Tag: Messier

Looking at the Sunflower Galaxy ~8.7 billion Round-the-World trips away

/ Carsten / Leave a comment

36 million light years away – or 8.700.000.000 trips around the world! That’s the approximate distance to the Sunflower Galaxy which also has the boring acronym M63.

Tonight I decided to point my 8″ Newton telescope to this object to have a closer look. Even if I only had 2 hours of time I am still satisfied with the result. Personally, I think a sunflower looks a little different – anyway I like the shape and the structure of this object. M63 is located in constellation Canes Venatici and is not “so far” away from M51. Its apparent magnitude is about 9.3mag. Besides, I already targeted M63 a few years ago, but this new result I think is much better.

Date2016/05/02
LocationBöblingen / Germany
ObjectSunflower Galaxy (M63)
CameraAtik383L+
Guidingyes, QHY5-II Mono via OAG
Telescope8" GSO Newtonian
Barlow lensnone
MountEQ6Syntrek
Cooling-15°C
Luminance4x, 600s, bin: 1x1
Red4x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Green4x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Blue4x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Dark2x
Flat10x
Total exposure~1h10min.
m63_final_cut_border

Clear skies!

Last updated: June 16, 2022 at 14:09 pm

Star cluster Messier 44

/ Carsten / 2 Comments
photo_present_m44_small_web_qual

Tonight was the first time since mid of November with acceptable conditions for astropohotography… I don’t like this weather… However, this night it was good – at least until about 3am. For stacking I again used DeepSkyStacker 3.3.2 with Kappa-Sigma Clipping. Happy Easter! 🙂

Date2016/03/09
LocationBöblingen / Germany
ObjectMessier 44 (Star cluster)
CameraAtik383L+
Guidingyes, QHY5-II Mono via OAG
Telescope8" GSO Newtonian
Barlow lensnone
MountEQ6Syntrek
Cooling-15°C
Luminance11x, 600s, bin: 1x1
Red10x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Green10x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Blue10x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Dark2x
Flat10x
Total exposure~2h15min.
Beehive Cluster (M44) - 2016/03/09

Clear skies!

Last updated: June 16, 2022 at 14:20 pm

Astrohotography of Sh2-88 without H-alpha filter from Böblingen / Germany

/ Carsten / Leave a comment
Sh2-88 Nebula

The evening of 24th June 2015 was a warm and nice summer evening. All the clouds vanished and the forecast predicted a clear night 🙂 Since I didn’t image a nebula for quite some time I decided to image one this night. Recently I came across Sh2-88 which is an HII emission nebula in constellation Vulpecula. So this should have been the target for tonight!

I saw some great pictures of Sh2-88 before which have been taken using an H-alpha filter. Since I am not yet having an H-alpha filter I just decided to give it a try without H-alpha. Of course the nebula structures don’t come out as good as when using a such a filter. But I am still satisfied for a picture with just 5 IR frames. The seeing with my f/5 GSO Newton (F=1000mm) was around 2.1″ – so quite good for this region.

Date2015/06/24
LocationBöblingen / Germany
ObjectSh2-88 (Emission nebula)
CameraAtik383L+
Guidingyes, QHY5-II Mono via OAG
Telescope8" GSO Newtonian
Barlow lensnone
MountEQ6Syntrek
Cooling-15°C
Luminance5x, 600s, bin: 1x1
Red5x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Green5x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Blue5x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Dark3x
Flat10x
Total exposure~1h27min.

Clear skies!

Last updated: June 17, 2022 at 6:58 am

Imaging galaxies M81 and M82 from Böblingen / Germany

/ Carsten / Leave a comment
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

Imaging the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51)

/ Carsten / 2 Comments
Messier 51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy LRGB

Today, after a long long cycling tour the weather forecast made me smile 🙂 There was a good chance that most of the clouds will go away between 23:00 and 2:00. Since the moon is going to rise at 2:11am there is a short but sufficient window to do some CCD imaging. Since I only have free view to the south from home, the position of M51 is a quite good compromise. The seeing with my f/5 GSO Newton (F=1000mm) is around 2.7″ – so this is more or less average.

Date2015/05/10
LocationBöblingen / Germany
ObjectWhirlpool Galaxy (M51)
CameraAtik383L+
Guidingyes, QHY5-II Mono via OAG
Telescope8
Barlow lensnone
MountEQ6Syntrek
Cooling-15°C
Luminance6x, 600s, bin: 1x1
Red5x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Green5x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Blue5x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Dark5x
Flat10x
Total exposure~1h40min.

Clear skies!

Last updated: June 17, 2022 at 14:20 pm