Tag Archives: astrophotography

Everyone’s heard of NGC 253—this is NGC 254

September 30, 2013 CAS

Steve Crouch turns his eye to a less-often imaged galaxy. And captures at least 10 other galaxies into the bargain! He explains:

Thought I would try something not often imaged. It’s obvious from this image why people prefer NGC 253.

Catalogue and alternative designations NGC 254

Type Galaxy
Position 00 47.8, -31 25
Constellation Sculptor
Camera and Telescope STXL11002 and 36.8 cm Ritchey Chretien
Focal Ratio F9Exposure
Details LRGB 285:70:60:60 Luminance 1×1, Colours 2×2

Description

This is a SB0 type magnitude 12 galaxy roughly 2.6′ x1.7′ in size. It is almost exactly due north of the much better known NGC 253.

You can see more of Steve Crouch’s astrophotography over on his website at http://members.pcug.org.au/~stevec/

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Stunning photo of the Trifid Nebula — Chris Marklew

September 30, 2013 CAS

Chris explains:

It has been a while since capturing data for a new image (~6months), but here it is, The Trifid Nebula (NGC6514).
Image details
Telescope: FSQ106EDXIII
Camera: SBIG STT-8300M
Composition: LRGB (152:45:40:40) bin L 1×1, RGB 2×2
Captured: 25, 27, and 29 September 2013 – Canberra

Astronomy.net says the following about the photo:

Your results are:
(RA, Dec) center: (270.625564674, -22.996920876) degrees
Orientation: 1.19352109615 deg E of N
Pixel scale: 2.10083867783 arcsec/pixel
Your field contains:NGC 6531NGC 6514

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One million solar masses crammed into one spot. Globular cluster 47 Tucanae — Steve Crouch

September 29, 2013 CAS

While delving around the SMC I couldn’t resist doing a shot of 47 Tucanae which I haven’t imaged for several years. This is 45 minutes exposure for each of L,R,G and B with the RGB added into L for synthetic luminance.

Catalogue and alternative designations NGC 104, 47 Tucanae

Type Globular Cluster
Position 00 24.1, -72 05
Constellation Tucana
Camera and Telescope STXL11002 and 36.8 cm Ritchey Chretien
Focal Ratio F9
Exposure Details LRGB 90:45:45:45 All 1×1. Synthetic luminance used.

Description

47 Tucanae is the second brightest globular cluster in the sky but has a much stronger central condensation than Omega Centauri. It is adjacent to the Small Magellanic Cloud and a very easy naked eye object.

You can see more of Steve Crouch’s astrophotography over on his website.

Articles

The globular cluster 47 Tucanae — Mark Nickols

September 26, 2013 CAS

In the Southern Hemisphere, we have some of the best globular clusters, including the biggest of all Omega Centauri with some five million solar masses, and this beauty: 47 Tucanae with about one million solar masses. Here’s a good shot of “47 Tuc” by Mark Nickols:

I’m still struggling with guiding issues, but just to prove my issue is not optics, I again pointed the scope southward where things don’t move around so much and snapped 47 Tucanae last night, just to prove I can manage to take round stars (as opposed to eggs, tadpoles, dumbbells, etc). I personally prefer Omega Centauri, but it’s pretty impressive nonetheless (the globular cluster, not necessarily the image).

10 x 3 minute exposures. Scope: LX200 8″, f/6.7 focal reducer.Camera: SBIG STF8300C

Articles

Tarantula Nebula — Mark Nickols

September 10, 2013 CAS

Good astrophotography is completely reliant on reliable tracking by the telescope. You have the mount, your computer, tracking and guidance software, and all the pieces in the chain have to be working and communicating properly with each other. There’s nothing ‘plug-and-play’ about this game and when things don’t go right, it can be incredibly frustrating.

Mark Nickols, despite experiencing such problems, still managed to pull off this nice shot of the Tarantula Nebula, part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy close to ours at about 163,000 light years:

I’m currently battling some guiding issues. In the early hours two nights ago, after some frustrating hours on another target, as an additional experiment I turned the scope to the tarantula nebula. The guiding software refuses to work at all for this target I guess because it is too near the pole and the software complains that the stars are not moving enough too do a calibration. Anyway I got off just a small number of shots before things got very hazy and I had to give up. So here anyway is just 8 x 2 minute stacked exposures of the tarantula – unguided. Could have been centred better but could be worse.