Tag: Newton 150/600

M62 Globular Cluster

Messier 62 is a globular cluster located in constellation Ophiuchus and it’s 22’500 light-years from Earth. Globular clusters are the most common deep space objects captured by me on Milos Island.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR coma corrector
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure23x120s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date2018-09-10

 


NGC7000 North America Nebula

North America nebula, also called NGC 7000, is a giant cloud of ionize hydrogen gas – HII region, located in constellation Cygnus. The shape reminds contour of the North America continent, specifically the eastern cost between Golf of Mexico and Florida. Visually, the nebula is big and it didn’t fit in my telescope/camera field of view. NGC 7000 together with Pelican nebula create a nebulae pair, which is approximately 2000 light-years from Earth.

The picture demonstrates how low light pollution on Milos Island is. The picture is an integration of only 27 pictures, exposure 3 minute each, i.e. 81 minutes in total. It’s impressive – no narrow band filters were used.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR coma corrector
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure27x180s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date2018-09-09

M19 Globular Cluster

Messier 19 is a globular cluster located in constellation Ophiuchus and it is approximately 29000 light-years far from Earth. This cluster is particularly interesting by its oval shape and most probably it’s the most oval globular cluster in our galaxy. The cluster, just like M9, is quite close to the galactic center.

The picture, like many others, was taken on island Milos, under dark Greek skies and it’s an integration of 58 minutes of the exposure.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR coma corrector
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure29x120s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date2018-09-09

 


M56 Globular Cluster

Messier 56 is a globular cluster located in constellation Lyra. M56 is one of less bright globular cluster, because its distance from Earth is 30’700 light-years.

This is the third (M54 and M55) globular cluster captured in single night and the picture is an integration of 63 frames, each 3 minutes long, i.e. 189 minutes total exposure time.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR coma corrector
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure63x180s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date2018-09-09

M55 Globular Cluster

Messier 55 is a globular cluster located in constellation Sagittarius. M55 is one of the closest globular cluster, having distance from the Solar System only 17’600 light-years, compared to M54, which is one of the furthest globular clusters (86’400 light-year). I managed to capture these two clusters during single night.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR coma corrector
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure37x120s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date2018-09-09

M54 Globular Cluster

Messier 54 is a globular cluster located in constellation Sagittarius. It has been assumed that the cluster’s distance is 50’000 light-years. Recently (1994) it was discovered that this cluster doesn’t belong to Milky Way galaxy, but it’s a part of Dwarf elliptic galaxy in Sagittarius and it is approximately 86’400 light-year from Earth. This means M54 is first discovered globular cluster outside of our galaxy.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR coma corrector
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure25x120s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date2018-09-09

NGC7293 Helix Nebula

NGC 7293, sometimes called Helix Nebula, is the closest planetary nebula (only 700 light-years away), which can be located in constellation Aquarius. Last year I captured this nebula on Gavdos. This year on Milos I was equipped by different telescope and different camera, so I gave it a try again.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR coma corrector
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure40x300s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date2018-09-07

NGC6822 Barnard’s Galaxy

NGC6822 is a galaxy located in the constellation Sagittarius and it is 1.6 million light-years from Earth. This galaxy belongs to a local group of galaxies with Andromeda, Triangulum Galaxy, and Milky Way. This galaxy is quite famous because Edwin Hubble discovered several variable stars in this galaxy. These variable stars can be used for the determination of the distance from Earth. Barnard’s Galaxy was the first galaxy to accurately determine distance.

Barnard’s Galaxy is a very dim deep space object; therefore I dedicated quite a long integration time to it (180 minutes) and I chose a long exposure time for each frame (300 seconds). Several nebulae are visible in the picture. These are the red spots located on the left side of the galaxy. Bubble Nebula and Ring Nebula are giant HII regions, where new stars are born.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR coma corrector
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure36x300s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date2018-09-07

M107 Globular Cluster

Messier107 is a globular cluster located in the constellation Ophiuchus. The cluster is very close to galactic disk of the Milky Way and 20’600 light-years far from Earth.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR coma corrector
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure18x180s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date2018-09-07

IC1396 Elephant’s Trunk nebula

IC 1396 is a mixture of ionized interstellar gas and dust cloud located in the constellation Cepheus, approximately 2’400 light-years from earth. Due to relative proximity of the nebula, it didn’t fit into the field of view of my telescope/camera. My previous picture, which I captured by the same telescope, was created by using focal reducer and therefore nearly fit into the field of view of even smaller CCD chip. However, under dark skies of Milos, there is no need to use narrow band filters and very nice dark nebulae are nicely visible.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR coma corrector
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure53x180s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date2018-09-06

NGC 6888 Crescent Nebula

Crescent Nebula, also known as NGC 6888, is a HII region, hot ionized hydrogen gas cloud. The nebula got the shape by high speed stellar wind of Wolf-Rayet star, which is colliding with slow moving mass, ejected by this star during transformation into a red giant. The nebula is approximately 5000 light-years away from us and it can be located in constellation Cygnus.

