Tag: galaxy

Having a look at the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101)

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Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) - 2014/02/23

The Pinwheel Galaxy M101 (NGC 5457) is a spiral galaxy in constellation Ursa Major. It is about 21 million ly away from earth. The apparent magnitude of this galaxy is ~7.8 mag. Therefore, this object is well suited for astrophotography with equipment like mine.

There is also a full resolution image of M101 available. UPDATE: I finally decided to put this picture into My Top Astro-Pics gallery.

Date2014/02/23
LocationBöblingen / Germany
ObjectPinwheel Galaxy (M101)
CameraAtik383L+
Guidingyes, DMK31AU03.AS via OAG
Telescope8" GSO Newtonian
Barlow lensnone
MountEQ6Syntrek
Cooling-15°C
Luminance12x 800s, bin: 1x1
Red9x 450s, bin: 2x2
Green9x 450s, bin: 2x2
Blue9x 450s, bin: 2x2
Dark10x
Flat10x
Total exposure~6h02min

Clear skies!

Last updated: June 20, 2022 at 9:58 am

Astrophotography – Imaging the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), again

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Andromeda Galaxy (M31) - 2013/09/03

My target tonight again was our neighbour galaxy Andromeda (M31). I like this object because even after a short exposure time and even with light polluted sky amazing structures become visible. In September 2012 I already took a first shot of M31. This time the result was even better (even without using any flat-field images) and I decided to put it into “My top Astro-Pics” section. It is also available in full resolution. For stacking I used DeepSkyStacker 3.3.2 with Kappa-Sigma Clipping.

Date2013/09/03
LocationBöblingen / Germany
ObjectAndromeda Galaxy (M31)
CameraAtik383L+
Guidingyes, DMK31AU03.AS via OAG
Telescope8" GSO Newtonian
Barlow lensnone
MountEQ6Syntrek
Cooling-15°C
Luminance2x 800s, 1x 600s, 3x 400s, 1x 100s, 1x 20s, bin: 1x1
Red2x 400s, 1x 200s, 2x 100s, 1x 25s, bin: 2x2
Green2x 400s, 1x 200s, 2x 100s, 1x 25s, bin: 2x2
Blue2x 400s, 1x 200s, 2x 100s, 1x 25s, bin: 2x2
Dark2x
Flatnone
Total exposure~1h19min.

Clear skies!

Last updated: June 20, 2022 at 10:34 am

Astrophotography – Imaging the Owl nebula and galaxy M108

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Owl nebula M97 and spiral galaxy M108 - 2013/06/06

The Owl Nebula (M97) (the little blue circle) is a planetary nebula located approximately 2000 ly away in constellation Ursa Major. It has already been discovered in 1781 by Pierre Méchain – a French astronomer. The cool thing about it is that there is a spiral galaxy M108 which is “close” to that nebula – at least from our perspective.

Date2013/06/06
LocationBöblingen / Germany
ObjectSpiral Galaxy M108 & Owl Nebula M97
CameraAtik383L+
Guidingyes, DMK31AU03.AS via OAG
Telescope8" GSO Newtonian
Barlow lensnone
MountEQ6Syntrek
Cooling-15°C
Luminance8x, 800s, bin: 1x1
Red7x, 200s, bin: 2x2
Green7x, 200s, bin: 2x2
Blue7x, 200s, bin: 2x2
Dark5x
Flat-
Total exposure~3h56min.

In a clear night I was able to shoot this image. With 3j56m the total exposure time is relatively long compared to other images. I did not use any flatfield images for the post-processing. Based on that fact I am quite satisfied with the result.

The image is also available in full resolution.

Clear skies!

Last updated: June 20, 2022 at 10:46 am

Beauty of space – My best astro-images in 2013

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In this short video I summarized all the best astro images I made over the last year. Most of the images have been taken from Boeblingen using a 8″ Newtonian telescope and an Atik383L+ camera. All the images are also available in full resolution on my website. The video has been composed using openshot, an open source video editor for Linux (many thanks to the development team).

Clear skies!

Last updated: June 20, 2022 at 21:24 pm

Astrophotography – Imaging another galaxy – Messier 106

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Spiral Galaxy M106 with text - 2013/04/19

In July 2012 I already imaged M106 with my DMK31AU03.AS camera (no guiding). Now I wanted to try the same object with the Atik383L+ camera to see the difference.

There are additional galaxies around in that picture – NGC4248, NGC4231, NGC4232, NGC4217 and NGC4226! Here is a full resolution image which better shows the details of the image.

Date2013/04/19
LocationBöblingen / Germany
ObjectSpiral galaxy M106
CameraAtik383L+
Guidingyes, DMK31AU03.AS via OAG
Telescope8" GSO Newtonian
Barlow lensnone
MountEQ6Syntrek
Cooling-15°C
Luminanceunknown
Redunknown
Greenunknown
Blueunknown
Darkunknown
Flatunknown
Total exposureunknown

For stacking I used DeepSkyStacker 3.3.2 with Kappa-Sigma Clipping.

Spiral Galaxy M106 - 2013/04/19

Clear skies!

Last updated: June 20, 2022 at 21:57 pm