The Copernicus Region of the Moon

The Copernicus region of the Moon has many interesting features.

What unusual or unexpected features do you see?

Image taken February 6, 2025 at 8:15 pm MST

Taken with:

Orion Apex 127mm Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope, 

2X Barlow lens

ZWO ASI585MC Pro camera. 

Post-processed video with ZWO software to acquire the best 20% of the frames

Post-processed resulting image with Luminar 2018 and Preview.

 

Io's Shadow Transit of Jupiter this evening

 

Io is one of the four Galilean moons of Jupiter that obits closer than the others.

As a result, when the Sun causes Io's shadow to fall on Jupiter it creates a moving black dot on the surface of the cloud belts of Jupiter.

This image is inverted (left to right) and Io itself is too dim to capture simultaneously in this image.

I noticed the black dot shadow while imaging but didn't know it belonged to Io until I checked after the fact!

Taken with an Orion Apex 127mm Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope, 2X Barlow lens and a ZWO ASI585MC Pro camera. Post-processed with ZWO software and Irfanview.

Fox Fur Nebula and the Cone Nebula

 

Windy again last night but not enough to stop me from capturing the "Fox Fur Nebula" and the "Cone Nebula"! About 2 1/4 hours of 4-minute sub-exposures with a ZWO ASI585MC Pro camera on an AVX mount using a Daystar 80mm f/6 refractor.

My first effort at capturing (even if only a wide field view of it). With this new camera I hope to do a tighter view of it in the future. One "mistake" was though it took 4 minutes for each "sub" I forgot that exposures that long would "blow-out" the stars (making them BIG and white). As such they really distract from the nebulas themselves. I should have taken just a few "subs" at about 1 or 2 minutes each and used those as the "starmask" which would have controlled not only the size of the stars but also captured the colors of the stars better. Oh well... next time!

NGC 2174 The Monkey Head Nebula

 

A somewhat windly evening but I was able to capture the "Monkeyhead" nebula aka NGC 2174 ! This is 2.5 hours of integrated exposure made up of 4 minute exposures stacked in SIRIL and post processed with GIMP.

What a difference three years can make!

 

The above is the result of 3 hours of imaging on January 24, 2025 of "Thor's Helmet" nebula (aka NGC 2359) with the ZW0 585MC pro camera, post processed with SIRIL and GIMP. 

Compare it to this one below which I took three years ago on January 24, 2022.:

You can see what a little more experience in imaging and processing with a better camera can do!

The "Hamburger" Galaxy

My only goal was to see how much detail a small refractor could capture in this galaxy...

...not bad but certainly limited ! 

Taken with: 

ZWO ASI585MC Pro USB3 Cooled Color Camera

Daystar 80mm f/6 480mm refractor

About 2.5 hours of integration

Post-processed with SIRIL and GIMP

M 78 aka the "Casper the Friendly Ghost Nebula"

 

Now that the Moon is no longer full I was able to spend some time imaging some of the interesting objects around the constellation Orion (which is high in the south-eastern skies when it gets dark at night right now).

This object is known as M 78 to astronomers.

Messier 78 or M78 is a beautiful blue reflection nebula in the constellation Orion. This nebula is often referred to as the ‘Casper the Friendly Ghost Nebula’.

It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1780 and included by Charles Messier in his catalog of comet-like objects that same year.

M78 is about 1,350 light-years distant from Earth.

M78 is classified as a reflection nebula because the dust particles in this area are reflecting starlight from the intensely hot, young stars beneath it. About 45 variable stars of the T Tauri type, these young stars still in the process of formation. Due to gravity, the molecular gas in the nebula has broken up into clumps of dust and gases.

Though dim it cann be found with a smaller telescopes at low power as a hazy patch as long as you are viewing this nebula in a sky free of moonlight and city light pollution.

Photography draws out the colors the human eye cannot see. This image was created with a ZWOASI585 MC camera and a 80mm f/6.5 refractor. It is made up of 15 - 240 second exposures made into one image with a total exposure time of about 60 minutes. It was "stacked" with the freeware program SIRIL and post processed with the freeware program GIMP for the final touches.

Can you see that many stars are blocked out of view near the nebula? This is because of how thick the interstellar dust is in that area!

Click on the photo to see a larger view of it.