The picture is the last one from 6.9.2018. In the evening I captured Omega nebula, M80. As a last deep space object I pointed on Crescent Nebula, started auto guiding and went to sleep. Therefore the picture is a stack of 64 pictures; each has 3 minutes of exposure time, thus total integration time 192 minutes.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR coma corrector
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure64x180s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date2018-09-06

M17 Omega Nebula M18 Open Cluster

Due to moderate focal length of my telescope (660 mm) I managed to capture two Messier’s object in one shot. Specifically it was Omega nebula M17 (on the right) and open cluster M18 (on the left). I already captured Omega nebula some time ago, but due to its very low declination, the picture was not that nice. I was really happy that I got the opportunity on island Milos to capture it again. The cluster M18 is approximately 4200 light-years away from Earth and it has diameter 17 light-years.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR coma corrector
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure37x180s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date2018-09-06

M80 Globular Cluster

Messier80 is a globular cluster located in the constellation Scorpius. M80 is approximately 28’400 light-years far from Earth and it has several hundred thousand stars. M80 belongs to one the densest globular cluster and it’s characterized by frequent star collisions in the center.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR coma corrector
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure20x120s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date2018-09-06

 


IC 1318 Butterfly Nebula, Barnard 347

IC 1318 is an emission nebula, sometimes called Sadr region, located in constellation Cygnus, surrounding bright star Sadr. The star Sadr didn’t fit into the field view of my telescope/camera, but left the trace in form of diffraction spike at the top of the picture. The nebula contains many dark nebulae and the biggest in the middle of the picture is called Barnard 347.

The picture is another demonstration of dark skies of Milos and it is an integration of 77 pictures, each 3 minutes exposure, which means nearly 4 hours of integration time.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR coma corrector
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure77x180s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date2018-09-05

M4 Globular cluster

Messier M4 is a globular cluster located in constellation Scorpius. It has approximately 100 000 stars and it’s roughly 7200 light-years away from us, which makes it one of the closest globular clusters to the Solar system. Hubble Space Telescope discovered many white dwarf stars, which are the oldest known stars in our galaxy, having an age of 13 billion years.

The picture was taken during my travels to Greek island Milos and it’s only integration of 24 of two minutes exposures. This means only 48 minutes in total.

Technical details:

Telescope:Newton 150/600 mm
Aperture:150 mm
Focal length:660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
Camera:ZWO 071 Pro @-10C
Corrector:Explore Scientific HR coma corrector
Filters:Astronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure:8x24x120s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date:2018-09-05

M31 Andromeda galaxy

After capturing many clusters I wanted to switch to more interesting objects, which would test the quality of the skies on Milos, therefore I slewed my portable newton telescope to probably the most famous galaxy – Andromeda. During the post-processing I was astonished how many details were revealed after such short integration time. I would not be able to capture such picture from home, even if I would use any light pollution filters and much longer integration time.

Brief description of the galaxy: Andromeda is our galactic neighbor and it is approximately 2.5 million light-year from Earth, but it is approaching (110 km/s). There are estimates that our Milky Way and Andromeda will collide, but we still have some time, because it should occur in 4.5 billion years. Andromeda has diameter 220 thousand light-years, which makes it twice bigger than our own galaxy Milky Way. Two clouds surrounding the main galaxy are dwarf galaxies M32 and M110.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR coma corrector
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure18x180s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date2018-09-05

M24 Sagittarius Star Cloud

Messier 24, also called Small Sagittarius Star Cluster, is a giant cloud of stars and open star clusters. In fact, M24 is not gravitational bonded object, but it is only spiral arm of Milky Way galaxy. The light coming from the cloud is partially blocked by two prominent dark nebulae. The cloud is literally surrounded by Messier objects. In north-east direction can be located Omega Nebula M17 and  open cluster M18, just 3° direction north open cluster M25 can be seen, 5° direction west open cluster M23, 6° south-west nebulae M20 Trifid and M8 Lagoon nebula.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR coma corrector
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure27x180s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date2018-09-05

M22 Great Sagittarius Cluster

This spectacular globular cluster is called Messier 22 or Great Sagittarius Cluster. It’s located, surprisingly, in constellation Sagittarius, close to Galactic Bulge, therefore the background is illuminated by many stars. Oh, and it’s so many of them. If you realize that each bright dot is a star and most probably not just a star, but whole solar system, it makes you think how big the universe is. The distance from Earth only 10’000 light-years, makes this cluster the closest one to us.

Due to its low declination, it’s quite difficult to photograph this cluster from Central Europe. Therefore I took the opportunity and captured M22 on Milos Island. The picture is an integration of only 94 minutes.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR coma corrector
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure47x120s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date2018-09-04

M73 Asterism of four stars

Messier73 is a group of stars (asterism), which are visually close to each other if viewed from Earth. M73 was discovered by Charles Messier on October 4 1780 and catalogued as an open cluster with some nebulosity. Latest investigation revealed that M73 is not a cluster, but just an asterism.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR coma corrector
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure75x180s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date2018-09-04

M6 Butterfly cluster

M6 is an open cluster located in constellation Scorpius. Visually it’s located not far from horizon, at least from Central Europe; therefore it’s hard to capture this deep space object. The observing/capturing conditions change significantly if you travel to Southern Europe. From there the cluster is visible by naked eye. The stars from similar shape to butterfly, therefore  it got its name. On the bottom side of the cluster is nicely visible red giant (orange star) called BM Scorpii. The background illuminates the Milky Way.

The picture was taken during chasing darkness on Greek island Milos and in total was taken 30 pictures having exposure 180 seconds, i.e. total 90 minutes of integration.

Technical details:

Telescope:Newton 150/600 mm
Aperture:150 mm
Focal length:660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
Camera:ZWO 071 Pro @-10C
Corrector:Explore Scientific HR coma corrector
Filters:Astronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure30x180s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date:2018-09-03