Here is the “Little Dumbbell” Nebula, otherwise known as Messier 76, NGC 650/651, the Barbell Nebula, or the Cork Nebula. It is a planetary nebula in the constellation Perseus. I had never imaged it before, so now I finally got something on it.
Two globular clusters in Aquila and a very tiny comet are visible in this image. I only wanted to check the size of Comet Jaques on this night, since I missed imaging it when it was at it’s best. I regret that I did not get a chance to shoot it back then, but at least I finally got to see it.
Here’s one you don’t see too often. A large spiral galaxy that happens to be dimmed by dust in our galaxy. If it were not for that dimming, this object would be one of the brighter DSO’s in the sky. It is still the 3rd largest galaxy visible to us, behind M33 and M31, the Andromeda Galaxy.
The Gamma Cass area with the, “Ghost Nebula” (IC63) was an appropriate target for this time of year with Halloween just around the corner. This was actually just a test run for how well ISO 6400 would work with 80-100 sub-images. Click the image for an enlargement or click here to see the full size version.
The obligatory Helix Nebula photo for 2014. This was taken in the early evening hours of October 24th, 2014.
This is in Cygnus and is the middle star of the Cygnus cross, Sadr. I love this area and it has so much nebulosity. I really need to devote more time to it, as this is only a taste, it seems.
Update October 20, 2014: The above image is an update with more time added. Compare it to the image below which was made with only 20 minutes of data shot at ISO 6400 (20×60 sec sub-images.) I took an additional 30 minutes of 3 minute sub-images at ISO 1600 and added it in, so the combined total is 50 minutes.
Well, the big comet encounter of the year took place tonight, Oct 19, 2014 and Mars and Comet Siding Spring (C/2013 A1) both survived. LoL. Seriously, it was a very close encounter if you had darkness when it was closest. Here in southern Louisiana, it took place during daylight, so I had to catch it after closest approach as C/2013 A1 was bidding Mars farewell.
I had a strange night with some issues, but I managed to get some decent data and also lucked out with some good weather for this event. This image is from the first set of images I took and it is a composite of comet-only processed and star background processed image stacks. The comet moved a good distance in the twenty-five minutes it took to get the sub-frames, so I had to isolate it with different alignment and stacking techniques than I use for normal deep-sky images.
Here’s another ISO 6400 test image and I think it came out pretty well. Temps were only in the mid to low 60’s, so noise was an issue. However, the test reveals that with enough sub-images, the noise can be smoothed out. I did notice that there was a remnant pattern noise that I see when guiding was off and tracking in a certain direction. Dithering during guiding would help for that, but I did not set that option during my imaging session. For sure I’ll try that next time.
Well, I finally managed to catch that small comet that is about to side-swipe Mars. It was a last minute effort and I caught the comet late and a little too close to the horizon. It was so low, that I had to throw out the last six sub-images because they were way too red. At that point, the comet was only 2 degrees above the horizon. That’s probably the lowest angle I ever tried to image something.
The actual close approach to Mars will occur on October 19th, 2014. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to shoot it again at that time. It’s a little runt comet, but at least it is newsworthy. lol 😀
For this image, I had to travel a few miles from home to find a western horizon free of obstructions, since from my backyard it is impossible to see. I ended up staying there most of the night since the sky was so nice.
A mosaic of the Crescent Nebula area. Exposures from 4 different years were used. The base image was acquired on Nov 2, 2013 and was 40x60sec ISO 6400. I imaged it again on October 17, 2014 with 77 images and added that into the mix. Two nights of imaging in Nov 2010 of 9×720″ ISO400, 11×480″ ISO800 sub-images were also added in (for a total of 5.21 hours integration time.) Finally, data from an image of just the Crescent Nebula itself, taken with my SN-8 telescope was used and it was made with 57×180″ ISO 1600 sub-images taken on Oct 1, 2007.
I used RegiStar to manipulate the data. The beauty of software like RegiStar is that it can combine data taken years apart. In this case, over 7 years. I was able to take the nebulosity caught with a high ISO stack of sub-images, but with a noisy background and combine it with stacks of subs taken at lower ISO values which had a much smoother background. The stacked mosaic-like result let me bring out more of the dim nebulosity that pervades the Crescent Nebula area and keep the noise at bay, somewhat. A little more detail in the Crescent itself was enhanced with data from my larger, 8″ scope.
I present a regular version and an enhanced, lighter version that was generated from the data in the first image with Starizona’s Levelizer plug-in for PS.