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.

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.