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Orion Nebula, Hydrogen alpha filter. This is a single 15 second image, taken in the early hours of 11th December 2005. You can clearly see the 4 central, hot stars that light up the Hydrogen gas cloud. These are given the appropriate name of the Trapezium, and they are young, hot stars spewing out UV radiation. This ionizes & heats the surrounding hydrogen making the nebula easily visible. The faint horizontal & vertical lines are probably electrical interference. The thick vertical line to the right is a 'dead column' on the ccd chip. probably due a previous cosmic ray hit damaging a small region near the bottom right of the image. All of these can be removed in the image reduction process.
M31, the Andromeda galaxy, taken with the widefield telescope.
M31, the giant Andromeda galaxy. See http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m031.html for more information
Isophotes of suspected star (originally thought to be Temple1). Looking at the generated isophotes, there is little evidence of any coma. Although there *does*appear to be elongation in one direction, this is almost certainly due to blooming. Looking at http://deepimpact.umd.edu/stsp/imgDetail.cfm?oid=681&iid=2233 makes me think we've actually imaged the bright star in the bottom right of the image shown at the above URL...probably the pointing accuracy on our 'scope needs refining. http://deepimpact.umd.edu/stsp/search_action.cfm has more pre & post collision images taken of the (very dim!) comet.
M31, viewed in Audela. Single 10 second luminosity-filtered exposure.
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M31, viewed in the Starlink app, Gaia.
M92: Globular cluster. http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m092.html has more details on this object. M92 is a globular cluster discoverd by Bode in 1777, and independently by Charless Messier, in 1781 and is c. 26000 ly distant. It contains approximately 330,000 stars. This is a 20 second image, no processing done.
YAGC (Yat Another Globular Cluster); see http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m015.html for more information
Messier 33; a low-light, diffuse open-spiral. See http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m033.html for more information.
M57: The Ring Nebula (plus satellite!).http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m057.html has more details on this object. M57 is the second planetary nebula discoverd by Charless Messier, in 1779 and is c. 2300 ly distant. This is a 20 second image, no processing done.
M13: Globular cluster. http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m013.html has more details on this object. Briefly: it contains c. 500,000 stars, and is around 25,000 ly distant. 20 second image, no processing done.
Orion Nebula, Hydrogen alpha filter, max-min stretched & false colour. Again, a single 15 second exposure using the Hydrogen alpha filter. This is the central core of the Orion Nebula.
Single shot of the Plaeides, again taken with the Astrocam/4 inch refracting telescope combination.
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Orion Nebula Boxing Day 2005. A quick shot with the Widefield 'scope befor the clouds rolled in. In fact, this image was taken through thin cloud; beforehand, the sky had been very clear, with excellent seeing conditions.
M27: The Dumbell Nebula. http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m027.html has more details on this object. M27 is the first planetary nebula discoverd by Charless Messier, in 1764 and is c. 1200 ly distant. This is a 20 second image, no processing done.
Moon in Hydrogen Alpha light. A 1 second exposure using a narrowband Hydrogen alpha filter with the main Genesis16 ccd camera, taken on Sunday 18 Dec 2005. This was just an experiment really; I wanted to see if the Hydrogen Alpha filter could cut out enough light so that the ccd chip in the main camera wasn't saturated. Success! You'll notice, if you look closely, that the Moon isn't quite focussed; this is to be expected if the telescope has been focussed on the much more distant stars.
Composite of Comet Temple1 (?). 30 second exposures, no dark frame subtraction or flat-fielding done. These false colour images should enhance any coma the comet has..the fact that there doesn't appear to be much present makes me suspect that we were just imaging a relatively bright star.
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