This is M14, a rarely seen Ophiuchus globular but I like it for its isolation, it stands out in a wide field of stars. It is a repeat of some old work, taken on the 23rd of June 2009 with the William 98 we had then, with my SXM25C. The exposure was 5 x 240sec, added in Astroart, calibrated with flats, and processed in Photoshop.

Sunspot 12665

This is sunspot number 12665 just before it disappeared around the eastern limb of the Sun.

It was captured on 17th July 2017 just before 11:00 hrs.  It was imaged by a DMX camera attached to my 10-inch LX200 telescope.

The original file was processed in RegiStax5 with wavelet enhancement and finished off in PhotoImpact.

Peter Lloyd

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.