I almost forgot about this. Several members of CAAS have already posted their shots of the Whirlpool Galaxy but here’s my first for the season. This was taken Thursday night at the River Ridge Observatory with my C11 at prime focus (2800mm) with an Optolong L-Pro light pollution filter. I used my ZWO ASI 294MC Pro one shot color, 30 2-minute images stacked with Deep Sky Stacker and then all subsequent processing with Photoshop.It needs more time for sure, maybe some with a filter to capture the H II regions but this turned out okay for the limited time spent on it.
I shot this Thursday night at the River Ridge Observatory with my C11 at prime focus, all 2800mm of focal length. It’s 30 two minute images combined. This is the Dumbbell Nebula (aka Apple Core Nebula or Messier 27) in the constellation of Vulpecula (the little fox). It is a planetary nebula, one of the brightest, which are the remains of the extended atmosphere of all but dead stars called white dwarfs. The radiation from the very hot white dwarf excites the molecules in this nebula and causes it to glow. It is not symmetric because we are seeing it from the side and either the top and bottom of the apple or the two “bites” taken out of it represent the rotational axis of the white dwarf. I’m not sure which.
Here are a couple images taken last Saturday night at the River Ridge Observatory. Both were taken with my 11″ SCT at f/1.9 and were made from 12 five minute subs. This configuration is not ideal for single galaxies, with a few exceptions, but okay for galaxy clusters.First we have the Leo Triplet which is well positioned in the evening sky after dark right now. The triplet is made up of spiral galaxies Messier 65 & 66 and NGC 3628 aka the Hamburger Galaxy.The next image is of Markarian’s Chain, a string of galaxies making up part of the vast Virgo Cluster (which contains 1300 or more galaxies). The two brightest galaxies on the left are Messier 84 & 86 while the other galaxies around them and extending to that relaxed J have NGC designations. There are many catalogs of objects in astronomy, perhaps the most famous is the Messier Catalog, another the Herschel Catalog both named after the astronomer who created them. The New General Catalog is close to 200 years old and might be the first organized catalog. It uses a 4 digit number that increases from the zero point over the prime meridian which runs through the UK. It was good to be the world empire at the time. Anyway, these are just a few galaxies to be seen in the Virgo Cluster.
