Dunfermline Astronomical Society

This is a crop of a very large frame but M109 in Ursa Major is so tiny in my Equinox ED80. Even so i have managed to image the central bar and the two arms of this galaxy which is not dissimilar to our own Milky Way. Off to the left you can see another faint galaxy and also at about 5 o'clock below 2 others . Image taken on 06 November at 04:15 ( a very late session that night) ISO 800 for 50 mins (50x 60 seconds subs) Skywatcher Equinox ED80 on Astrotrac and a canon 1000D. M109 is between 9th and 10th magnitude. There was also a very faint veil of cloud about so hence the streaks in the image.

 I have included an inverse image to help show the fainter galaxies -Geoff Ruzgar

Here is a 30x 60 seconds stack of the Horsehead and Flame nebula taken on 27/10/2011 at 01:20 and 800 ISO. levels and curves in CS4

I have also incuded an inverted crop to show the fine nebulosity in the Horsehead region.

Yat another image from the session on 18th October 2011 (turning out to be quite a productive night!)

This one again is a stack of 43 x 60second exposures at ISO800 Canon 1000D with Astronomik CLS filter.

see also The veil nebula taken on same night 15min exposure

Wednesday October 19th This evening I tried imaging the Triangulum Galaxy which I had tried at Galloway Star Camp without much success. This time I tried a different approach and took 20 x 60 second subs and stacked the best 17 subs subtracted darks taken on the previous night and flats taken earlier this evening when the sky was bright. I must say I'm rather pleased with this not too bad at all-Geoff

For a larger image click here

Also taken same evening same exposures M31 Andreomeda