M16 - The Eagle Nebula

I took this image of the Eagle Nebula several nights ago. I am afraid I have not been very active as far as imaging goes... other tasks have taken priority. This was a quickie, done with 6 ten minute images shot with my big 9" telescope at F6.3. I used my trusty old Canon 300D DSLR set at ISO 800.

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.

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.

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.

Eskimo Nebula in LCMY color

I shot this image of the Eskimo Nebula with a full moon out. It was sort of a "target of chance", since I was actually hunting for Comet Lulin, but could not find it in the glow of the moon. This nebula is so named because it resembles a little eskimo face at high magnification. My image is sort of small, being shot with a focal reducer, but I did bring out a bit of color. Something on my imaging set-up was dragging, though, causing a small swing in my guider. The stars are not completely perfect.

Scope: Celestron C6-S
Mount: LXD-75
CCD: SBIG ST7 w/Atik filter wheel
Filters: Edmund CMY Dichroic
Focal Ratio: F6.3
L: 6 @ 60 seconds
C/M/Y: 6 @ 60 seconds binned 2x2

First Images From New Camera

This image of M1 "The Crab Nebula" was shot with my new SBIG ST7 CCD camera. I recently sold my largest scope to buy this and enter the world of self-guided CCD's. However, I still haven't gotten all the guide bugs worked out, and for the time being, I am still guiding with a separate camera - my DSI Pro.

This camera works a little different I am figuring out. Most of my other camera's like a lot of stacked medium to short exposures to keep the noise level low. This camera seems to do best with a few stacked long exposures, the longer the better.

Anyway, this image is the result of median stacking 7 three minute images.

More Fun with the New Scope

It is really cold up here in the mountains, like about 14 degrees, so I tried to do a quick imaging session. I am still working the bugs out of my new C6 sct scope, so I picked a few easy targets. I picked M27, because it makes a good target to judge against other scopes, and the galaxy NGC 253, basically because it was there and I was freezing. Both of these shots are done with my Orion DSCI 1 and were guided with my ST80. The guiding was not perfect, because numb fingers don't like to play with guider settings.

The M27 image is about 1 hour worth of composite images. The NGC 253 Image is about 15 minutes worth.
NGC 253 is an interesting object. It is called the "Silver Coin Galaxy" because it looks like a coin on it's side. It is quite large and bright, and can be spotted in binoculars, or if you are really good, youe naked eyeballs. It is found low on the southern sky this time of year. It is amazing that Charles Messier did not discover it back in the 1700-1800's. It is really hard to miss. It was actually discovered much later, around the turn of the century if I remember correctly.