NGC 936 - A source of some controversy...

OK, here is an interesting one, at least in an astrophysics sense. NGC 936, the big ugly blob with a bar through it, is a very unusual spiral galaxy with an active radio source in it's nucleus. It is surrounded by no less than four Quasars, and a whole host of smaller objects. The controversy lies in the fact that according to the standard model of astrophysics, these objects should not be influencing each other. Quasars should be well in the very distant reaches of deep space, out near the big bang someplace.

As the notorious Halton Arp points out this galaxy appears to have EJECTED a quasar, and it shows physical signs of still being connected. Supporters of the Plasma Universe theory, and others like it use this galaxy as a test case. It is all very odd, and points to the fact that one or all of these theories is not correct, and the universe still is not truly understood by man.

Note: I do not really subscribe to any one theory over the others, as I am not a Cosmologist, but I do love controversy. Nothing like a good fight to stir things up. That and the fact that this galaxy is basically an ugly blob no matter how you take it's picture, so it needs an interesting back-story.

NGC 925 - Barred Spiral

This is NGC 925, a very coarse looking barred spiral. This galaxy's arms are pretty faint, but the bar is easy to see in a six inch scope. At least I could see it very well.

This is 14 thirteen minute images median stacked, shot with the ST7 and the C6 sct with the standard .63 focal reducer.

Veil Nebula

I shot this about a year ago, but never did a very good processing job, until now. I re-did this one night when I was totally bored. It was shot with my 100mm achro refractor and my DSLR, but I don't remember the stats.

NGC 772 - an unusual spiral

Here is one not usually seen. This one really needs some color, as it is quite colorful in RGB. This galaxy is named NGC 772, and is an off-kilter spiral. It is interacting with a whole host of small ellipticals and dwarf galaxies surrounding it. There are a lot of background galaxies in this image too, if you look real hard.

10 thirteen minute images with the 6" sct and ST7 ccd. Shot with a .63 reducer and guided on my LXD75.

Obligatory Crab Image...

Here is my obligatory Crab Nebula image for the end of 2009. It was up, so I shot it. Again. No color this time. Same stats as the others, but 6 thirteen minute images with the C6 sct.

NGC 891 - Looking Good!

Lately my CCD has been doing so well, and the sky has been cooperating in such a manner I haven't wanted to touch anything, lest I fudge it up. So I have just been shooting monochrome images. I hope you guys like BW images.

Here is NGC 891, off center a little, but not too bad. It is about a dozen 13 minute images binned 1x1, shot with my trusty little c6 using an ST7 and .63 reducer.

I will add it to the growing list of Luminance images needing color data.

Does anybody else do this? Things get on a roll and working great, and I don't really want to mess with it too much so I just go with the mono because I can get more imaging time in.

Also, after about a year of ownership, I have found the little C6 sct to be one heck of a sleeper scope for imaging. It pairs up almost perfectly with my ST7.

A New M74 for 2009

I re-shot M74 to see if I could improve upon last years image. Here is 8 thirteen minute images stacked. All shot with the ST7 using the C6 and .63 reducer, with simple UV/IR filtration.

I seem to have picked up some fainter details but got more overall noise.

Back on Track - Here's M77...

After a break of several weeks of snow, I have finally gotten a chance to image again. My C6 seems to work the best with my ST7, so I mounted it up and aimed it at Messier 77, a fairly bright Seyfert galaxy with a very violent nucleus. It has a very faint, S-shaped spiral halo around the main center portion. I have brightened the contrast in this image to bring it out. You can faintly see it amongst the skyglow, along with a lot of very tiny, fuzzy galaxies (If you look hard!).

This image is eight 13 minute shots stacked Sigma Clipped, all taken with the ST7 using a .63 reducer. The scope was my C6 sct.