Category: Star-gazing

Imaging galaxies M81 and M82 from Böblingen / Germany

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Bode's galaxy (M81) and Cigar galaxy (M82) - 2015/05/18

Messier 81 (M81) is a spiral galaxy about 12 million Lj. away from earth. Messier 82 (M82) – also known as Cigar Galaxy – is a starburst galaxy which is interestingly also about 12 million ly. away from us. Both objects are located in constellation Ursa Major.

For this picture 11 light frames (600s exposure time each) were averaged. This is twice as much as the typical frame count I usually have. Therefore, there is almost no visible noise in the the final picture.

The full size image can be found here.

Clear skies!

Date2015/02/18
LocationBöblingen / Germany
ObjectBode's Galaxy (M81) & Cigar Galaxy (M82)
CameraAtik383L+
Guidingyes, QHY5-II Mono via OAG
Telescope8" GSO Newtonian
Barlow lensnone
MountEQ6Syntrek
Cooling-15°C
Luminance11x, 600s, bin: 1x1
Red9x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Green9x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Blue9x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Dark10x
Flat10x
Total exposure~2h57min.
Last updated: June 17, 2022 at 14:14 pm

Visiting the Tacande Observatory on La Palma

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Tacande Observatory, La Palma, Spain

Last night I visited the Tacande Observatory on La Palma (link) to do some observations and to exchange about some technical topics. It’s owner is Joan Genebriera who built this observatory back in 2005 – right beside his house 🙂 He worked at the KVA Telescope on La Palma for several years before he retired. His observatory is located close to El Paso at a height of about 765m.

The observatory holds three telescopes on one custom made mount:

  • Cassegrain Relay 400mm f/6.5 = 18′ x 12′ (arcminutes)
  • R120S 120mm f/6.6 = 1.28° x 0.96° (arcdegrees)
  • R80 80mm f/6.0 = 2.65° x 1.76° (arcdegrees)
Inside the Tacande Observatory - the telescopes, La Palma, Spain

Even though I was in Spain communicating in English was no problem. After I got an introduction to the equipment we decided to image the Sombrero galaxy since it was in a quite good position.

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Star-gazing at Casa Victoria on La Palma

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Casa Victoria La Palma

The second part of my La Palma holiday I spent at Casa Victoria (28°41’31.3″N 17°57’20.0″W). It is also a kind of cottage but a bit more modern than Casa La Chirlaca. However, compared to Casa La Chirlaca it has a little less canary atmosphere and the garden is not so nice in comparison. The house is a few hundred meters lower than Casa La Chirlaca and so it is a few degrees warmer. Especially when having breakfast outside in the morning this was very pleasant. Unfortunately Casa Victoria has no internet connection. The view on the sea is great and Polaris is visible from the garden. The owner only spoke Spanish but for just handing over the keys it was not a big problem.

Clear skies!

Last updated: June 17, 2022 at 21:04 pm

Imaging cluster Messier 35 and NGC 2158 from Böblingen / Germany

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Messier 35 cluster - 2015/02/19

Messier 35 or M35, also known as NGC 2168, is an open cluster of stars in the west of Gemini (left part of the image). To the right there is another open cluster named NGC 2158. Even if the two open clusters are “close” they are not related – their distance is about 9000 ly.

The image is also available in full resolution here.

Date2015/02/19
LocationBöblingen / Germany
ObjectMessier 35 cluster
CameraAtik383L+
Guidingyes, QHY5-II Mono via OAG
Telescope8" GSO Newtonian
Barlow lensnone
MountEQ6Syntrek
Cooling-15°C
Luminance11x, 600s, bin: 1x1
Red9x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Green9x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Blue9x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Dark5x
Flat10x
Total exposure~2h57min.

NGC 2158 is believed to be ~2 billion years old!

Clear skies!

Last updated: June 19, 2022 at 22:20 pm