Six hours of NGC-772

I spent last night making adjustments to my guidance system, with the imaging session running late into the night. I ran out of good targets to image for the time available, and decided to go back to a galaxy I have imaged twice in the past. This makes at least 3 years worth of two hour images to stack of this particular galaxy. At this level of detail, you can plainly begin to see the halo of small galaxies surrounding the lopsided NGC-772. Also visible is the distorted spiral arm which has been torn apart by tidal forces.

I hope to get some color to add later.

Three Hours not Enough...

One would think 3 hours of 13 minute exposures would bring out a lot of detail, but I guess this galaxy is just too faint. This is NGC 3344, a relatively obscure spiral galaxy that is surrounded by a faint ring of stars. However, the faint ring is too faint, and did not show up in my image. Nor did a lot of other detail either. This was a disappointment. I will have to add another 3 hours some other night.

The stars came out nice and round though, no guiding errors here.

Shot with the SBIG ST7 and the Celestron C6S.

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.

More Images From the new Scope...

Here are a few images I shot with the new C 9.25, they are not the greatest in the world, but it is slowly coming together. The stars are sort of funky due to stacking errors and a stiff breeze.

All images shot with my older Orion Starshoot imager. I believe both sets are stacks of 10 images shot at 6 minutes each with the C9 running at F5.

The top galaxy is NGC 891 and the bottom is NGC 7331; both are easy targets this time of year.