The full moon is coming back strong now but I had some good nights over the last few weeks. I’ve been thinking about what I can do to improve my astrophotography and I think my best bet is a dedicated astro camera. I’ve been using an old Canon 7D MII that was modified for H-alpha. The images are always pretty noisy though and hard to process. So, maybe in the near future there will be change.
The Fiddlehead Galaxy, I started this last winter and just added several more hours. This is called the Little Dumbbell Nebula, also designated M76. It is only about 3 arc minutes in diameter. I tried this once with the 500 f4 but it was too small to be much good. This is a planetary nebula, one of Charles Messier’s “not a comet” nebulas. It is actually quite bright, just small in view. It can be seen in Perseus; it is about 2200 light years away and a little over one light year in diameter. NGC 654, an open star cluster in Cassiopeia. It is large enough and bright enough that it can be seen as a faint glow with binoculars. The brightest star is HIP 8106, a magnitude 7.3 star, not visible to the unaided eye.NGC 891, an edge-on galaxy in Andromeda, about 30 million light years out there. It looks a lot like the Needle Galaxy, but it is much smaller in view. I started this one last winter too, and just added more exposure.The Northern Trifid, located in Perseus. It is part of the huge California Molecular Cloud and very faint, a combination of dust, emission nebula and reflection nebula. And one butterfly photo, a Ceraunus Blue nectaring on Chuckwalla Delight.
One reply on “Some Astro”
Good photos. I like the little dumbbell nebula, very co!orful.
I wondered what the connection was with chuckwalla’s delight and the lizard, and found this on the Desert Mountain community: Chuckwallas are known to relish Sweetbush.
I learn something new every day.
One reply on “Some Astro”
Good photos. I like the little dumbbell nebula, very co!orful.
I wondered what the connection was with chuckwalla’s delight and the lizard, and found this on the Desert Mountain community: Chuckwallas are known to relish Sweetbush.
I learn something new every day.