Eskimo Nebula

On Friday night we had reasonably good weather conditions and no moon so we made for our dark sight and went hunting for the Eskimo Nebula (NGC 2392).  The nebula is known as a double-shell planetary nebula and resides in the constellation Gemini.  It got its name for the outer shell of gas that looks a bit like a the furry trim of an Eskimo's parka.  The other important fact about this object is that it's a planetary nebula which makes it a good target for am OIII filter as it gives of a particular wavelength of light.  I was able to use my OIII and a 2x Barlow lens to get in relatively tight and bring up some nice resolution for this relatively small object.  It will be fun next time to try without the OIII filter to see some true color.

Photo Details
February 21, 2014
Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount
Nikon D3100 Camera - ISO 1600
Barlow 2x lens
OIII filter
Autoguider
26 sub-frames at 3.0 minutes/frame
Total Exposure Time = 1 hour 18 minutes
Image Stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image Processing in PhotoShop

Seven Sisters

My first attempt at Messier 45 (Pleiades) was back in October.  Since then, I've added taking flat frames, an autoguider and generally learned more techniques for post-processing.  This image was an hour and 15 minutes of exposure time while the first one I shot was just 7.5 minutes.  It was fun going back to a familiar sight to see what additional detail I could discover.  Here they are, side-by-side...

                       February, 2014            October, 2013

Photo Details
February 15, 2014
Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount
Nikon D3100 Camera - ISO 1600
Coma Corrector & Orion Skyglow Filter
Autoguider
50 sub frames at 1.5 minutes/frame
Total Exposure Time = 1 hour 15 minutes
Image Stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image Processing in PhotoShop

Sun

I had my first try photographing the sun yesterday with a new solar filter on my telescope.  So much fun to see the incredible detail of the sunspots.  To put things in perspective, our planet Earth would easily fit inside the single sunspot just right off the center of the sun.

Photo Details
February 15, 2014
Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount
Nikon D3100 Camera - ISO 400
Orion Solar Filter
Exposure time = 1/2500 seconds (photo 1 = 500 exposures; photo 2 = 300 exposures)
Image Stacking in Registax6
Image Processing in PhotoShop

Messier 78

Messier 78, and it's companion, NGC 2071, are located near Orion's belt and are considered part of the larger Orion Nebula complex.  M78 is the only principal reflection nebula in the Messier list.  The pair of stars in the nebula aren't powerful enough to ionize the gas in the cloud, so what we are seeing is simply reflected light on the dust particles in the nebula.  The cloud is blue because the stars in the center are young and blue.


Photo Details
January 30, 2014
Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount
Nikon D3100 Camera - ISO 1600
Coma Corrector & Orion Skyglow Filter
40 sub frames at 1.5 minutes/frame
Total Exposure Time = 1 hour
Image Stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image Processing in PhotoShop