Gallery XVII

        I went to my In-Laws with my family. They live at Deep Creek Lake in Garret County, MD about 45 minutes by car from the site of the LHSC the fine star party of the AAAP. I took the 10" f5.6 discovery Dob and a balky equatorial platform (it didn't like the sand at BSA camp?) with me. I used the StellaCam EX to video DSOs on 7/24 and 7/25/03.

7/24/03

        I shot 3 objects before the drive failed. Each was a 200 second (3 min 20 sec) exposure. I used Astrovideo to acquire and add 100 1 frame images every two seconds and add them on the fly to produce the 200 second image. Gain was on manual at max. Sense up was set at 128x (2 second image). I had a Steve Mogg f6 focal reducer in the EP adaptor.

M 51 - the Whirlpool Galaxy - two interacting galaxies 37 million LY distant. Mag 8.1. My best effort to date.

M 101 -  aka the pin wheel galaxy - M 7.7 - 27 million LY distant, 200,00 LY across.

M 22 - Sagittarius - globular cluster, 70,000 stars orbiting the Milky Way galaxy - some of the oldest known stars - it is older then our galaxy? - 75 Ly across, 7,800 LY distant.

 

7/25/03

        The sky was more transparent and it seemed dryer. Objects were imaged  for 60 seconds via the above method, I cut the number of images added to 30 (each 2 seconds long 30x2=60 seconds). Some objects were imaged 3 or 5 times. These ".fit" files were added with FitsX software (from the makers of Astrovideo) to make 3 or 5 minute images.

 

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The eagle nebula - M 16 - I imaged it twice. 3x1minute exposures. Tracking problems are evident. Large bright nebula containing an open cluster. 5,900 Ly distant. Ahh, the summer Milky Way.

The Lagoon nebula - M 8 - A large bright nebula with a central dark lane. As with most nebula this is way larger then my FOV. Mag 5.8 3x1 minutes of imaging.

The Swan nebula - M 17 - It looks like a swan. The surrounding dimmer nebulosity fades out of the FOV. 5x1 minutes of imaging

NGC 7006 - a globular cluster in Delphenius. Mag 10.6. 11,300 LY distant - 1 minute

NGC 6934 - another GC in Delphenius - M 8.9, 48,000 Ly distant. 1 minute. It looks brighter with a richer outer halo the NGC 7006.

NGC 6781 - a Planetary nebula in Aquilla - m 11.4 -2,600 Ly distant - 5 minutes with an OIII filter - my new favorite planetary to view in Aquilla! In the eyepiece it kind of looks like a crescent moon.

M 4 - the GC in Scorpio near Antares. See the "line of stars" crossing the interior? 100 LY size, 10,000 LY distant. Mag 5.9, 1 minute

M 10 - In Oph -Mag 6.6, 90 LY size, 16,000 LY distant. 1 minute

M 12 - another GC in Oph - mag 6.6 - 80 LY size, 19,000 LY distant. 1 minute.

M 11 - a rich open cluster in  Scutum - mag 5.8, 22 LY size, 5,500 Ly across, 220 Million years old. It kind of looks like a loose globular doesn't it? 1 minute. A summer favorite.

M 5 - a bright globular cluster in Ser - 150 LY size, 24,000 LY distant. Bright but dense. it looks smaller then the closer smaller GC's in Oph. 1 minute

 

        And so it was. A night of globular clusters and nebula - with a token open cluster thrown in. Most satisfying in spite of the balky drive which periodically failed causing frustration. Dark sky does help with the image quality.

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