I wanted to give the original integration… Continue Reading... "Reprocessing the Deer Lick and Stephan’s Quintet"
I finally had a run of clear skies on a new Moon! I took advantage by imaging NGC 5566 at the beginning of each of the six mostly clear nights. This galaxy is the prominent one in the middle of the image, and it lies about 65 million light years… Continue Reading... "NGC 5566 and friends"
I recently learned about this rarely imaged target just a few weeks ago. In addition to the Magellanic Clouds, two dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way visible only from the southern hemisphere, there are many other satellite galaxies of the Milky Way. One of these is an elliptical dwarf that… Continue Reading... "Ursa Minor Dwarf Galaxy"
I had a few hours of clear, moonless sky last night before the moon rose around midnight. I decided to take a short tour of galaxies around Ursa Major, Virgo, Leo, and Coma Berenices. I used SharpCap to live stack ten to fifteen minutes on each target. A little post… Continue Reading... "A tour of the Virgo cluster"
