Vern’s Weblog

I decided to try taking some images of Messier 51 with the Canon 300D last evening despite partly cloudy skies and a crescent moon. Transparency was generally good though there were occasional thin clouds, temperature 45°F, turbulence 6/10. Equipment used as Celestron Nexstar11, Celestron F6.2 focal reducer, and Canon 300D. I handguided for around 40 minutes to obtain 16, 2 minute exposurers at ASA 400. ImagePlus software was used to dark subtract, flat field correct, stack, and align the best 8 of 16 images.

Wider field versions are available 1600×1200, 1280×1024, 1024×768, and 800×600.

Messier 51 (NGC 5194), the whirlpool galaxy in Canes Venatici is thought to be quite similar to our own Milky Way galaxy in mass, size, and luminosity. M51 is an excellent example of a face-on spiral that can be seen in a small telescope (8″) under a dark sky. It is believed to be interacting gravitationally with is neighbor to the north, NGC 5195.

The sky cleared last night for a while and I was able to image a couple galaxies. Conditions were not great, occasional high thin clouds, only fair turbulence (5/10), and fair transparency as well. Temperature was a comfortable 48 °F and there was no wind.

First was the sun flower galaxy, Messier 63 (NGC 5055) in the constellation Canis Venatici. Its spiral arms are all short arcs rather than long, well defined spiral arms. M63 has a bright nucleus inside a mottled oval core.

The black eye galaxy, Messier 64 (NGC 4826), in constellation Coma Berenices is an amazing object. It has a large bright central core with a conspicuous dark patch adjacent a bright ring in the north east. William Hershel noted the “black eye” appearance way back in 1785.

Equipment used was a Celestron Nexstar11 mounted on an APT wedge, Meade F3.3 focal reducer, and Astrovid Stellacam2 video camera. Images were dark subtracted, flat field corrected, and stacked with Registax3. Approximately 30 minutes of 8.5 second exposures.

Next I took some images of NGC 4565 in Coma Berenices. NGC 4565 is a beautiful, large, and bright edge on galaxy approximately 35 million light years from earth. Same conditions and equipment above. Both images from a 20 minutes of video taken with 8.5 second integration, gain 7.5/14, dark substracted and aligned with Registax3.

 

 

 

 

 

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