Galaxy M 100

 

It is still galaxy season! Last night I imaged Messier 100. It is one of the brightest and largest galaxies in the Virgo Cluster of galaxies and is approximately 55 million light-years from our own galaxy! AWESOME !

Then I ran the image through Astrometery.net which identifies many of the other galaxies and stars in the image... all those smugges are GALAXIES, most are even farther away than M 100.

NGC 4323 and NGC 4328 are satellite galaxies of M 100.

DATA:

Meade LX200GPS 8" with a .63 focal Reducer

Camera: Canon T3i body (modded)

Stack of 7 subs (480 seconds each) at ISO3200

Total integration time:  56 minutes

Stacked with Affinity Photo

Post-processed with Luminar 2018

Cropped in about 50%

Four (or Five) Planets in a Row Early in the Morning!

 

Were you up before sunrise today and saw FOUR planets in a row?

I wasn't but a fellow member of the Huachuca Astronomy Club was and this is her (Karen Madtes) shot!

Left to right: Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Saturn 

(Bonus but too dim to be in this shot... Neptune, which is between Jupiter and Venus from our perspective!)

P.S.  They will be visible for a few more weeks so get out there and enjoy the view, just be sure you have a relatively good view of the south-eastern horizon about 4:30 am !

Thanks, Karen!

The Blackeye Galaxy, M 64

 

The Blackeye Galaxy - Messier 64

The Black Eye Galaxy (M64, or NGC 4826) is a relatively isolated spiral galaxy 17 million light-years away in the mildly northern constellation of Coma Berenices. 

A dark band of absorbing dust partially in front of its bright nucleus gave rise to its nicknames of the "Black Eye", "Evil Eye", or "Sleeping Beauty" galaxy.

DATA:

Scope - Meade 8" LX200GPS and mount with a focal reducer

Camera - Canon T3i (modded)

10 images at ISO 3200 for 360 seconds each (6 minutes) for a combined time of 1 hour.

Stacked in Affinity Photo and post processed in Luminar 2018

Final image cropped in about 50%.

I Spy a Supernova!

 

Sometimes in galaxy season one can catch a supernova in a galaxy far, far away! Here is a new supernova between M60 (the larger galaxy/fuzzball) and the galaxy NGC 4647 (the smaller fuzzball) and the supernova is the star between the two galaxies but closer to the smaller galaxy. 

Details: Captured with a Celestron 6 inch f/10 SCT on a AVX mount with a Canon t3i DSLR body with a L-Pro filter. This is the resulting stack of 10 images using Affinity Photo, each image was 7 minutes long at iso 6400 for a total of 70 minutes of exposure. Cropped to 1/4 of the original frame size.

Supernova data sheet: https://www.rochesterastronomy.org/supernova.html#2022hrs

M 51 (try again!)

 

Messier 51 - The Whirlpood Galaxy aka NGC 5194

I imaged this recently but did not put in the time needed to get a better image.

This time I increased my total exposure time to 88 minutes at ISO 3200 with each sub exposure being 240 secs each. Stacked in Affinity Photo with bias and dark frames, post processed with Luminar 2018.

Info on M 51 from Wikipedia:

The Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as Messier 51a, M51a, and NGC 5194, is an interacting grand-design spiral galaxy with a Seyfert 2 active galactic nucleus.  It lies in the constellation Canes Venatici, and was the first galaxy to be classified as a spiral galaxy. Its distance is 31 million light-years away from Earth.

The galaxy and its companion, NGC 5195, are easily observed by amateur astronomers, and the two galaxies may be seen with binoculars.  The Whirlpool Galaxy has been extensively observed by professional astronomers, who study it to understand galaxy structure (particularly structure associated with the spiral arms) and galaxy interactions.

The "Owl" Nebula (Messier 97 aka NGC 3587)

 The "Owl" Nebula (M 97, NGC 3587) is a small nebula near the bottom of the "Big Dipper's cup". It is a starburst ("planetary") nebula approximately 2,030 light years away. Although the Owl Nebula can not be seen with the naked eye, a faint image of it can be observed under remarkably good conditions with a small telescope or 20×80 binoculars. To make out the nebula's more distinctive owl like eye features, a telescope with an aperture 10" or better is required. 

But with long photographic exposure (in this case 15 images of 4 minutes each, then stacked for a total of one hour of exposure and then post-processed) I was able to capture it for your enjoyment! I have posted two images of it because its true color is difficult to determine (just google it and you will see that some make it blueish and others more green). 

Which do you like?

The Sunflower Galaxy - M 63 - Two Hours of Integration vs One shot

 

This beautiful galaxy is known as Messier 63 or M63, also known as NGC 5055 or sometimes called the Sunflower Galaxy. It is a spiral galaxy in the northern constellation of Canes Venatici (south of the handle of the Big Dipper's handle) with approximately 400 billion stars!

I imaged it last night (April 1st, no foolin' !) taking 30 - 4 minute exposures for a total time of 2 hours of integration. I used a Meade LX200GPS 8" telescope with a .65 focal reducer, an ultra high contrast filter and a modded Canon T3i camera.

Notice the dark dust lanes the block a lot of the light from the lower part of the galaxy. The pink areas are regions of star formation.

So what does it look like when one only takes ONE image, instead of stacking 2 hours worth of 4 minute exposures?