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"
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 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"
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"
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"
