M 51

The Whirlpool Galaxy is a grand-design spiral galaxy in Canes Venatici.The companion galaxy NGC 5195 and the Whirlpool were unequivocally shown to be interacting only with the advent of radio astronomy.
20x300s L,6x300s each for R,G and B unbinned images were taken with a Sx Trius 694 on a Takahashi 106 refractor acquired in Nebulosity, stacked with flats in AstroArt and modified in PhotoShop

M 31 revisited

For this image I combined a photograph of M31 taken with a modified Canon 600 DSLR with one taken more recently with a SX Trius mono camera, 12x300s iso400 for the Canon and 9x300s+5x60s uv filter with the SX.The telescope was a Takahashi 106 in each instance, images acquired in Nebulosity, stacked in AstroArt and modified in PhotoShop.
Combining images from two rather different cameras was made possible with Registar.Further adjustments were made in PhotoShop.

M81 and M82

Photograph by Max Freier and Wendy Christou

Rossington 25th March 2017

9 x 300 sec at ISO 800..100 mm APO telescope and Canon 600D Astromodified Camera

Low frame count just to test the repaired EQ45 Mount, and PHD....everything went well.

Messier 81 is the largest galaxy in the M81 Group, a group of 34 galaxies located in the constellation Ursa Major. At approximately 11.7 Mly (3.6 Mpc) from the Earth, it makes this group and the Local Group, containing the Milky Way, relative neighbours in the Virgo Supercluster.

Gravitational interactions of M81 with M82 and NGC 3077 have stripped hydrogen gas away from all three galaxies, forming gaseous filamentary structures in the group. Moreover, these interactions have allowed interstellar gas to fall into the centres of M82 and NGC 3077, leading to vigorous star formation or starburst activity there

M 106

M106 is an intermediate spiral galaxy with an unusual central glow making it one of the closest examples of the Seyfert class of galaxies, about 22 to 25 million light years away.Among other galaxies shown is the edge on spiral galaxy NGC 4217 upper right in the frame.
Exposures were 26x300s L,6x300s each for R,G,B binned x2 with a SX Trius 694 camera on a Takahashi 106 refractor, Frames were acquired,stacked,calibrated and modified using Nebulosity.AstroArt and PhotoShop.

NGC 4631 and NGC 4656

NGC 4631, the Whale and its smaller companion NGC 4627 in Canes Venatici  may have been involved in a close encounter with the distorted galaxy, the hockey stick shaped NGC 4656 in the past.

The camera used was a SX Trius 694 mono on a Takahashi 106 refractor. Exposures were 24x300sl,3x600s Ha unbinned, 4x300s binned x2 each for R ,G and B,using Nebulosity, AstroArt and PhotoShop for acquisition calibration and processing.

The Moon's South-east

This is the Moon's far south-south-east region.  The libration was quite favourable but the picture was taken two days after full moon, so the edge is the terminator and not the limb.  The libration zone is in darkness.

It is a mosaic of three frames taken using an Imaging Source DMK 21AF04 camera at prime focus of the EXT125.  Each frame was made from a 60-second video using multi-point alignment in RegiStax 6 and enhanced slightly with wavelets 1 and 2 set to 5.  It was further sharpened by using Focus Magic and the contrast and brightness adjusted slightly in PhotoImpact.

There are a number of interesting features in this region of the Moon.  In particular, here, the large, degraded crater Janssen is nicely revealed (a little above the centre of the picture towards the right).

An annotated version of another picture of this area is at  
 http://www.madpc.co.uk/~peterl/Moon/Craters/SEQuadrant.html

Yet another set of old data, well, what can you do when it's cloudy and cold. This time M1, taken on 22.11.11, with the M25C and the Vixen260 and the AP .67 focal reducer. Acquired with Astroart, stacked by adding in Astroart and finally processed in Photoshop. The exposure was 30x120sec unguided.

Another set of old data, this time of the ET or Owl Cluster in Cassiopeia, sometimes known here as the Chicken Cluster. Taken with the M25C in my old William 98. The exposure was 20x60sec, calibrated with a Masterflat and stacked by average in Astroart. Finally processed in Photoshop CS6. NGC457 is in the middle, and to the upper right is a smaller cluster NGC436. Both were discovered by Herschel, when light pollution was unknown but telescope mirrors were made of Speculum metal reflected only some 66% of the light they received, so in his early days when he used a diagonal, he'd get only 30-odd% of the light, and that only while the mirrors were new and untarnished, which they did quite quickly.

 This is an old set of data taken with the M25C and William 98 sat on the AP 900GTO on 23.6.09. The telescope has long gone, nice one though, the M25C is still here, as is the mount. It was guided by an H9C on the Vixen 260, that has been replaced by the ODK12. The data was acquired with Nebulosity and calibrated in Astroart. Final fiddling was done in PS CS6. The exposure was 13x300sec.
In the middle is M17, the Swan or Omega, with close by, and a little to its upper right a pair of nebulae IC4707 and IC4706, just 3 to 4 arcmins in diameter. Occupying the whole of the bottom right corner is the scarcely discernible nebula IC4701, some 60mins in diameter, and in its left hand edge is the very sparse cluster NGC6596. All this, of course, in the busy area at the top of Sagittarius.

This second one is of the same subject but taken on 16.6.2010, with the same camera, but through the Vixen 260, whose focal length was 3000mm, whereas the William FLT98 used for the one above had a focal length of 618mm. The exposure was 38mins, made up of some 120sec and some 300sec frames, unguided. Astroart and Photoshop were used for processing.

M38

M38 or NGC 1912 is an open cluster in a busy region of Auriga.The smaller cluster, NGC 1907 is older and may have arisen from a different part of the galaxy.

L12x300s,RGB 6x300s each, Ha 6x600s exposures with the Sx Trius 694/Takahashi 106 combination.
Light frames were stacked and calibrated with flats in AstroArt with further processing in PhotoShop.