NGC 7217 - An Unusual Spiral

This is NGC 7217, a rather strange spiral galaxy located near NGC 7331. It has a dusty yellow core surrounded by compact blue-ish arms. They don't really look like arms though, and are really more like a ring. These rings are filled with young, blue stars. This image is nearly 2 hours worth of imaging. It is 20 ten minute images shot through the C9.25 at F5. I did it with the old Starshoot DSCI CCD.

Crab Nebula - with C 9.25 scope

I shot this picture of M1, the Crab Nebula last night. It has been really windy, so I have not had much chance to get out and image. I am also still adjusting the focus on this scope and finding a ccd set-up that works for me. This seems to be about the best, though it is an old camera; the Starshoot I.

This is about a dozen 8 minute images shot at F5'ish guided on my LXD75 with a separate guidescope. Focus was slightly off, but a good deconvolution corrected it.

Stephan's Quintet

Here is another C9.25 image shot under VERY windy conditions. I am shocked it actually came out. The seeing conditions were also atrocious, with the stars furiously twinkling.

This is a stack of 6 ten minute images shot with the old Orion Starshoot at F6.3

This is a colliding galaxy cluster, with a slightly controversial nature. All of the galaxies have a similar red-shift except for one. This one seems to be interacting with the others, and seems to be part of the same group, but the red-shift says it is not. The astronomy world is divided as to whether this disproves the use of red shifts as a measure for distance. This cluster is also near to NGC 7331, and it shows signs of being connected to this group as well. This group also has a different red-shift, however.

Need to get some new targets...

Here is another small image of NGC 891. I did this with the C 9.25 but used the ST7. I shot this binned to save some imaging time, but the image did not hold up well when I drizzled it up in size. It is about 4 six minute images stacked, shot at F5 under VERY windy conditions.

I really like my ST7, but it is so heavy, especially with the filter wheel, that it causes drag on the scope when guiding. The cables are a real problem too. I think I will take it off for the time being.

M27 redone

I re-processed the M27 shot I did with the C9. I think it looks a lot better.

Spiral Galaxy NGC 6946

Here is a shot I did with the ST7 running through the new C9.25. I imaged this galaxy at F5 with a stack of 7 ten minute images.

NGC 6946 is noteworthy as being located near an open cluster. It is also known as the Firework's Galaxy. It is rather dim and can be found in the constellation Cepheus

The Pitfalls of AstroImaging...

Lots of things can go wrong. The most common are trailed stars, computer problems, and bad focus. This image of The Crescent Nebulas, has a lot of them. I started out the night with a computer problem, requiring about 4 re-boots. Then it was a problem with a guider trailing stars in the wrong direction. After I thought it was all squared away, I downloaded the night's images, and found the focus was slightly off.

Some nights you just can't win. Here is the result of this problem ridden imaging debacle. To this date, I have never taken a good image of the Crescent Nebula, NGC 6888.

This is a stack of 20 images at 8 minutes each through my C9.25.