Captured on Jun 28 and 29, 2014 from Lake Sonoma, CA and Blue Canyon, CA The first night, at Lake Sonoma, it was quite windy, with gusts exceeding 12 mph. Honestly I though the whole night would be a bust, but the AO saved the day (night!) and got me 23 out 26 salvageable frames. If the stars aren't as tight (or round) as can be, it's because of that. On the second night, at Blue Canyon, conditions were much better, but instead to get more luminance I decided to get some color data and finish this off. Unfortunately a software bug caused me to lose the guide star at about 3am, so I could only capture about 4 hours of data (it gets dark pretty late this time of the year!). Description from APOD: From left to right are edge-on spiral NGC 5981, elliptical galaxy NGC 5982, and face-on spiral NGC 5985 -- all within this single telescopic field of view spanning a little more than half the width of the full moon. While the group is far too small to be a galaxy cluster and has not been cataloged compact group, these galaxies all do lie roughly 100 million light-years from planet Earth. On close examination with spectrographs, the bright core of the striking face-on spiral NGC 5985 shows prominent emission in specific wavelengths of light, prompting astronomers to classify it as a Seyfert, a type of active galaxy. This is result of stacking the following sub-exposures: L: 23 x 10m R: 7 x 10m G: 6 x 10m B: 6 x 10m Total exposure time: 7 hours Main Camera: QSI 583 WSG Guide Camera: SXV Lodestar (on OAG) Mount: Astro-Physics Mach 1 Scope: Celestron Edge HD 8" (effective FL: 2170 mm) Adaptive Optics Unit: SXV-AO-LF Image Aquisition software MaximDL Calibrated with MaximDL Registed, Stacked and Post Processed with PixInsight 1.8
Acquired from Sierra Remote Observatories in Northern California in May 2014 Luminance: 19 x 900s R,G,B: 8 x 900s each Total exposure time: ~8.25 hours Main Camera: QSI 883 WSG Guide Camera: SXV Lodestar (on OAG) Mount: Paramount ME Scope: AT 10 RC f/8 Image Aquisition software MaximDL Registed, Calibrated and Stacked and Post Processed with PixInsight 1.8
Large galaxies and faint nebulae highlight this deep image of the M81 Group of galaxies. First and foremost is the grand design spiral galaxy M81, the largest galaxy visible in the image. M81 is gravitationally interacting with M82, a big galaxy with an unusual halo of filamentary red-glowing gas. Around the image many other galaxies from the M81 Group of galaxies can be seen. Together with other galaxy congregates including our Local Group of galaxies and the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, the M81 Group is part of the expansive Virgo Supercluster of Galaxies. This whole galaxy menagerie is seen through the faint glow of an Integrated Flux Nebula, a little studied complex of diffuse gas and dust clouds in our Milky Way Galaxy. [Description adapted from NASA APOD] Last Saturday, Jan 4, I finally got to do some astrophotography away from my backyard after almost three months. I set up at Lake Sonoma, CA and managed to squeeze in about 11 hours of imaging time. The image above is the result of stacking: 20 x 6m each (R,G,B) 28 x 10m L On the following night I set up in my light polluted backyard and acquired some Ha to punch up the star forming regions in M82 and the filaments in M81. I only added: 8 x 30m Ha Total Exposure Time: ~15 hours. Main Camera: QSI 583 WSG Guide Camera: SXV Lodestar (on OAG) Mount: Astro-Physics Mach 1 Scope: Explore Scientific 102 ED Effective focal length: 698 mm Image Aquisition software MaximDL Registed, Calibrated and Stacked in MaximDL Post Processed with PixInsight 1.8 and Photoshop CS6 (RA, Dec) center: (148.709186455, 69.2845326306) degrees Orientation: 0.72 deg E of N I can honestly say that I would have been happier exposing one more night. This was my first time processing M81/M82 looking to extract some IFN nebulosity, and (lots) more subs would have made the job much easier and less painful. It took me considerably more hours to process this image than to acquire it. Still, I think the noise that comes through is tolerable and I hope I haven't gone overboard - though I'm always open to constructive criticism.
