Latest Photographs

M27, the Dumbbell

2010-05-14T18:19:00.001+01:00

M57 the Ring nebula - 100426

2010-04-29T23:50:00.002+01:00

NGC 6543 - Cat's Eye nebula - 100417

2010-04-19T15:19:00.002+01:00

Taken from Austerfield using a Vixen VMC260L and an H9C camera.

NGC 2392 - the Eskimo nebula

2010-04-10T20:51:00.000+01:00

Like most planetaries, quite small and greenish. Taken, unguided, with the M25C on a Vixen VMC260L mounted on a 900GTO mount.

M 51 - 100408

2010-04-10T20:31:00.000+01:00

M51, the Whirlpool, high in the sky in Canes Venatici, below the handle of the Plough. Taken with my M25C and a Vixen VMC260L, unguided on an AP 900GTO mount.

M3 - 100322

2010-04-02T12:51:00.000+01:00

Taken with the William 98 and M25C on the new AP 900GTPO mount. Guided by an H9C in the Vixen 260L. This is the first guided try with the new mount and all seems to be working well. The exposure was 7x120sec, which isn't much but the night wasn't good enough to be worth more between clouds. Pre-processed and averaged in AstroArt and finally in Photoshop.

NGC 1647 - 091206

2010-01-16T21:51:00.000Z

A pretty cluster in Taurus, blue stars make it stand out more easily from the background ones, though it's lacking in numbers.
At mag 6.4 and spanning 40 arc" it's quite large. I'm guessing that the orange stars in the field aren't part of the cluster, though they might be early developers.
The picture was taken from Austerfield with an SX M25C and William FLT98 riding on and guided by an SX H9C in a Meade 14".
It was recorded with AstroArt4 and processed in AA4 and Photoshop CS2. I usually use 120sec frames for clusters and this has 12 of them median stacked. No flats or darks were used.

M 46 - 091126

2010-01-12T19:07:00.000Z

M46 the large Open Cluster lower left, smallish blue stars, you can't miss that.
M47 the large Open Cluster centre right, brighter blue stars, more sparse.
NGC2423 the large less distinct white Open Cluster top right.
NGC2425 the small tight Open Cluster with small orange stars, bottom centre.
PLN 231+ 4.2 the bright Planetary Nebula at the top of M46, blue-ish with a red left edge. Known as the Calabash or Rotten Egg nebula, by some anyway.
It was taken on the 26.11.09. I didn't focus as well as I should have. I used the FLT98 and M25C for 15 frames of 120sec. No flats or darks were used. Guiding was reasonable.

NGC 7789 - 091116

2010-01-12T19:05:00.000Z

A nice full cluster in Cassiopeia, taken on the 16th of November 09, under a clear sky, with the FLT98 and M25C, sat on the Meade 14", guided by an H9C, balanced in a different way to ease the loads when guiding. I could have focused more effectively, but time was pressing for other things. The exposure was a goodly 26x120sec. Acquired and processed in AstroArt4 and Photoshop7, with very little need for fiddling as there usually is if the exposure in minimal.

M 39 - 091109

2010-01-12T19:03:00.000Z

Taken on the 9th of November 09 on a cloudless night at 6pm, with the 80ED and WO AFR4. I'd modified the balance system on the big Meade and that seems to have eased the guiding problems I'd been having. Fog was already rolling in across the road as I entered the village.
I used 20x120sec subs to try to retain star colours. AstroArt4 was used to acquire and preprocess the frames and only flats were used to calibrate. Processing finished off in Photoshop CS2 with Noel's Actions to help smooth the background.
If you look towards the top left, you should be able to pick out the small redish planetary nebula PLN 93- 2.1.

M 31 - 091011

2010-01-12T18:56:00.000Z

Taken on the 11th of October 09, on a reasonably good night. The target was at the top of the sky but I couldn't see the Milky Way, so there was some haze to make things difficult.

Using the FLT98 and M25C I was able to get 14 frames of 600sec, the aim was to stack them by sigma combine and still get some depth. I'd tried adding 5 min frames in pairs to get a series of 10 min frames but it didn't seem to work well so this was done with 10 min frames. Guiding was done with an H9C, nice wide field to choose stars to guide by, using two instances of AA4. Processed in AA4 and Photoshop7.