This is a capture of M 31 taken on November 10. Detail is hard to see, because the galaxy is a little large to image in the 14 inch, even with a focal reducer.
The trials, tribulations and small triumphs of a Charlotte, NC astronomer imaging under Bortle 8/9 skies.
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Uranus and Neptune
Here are a couple of quick captures of Uranus and Neptune taken yesterday. These are simply record shots and have not been processed. The planets are currently quite close together in the Southern part of the sky at mid-evening. The distinctive colors of the planets are unfortunately
not seen in these images.
not seen in these images.
Uranus |
Neptune |
Dumbbell (M 27: NGC 6853)
Yesterday was probably my most productive imaging day ever! This image of M27 was captured with the 14 inch scope, Mallincam, and 05x focal reducer. The image captures some of the subtle features of this planetary nebula rather well. This is probably the best image I have been able to capture of the Dumbbell.
NGC 7814; Caldwell 43
This is an image of the "Little Sombrero" galaxy captured on 11/10/2014 with the 14 inch scope, Mallincam Jr Pro and a .5x focal reducer. NGC 7814 is 40 million light years from earth and is seen edge on. The core is very bright and the dust lane of the galactic disk is clearly visible. This is a stack of 8 images of 20 seconds' duration. The magnitude of the galaxy is 11.6. The image scale is rather small, so this is a signifcantly cropped image.
Friday, November 7, 2014
Skyshed Pod arrives!
Today was a big day. The 5-bay Skyshed POD arrived! These are certainly the biggest boxes I have ever received. Below are a couple of pix of them in my garage. I hope to begin construction at the site next week, although that will depend very much on the weather.
A budding, future astronomer inspects the dome package |
The three boxes fill the car space in my garage! The 14 inch is crowded off to the side |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
The Horsehead Nebula
This image of the Horsehead Nebula consists of just over 4 hours of total integration time. Stacked and processed in Siril, GraXpert, Affini...
-
I had a couple of emails asking how to defork an ETX telescope. The ETX 90 and ETX 125 were optically superb scopes, but the mounts left a...
-
After a long break due to an extended period of cloud and rain here in the Carolinas, I was finally able to get some imaging time. As it...
-
To add insult to injury, not only are the skies cloudy, but it is snowing. The forecast is that it will end by noon, but I'm not hopefu...