Astrophotography has been great the last few nights. I have been working on two objects that require a lot of exposure, one of them is close to being done and the other will take more time. While waiting for my preferred targets to rise high enough in the sky, I have been shooting a few new galaxies, ones that I’ve never imaged before. An added benefit to being out at night is watching the local wildlife, mostly Merriam’s Kangaroo Rats and a Kit Fox that I’ve been seeing in the area.
The Superman Galaxy, NGC 7479. About 105 million light years away in the constellation of Pegasus, the odd shape is thought to be due to a recent merger of two galaxies. I guess no explanation is needed for the name. NGC 891, this galaxy looks a lot like the Needle Galaxy that I have imaged before, but it is a different galaxy, located in Andromeda, about 30 million light years from Earth. Here is one of my faint, long exposure subjects, Hind’s Variable Nebula. I posted an image of this some time back, but now I have a lot more exposure on it. I really like this image, one can see the dark dust cloud being pulled into the star forming region that lights up the nebula. Located at the edge of the Taurus Molecular Cloud, Hind’s Variable Nebula is about 400 light years from Earth. M1, the Crab Nebula. I have done this before, this is the first time with C8 telescope and guiding. Last winter, before I started autoguiding, I had to throw out half of my subs before stacking. Last night, I only lost 2 out of 50 subs. I will probably take more tonight, if I can stay up long enough.
