NGC 3184 - Dusty Spiral in Leo Minor

 

OK, not the best image ever... I had to contend with glare from a nearby star out of frame, and a frozen up ccd chip. Could have got more detail, but had to process those other problems out.

Stats are on the picture.

NGC 2903 - Dusty Barred Spiral

 

NGC 2903 is one of the brighter galaxies found in the late Winter/ early Spring and heralds the arrival of galaxy hunting season. It is a dusty spiral with a prominent bar. You can see it prominently in a scope 4" in diameter and up. 

This is a composite of 13 thirteen minute images shot with my ST7 using a .63 reducer on my 6" schmidt-cassegrain.

NGC 2683 Close up

Here is NGC 2683 as seen through my C9. It is a fairly bright and dusty edge on spiral, which is also a known Seyfert Galaxy. Seyfert Galaxies have an active nucleus, and emit large amounts of radio waves. It is suspected that they harbor massive Black Holes in their core. The image has some drift and the stars have trailed a little mostly due to gusty wind.

The little dash shaped star on the bottom limb is actually two stars very close together. The seeing wasn't good enough to split them.

This is a composite of 11 five minute images shot at F5 or so through my C 9.25. I did it with my old StarShoot I CCD.

Signs of Spring...

The rise of the Leo constellation tells us that Spring is on the way. With this in mind, I braved subzero temperatures and got this shot of spiral galaxy M66, part of the "Leo Trio" of large, bright galaxies grouped close together. M66 is a dusty galaxy made of mostly of older stars. It normally has a yellowish tint, but my image does not really show it well.

This image is made of seven stacked 5 minute pics shot through the C9.25 using the StarShoot I CCD. All shot at approximately F5 'ish.

Nearly 4 hours of NGC 2841

I took this last night. I sort of overcooked the bright star on the lower left. It is the spiral galaxy known as NGC 2841, mostly known for being very pretty and producing a few supernovas over the last few decades.

It is 18 thirteen minute images shot through my 6" sct at F6.3 using my ST7.

No color channels yet.

The Horsehead

I do not do Nebulas often. I mainly stick with somewhat obscure galaxies. Anyway, I decided to take a break from the ordinary. Here is IC 434, or the Horsehead Nebula as it is most commonly known. A large, dark cloud of gas and dust near Orion's Belt. It takes a very dark night and a scope around 8 to 10 inches in diameter to see it with your eyes, and even then a special Hydrogen Beta filter is normally needed.

This image was taken with my 6 inch sct and my ST7 ccd camera. It is 7 thirteen minute images shot with a .63 reducer in place.

NGC 7814 - Edge on Spiral

Here is an uncommonly seen edge on spiral, NGC 7814. It is a flattened disk of stars seen exactly along the edge. Our galaxy would look like this if viewed at this angle. Some of those faint fuzzies surrounding the galaxy are globular clusters.

It is 9 thirteen minute images shot at F6.3 with my 6" inch sct.