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.

Project: M106

I am waiting for the weather to clear so I can shoot some color for this galaxy. This is M106, near Ursa Major. It is a large and very violent spiral galaxy said to harbor a Black Hole in the core.

Shame I cut off the small galaxy next to it. I will have to redo the image, I guess.

Scope: Celestron C6S w/ .63 reducer
Mount LXD75
CCD: ST7
Filters: UV/IR block
L: 15 thirteen minute images

Messier 108

I shot this Luminance Image of M108 two nights ago. I need to shoot some color for it. M108 is a spiral galaxy seen along its edge.

Telescope: Celestron C6S
F 6.3
SBIG ST7 CCD / UV-IR filter
12 thirteen minute images.

NGC 2336 - The Most Northern Galaxy

This galaxy, NGC 2336, is the closest to Polaris of all known galaxies. Because of this, it is relatively little known or photographed. It's proximity to the celestial pole makes it a tough target. Those who attempt it are rewarded with a spectacular and very faint barred spiral.


Scope: Celestron 6" SCT

Reducer: .63

CCD: SBIG ST7

Subs: 11

Duration: 13 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours 38 minutes

Mount: LXD 75

No Filter

More of Ursa Major... NGC 2403

I thought I would go ahead and image some other objects in Ursa Major, since my scope is set-up for this region right now, and I will have to re-balance everything to move someplace else. This galaxy is known as NGC 2403. It is very large and can be seen in a 4" scope very easily. It is near M81/82. This object is big enough and bright enough that Charles Messier should have caught it in his first catalogue survey, but did not. I underestimated it's size a little, and it is not centered well on the chip. I had to crop it to keep it even. It is a composite of 13 ten minute images with the ST7 ccd, all shot through the C6 sct at F6.3.

Not really a very interesting galaxy, it sort of looks like a big blur. It has a similar appearance to M33, the Triangulum Galaxy, but is pretty asymmetrical.

M77 with the 6 inch scope

Here is an image of Messier 77, a strange galaxy with an Active Galactic Nucleus. It is basically considered my most astronomers to be a sort of mini-quasar. It is suspected that it's nucleus contains a very large and active black hole.

I took this image with my Orion DSCI. It is a composite of 17 two minute images, shot guided through my 6" sct at F6.3.

Another Look at the Deer Lick

I took another image of NGC 7331, the Deer Lick Galaxy. I used my Canon DSLR and the little 6" sct. It could use some more integration time, but I got the main part of it. This image was shot guided, and is a composite of about 8 five minute integrations at ISO 1600.

There seems to be some vignetting in the small image that does not show so bad in the full sized image. The SC6 seems to be a bit harder to image with using a DSLR than I care for. I may not use it much for this anymore. Vignetting and spherical errors seem to be the main issues.