Vern’s Weblog

NGC 7635, the Bubble Nebula, in the constellation Cassiopeia is a bubble of gas that has been pushed outward from star BD+60 2522 (the bright star towards the north, ie top, of the bubble).  The gas is ionized by the starlight and gives off a glow which may be seen in a large scope, though it is quite faint.

Celestron Nexstar11, Meade F3.3 focal reducer, and Astrovid Stellacam II was used to take the image from Louisville, CO on Sept 5, 2006 around 04:38 UT. Temperature was 57°F, 72% humidity, sky was clear, transparency was very good, and turbulence about 6/10, bright moonlight.  Stellacam II set at 9/14 gain, integrate 128 frames (4 sec exposure), medium gamma. The 15 minutes of video was dark subtracted and  aligned with Registrax3, enhanced with ImagePlus, and cropped with Photoshop Elements2.

NGC 891 in the constellation Andromeda is thought to be very similar to our own Milky Way galaxy. It appears as a long thin needle as our view of it is edge on. Dust lanes appear to bisect the disk through its entire length. 

Celestron Nexstar11, Meade F3.3 focal reducer, and Astrovid Stellacam II was used to take the image from Louisville, CO on Sept 3, 2006 around 05:34 UT. Temperature was 42°F, 77% humidity, sky was clear, transparency was good, and turbulence about 5/10.

About a degree north and west of the brightest star in Pegasus, Markab, is a nice galaxy triplet of NGC 7463, 7464, and 7465. NGC 7465 appears to be the brightest of the three and has a bright central core.

Celestron Nexstar11, Meade F3.3 focal reducer, and Astrovid Stellacam II was used to take the image from Louisville, CO on Sept 3, 2006 around 05:57 UT (just before midnight Sept 2). Temperature was 42°F, 77% humidity, sky was clear, transparency was good, and turbulence about 5/10.

Messier 27 (NGC 6853) in the constellation Vulpecula is a show piece object that always is worth the visit on summer and fall evenings. It is relative bright so it makes a great target for astrophotographers as well. Below is my best effort to date, though I think I missed focus just a tad. I had lots of problems taking these. I took 30 images and only came up with about 16 that were usable. Set screws in the T-ring were probably loose as tracking and north alignment were quite good.

Image taken with Celestron Nexstar11 telescope, Meade F6.3 focal reducer, and Canon 300D Rebel at cassegrain focus. Camera was set at ASA 400 with 3 minute exposures. Manually tracked with A1010 telescope, Televue 2.5X Powermate, and Stellcam2 video camera. Temperature was 64 to 58°F, 40% humidity, mostly clear sky, absolutely no wind, and turbulence varied between 6 and 5/10.

I created some wallpaper size images as well 1600×1200, 1280×1024, and 1024×768.

 I decided to revist M16, the Eagle Nebula, in constellation Serpens last evening.  We haven’t had any clear sky here in the Denver area for some time now, so it was nice to do some imaging for a change.  Image was taken with Canon 300D Rebel with 2 minute exposure at ASA 400.  That was not near enough time for this object, the bird just barely shows up in the raw images.  I’ll need to use 3 or maybe even 4 minute exposure next time. My previous effort with the Stellacam2 was better. The image was created from a stack of 10 images, I’ll need to increase that to maybe 20 next time to reduce the noise.

Image taken with Celestron Nexstar11, F6.3 focal reducer, and Canon 300D camera.  Manually guided with Stellarvue A1010, TV 2.5X Powermate, and Stellacam2 video camera. Sky was clear, turbulence around 6/10, wind between 3 to 5 mph, temperature 64°F, humidity 80-86%, transparency was generally good.