Galaxies Globular clusters Open clusters doubles, variables, comets, spaceships, etc
12-16-03 about 9:30pm
M1 (NGC1952), The Crab Nebula, about 6,300 light years from earth. A supernova in 1054 A.D. created the nebula. The supernova was visible during the daylight for 23 days and during the night for almost two years. Now it is at visual magnitude 8.4, 6 x 4 arc minutes. At f/6.3 10 seconds, max gain, nearly max contrast, very high brightness, through Orion's Skyglow filter, dark frame subtracted. 67 frames stacked out of 100 shot. Spotlights from the Las Vegas strip cross the field of view and wipe out those frames. First use of FitsX background tool. Don't know what I'm doing, but it looks good to me.
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M42 (NGC1976) and M43, about 1,600 light years from earth. Visual magnitude 4.0, 85 x 60 arc minutes. At f/3.3, unknown exposure, levels adjusted in Photoshop. No dark frame needed.
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9-13-03 about 9:00pm
M57, the Ring Nebula in Lyra, about 2,300 light years from earth, visual magnitude 8.8, 1.4 x 1.0 arcminutes.
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9-13-03 about 3:00am
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9-12-03 about 3:00am
My first attempt at tricolor dso. Not good, but it's a first. Looking forward to the filter wheel. That should help solve the rotation problem. (R=2sec, G=5sec, B=?)
Added a 200ms luminence channel at 20% opacity.
Added a short exposure for the Trapezium, tweaked saturation and intensity in Photoshop.. Gausian blur to try to reduce verticle banding, but it is still obvious. I think a setting in AstroVideo may help reduce the effect.
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9-7-03 about 3:00am
My first DSO!
The core of M42. This is about a 5 second exposure. It's about 1,500 light years from here. It's visible with the naked eye as the middle "star" in Orion's sword.
I set this for 100ms. The trapezium is more defined. Have to shoot with long exposure disabled to get a clear view. A composite with different exposure settings to bring out different detail is in order. A mosaic to show the whole system. And tricolor. Or maybe not.