Sunday, November 9, 2014

October saw some great clear skies - part 2, the nebula edition

This edition is very nebula heavy.  Nebula are interesting in their aesthetics and beauty but are foreboding, inhospitable places.  In sharp contrast I love galaxies, they're tiny, life bearing universes unto themselves.  They are like turning up a rock and finding varied things of all kinds, rocks, bugs, worms.  Each galaxy too is unique, but i get ahead of myself thats post 3 of my wonderful start to fall deep sky observing!  Also be sure to check out part 1

IC 1848 the Soul Nebula

I had previously shot this area last year   One major difference that jumps out is the B&W vs false color from this year.  The color in all my newer nebula shots is false, created in photoshop where I turn the white areas of the nebula 'red' and the bright stars 'blue'.  The other things to notice are the duration of subs/total as well as the roundness resulting from better guiding, which is a combination of better guide cam and better overall polar alignment techniques.  Also the collimation was a bit better for this years attempt!


Second up is NCC 281 or the Pacman Nebula.

Here's a link to the 1920x1080 wallpaper edition!


Finally batting clean up for round 2 of my fall, clear and deep sky collection...

NGC 1499 the California Nebula.  I think this is the area around the San Francisco Bay area!  :)





Thanks for looking and be sure to check out all my Astronomy related images and follow me on Google Plus, Twitter or Facebook!

Saturday, November 1, 2014

October saw some great clear skies -- Part 1

This month was full of many clear days.  I took advantage


First up is NGC 100, which according to http://cseligman.com/text/atlas/ngc1.htm has "a mere apparent size of 6.2 by 0.6 arcmins." It is also described as "exceptionally elongated galaxy, with a very small nucleus in comparison to its overall size. Such galaxies are sometimes called "superthin" galaxies." Nearby is PGC 1509358 a 17.9th mag galaxy.

Also in the lower left is UGC00219 a bright 15.5mag at a distance of 240,700,000 LY



Come poke around the full 1:1 resolution here


Next up is NGC 7814, another edge on galaxy. The one sports a nice dust lane and in contrast to the above galaxy, NGC100, this galaxy, NGC 7814 is a spiral. It "is sometimes referred to as "the little sombrero", a miniature version of Messier 104." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_7814) Edge on galaxies are very fun and the reddish orange core might be slightly exaggerated in this photo unintentially as I had a color balance issue.






Here's a link to the full 1:1 resolution

In the high res photo, the most astounding thing I've found to date is SDSSJ000302.45 or PGC3377433 in another catalog. At mag 20+ this tiny galaxy has a measured recessional velocity of 115421 km/s in converted distance it's 5.3 BLY away!!! WHAT?!!

Between the galaxy NGC7814 and the three bright starts to its right is the faint galaxy in question. Here's a closer look.

Labeled

Unlabeled

Blink Animation





Finally up a a face on galaxy and part of the Messier catalog, M74.  It's two main spiral arms make it a Grand design spiral galaxy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_design_spiral_galaxy ).

Full res here!!!



My full album of all galaxy photos - https://plus.google.com/photos/+MichaelAPhillips/albums/5825355202588613809?banner=pwa

All deep sky photos are here - http://maphilli14.webs.com/mike-s-deep-sky-photos

All photos are taken with my custom 14" f/4.5 Newtonian ()


Blog Archive