The Lobster Nebula is a diffuse Hydrogen Alpha (red light) nebula in the constellation of Scorpius. This was shot with my 11″ SCT at f/1.9 with an L-Extreme F2 filter and an ASI2600MC Pro. It was the last item on my list for the night and as such I only got 45 minutes of total exposure from the River Ridge Observatory. Even so, there’s enough to see how it got it’s nick name.
Here is M51, aka the Whirlpool Galaxy, in the constellation of Canes Venatici the Hunting Dogs although Ursa Major likes to claim it. Shot on Saturday the 21st with my 11″ SCT at f/6.3 and an ASI2600MC Pro with an Antlia Triband Ultra RGB filter. Sixty two-minute exposures.
The last object of Saturday night/Sunday morning was Messier 15, the Great Pegasus Star Cluster. This was shot with my C11 at f/6.3 for 90 minutes.
Per Wikipedia: M 15 is about 35,700 light-years from Earth, and 175 light-years in diameter. It has an absolute magnitude of −9.2, which translates to a total luminosity of 360,000 times that of the Sun. Messier 15 is one of the most densely packed globulars known in the Milky Way galaxy. Its core has undergone a contraction known as “core collapse” and it has a central density cusp with an enormous number of stars surrounding what may be a central black hole.
