I just had to visit my old friend, NGC 253, just to see how it was doing.  A bright moon and only a short window of possible imaging time did not let me get much data, but at least I got to see it again.

An appropriately named object was chosen as an early evening test target on Halloween night, 2014.   Mirach is Beta Andromedae and it is a jump off point for finding M31 and M33.  Mirach’s Ghost is that small object very near Mirach that looks almost like a reflection glint of the bright star itself.   Nope, it is actually NGC 404, a small elliptical galaxy that just happens to lie in the same line of sight.

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.

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.

Recently, I purchased a new monitor (a Dell 22″ LCD) and needed a good background image for it.   My M31 data from 2011 had some issues, so I re-worked it a little and rotated it to a landscape orientation instead of the portrait orientation that I had used before.  Now, it makes a great background image for that new monitor!  🙂

This is a test image with a GSO 8 inch Newtonian telescope and my Canon T3 DSLR.   16×180 sec @ ISO 3200.

Here’s an M33 that I acquired 57×180 sec ISO 1600 sub-images of data for on Nov 9th, 2012. I used a GSO 8″ F/4 newt with an MPCC that I’ve been toying with lately. Its got that funky spikes thing going on with the 3 vane spider. But, it was sitting around for 5 yrs gathering dust, so I thought I’d put it to use.

I cheated a little for this image since I mixed in a little color from a data set taken with a TV-85 last year that was pretty good. Used Registar. It works miracles when mixing different data sets. Glad I have it.

Here’s a famous edge-on galaxy that I like to shoot from time to time.   This particular rendition was created with the help of a Meade Schmidt-Newtonian with a 6″ mirror.  Exposure: 50×180 sec @ ISO 1600, modified Canon T3.

The Great Andromeda Galaxy.  Visible to the naked eye and its also the closest large galaxy to our own Milky Way Galaxy.    A small asteroid was cruising through the area when this data was obtained.  TV-85 at F/5.6, Canon 350 XT (modified,) 68×240″ ISO1600.