The Wizard Nebula

After months of cloud, we finally had a semi-clear night last night here in North Carolina. I decided to revisit one of my favorite objects, the Wizard Nebula (in the cluster NGC 7380). The image was captured with the RASA 8 scope, DS10C camera, and NBZ filter. The final image had a total integration time of around 100 minutes. The first image is a starless crop which shows the nebula structure fairly well. The next image is a starred crop, followed by an almost full-field image of the nebula with minimal processing. The images are zoomable :)

A Cosmic Needle

 The Needle Galaxy (NGC 4565) is an edge on (most likely, barred) spiral galaxy. At magnitude 10, it is not a difficult object to image. The picture below is aggressively cropped from the original widefield image captured by the RASA 8 and DS10C camera. The astrometric image of the full field shows a plethora of galaxies and other objects.

NGC 6946 and NGC 6939

 The Fireworks Galaxy (NGC 6946) and the open cluster NGC 6939 make a wonderful celestial portrait in a wide field image. NGC 6946 is a face on, intermediate spiral galaxy. The galaxy contains about half as many stars as the Milky Way. As it is close to the plane of our galaxy, it is heavily obscured by interstellar matter. NGC 6946 is classified as an active starburst galaxy with massive regions of active star formation. The second image is a crop of the original.

The Sun on August 14, 2022

After a long break due to weather and other commitments, I finally had time to image the Sun again, today. AR3081, towards the top of this image, could produce Earth-directed solar flares. I will be off to the Isle of Palms for a vacation next week. The solar gear will not make the trip, but I hope to have the ability to image night time objects while I am there.

 

The Sun on July 18, 2022

 AR 3058 continues to show the potential for X-Class flares.

The Sun on July 17, 2022

 I'm playing catch up with posts at present (life and work intervened). North Carolina typically has rather cloudy skies in Summer, and clouds have definitely interrupted observations. This post has images of the whole solar disk, as well as a close up of AR3058, which had the potential for X-Class flares (the most powerful flares the Sun produces). I've also included the image of a very large limb prominence.