The first time I saw a professional photo of this trio, I thought they had been photoshopped next to each other. This is a rich field of galaxies in the constellation Draco which features a spiral whose structure is visible (NGC 5985, on the left), an elliptical galaxy (NGC 5982, center), and an edge-on spiral (NGC 5981, right). The three galaxies are not gravitationally associated in a group, but are all over 100 million light years away. I like how adding extra data brought out the pinwheel like fringes of NGC 5985, and the shell structure of NGC 5982.
This is a stack of 15 3 minute sub-frames and 23 4 minute sub-frames shot from Death Valley and Lone Pine CA. The telescope and camera were a Celestron 9.25" Edge HD at f/2.3 with Hyperstar and an Atik 314L+ color CCD camera. Pre-processing and stacking were done with Nebulosity, and final processing in PixInsight and PS CS 5.1.
The center (J2000) of the image is at
RA 15h 38m 40s
DEC +59° 25' 19"
The image spans 34.5' by 51'.
Tags: stars galaxies galaxy space astronomy cosmos astrophoto Draco Draco Triplet NGC 5981 NGC 5982 NGC 5985 spiral galaxy elliptical galaxy
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I have an updated version where I added some hydrogen-alpha data and reduced the blue tinge:
flic.kr/p/2kzDsDG
This is a stack of 23 images of NGC 2903, a barred spiral galaxy that is about 28 million light years away (Drozdovsky, I. O., & Karachentsev, I. D. 2000, A&AS, 142, 425). I originally thought, "Hey, here's a barred spiral, like the Milky Way is a barred spiral, so our galaxies are twinsies, right?" Wrong! NGC 2903 is a starburst galaxy - there is an enormous rate of star formation, especially within the central bar. Stellarium refers to this as an active galaxy, but that is incorrect. It does have several ultra-luminous X-ray binaries in the central region (Yukita, et al, ApJ, 758, 105, (2012)). There is a also an outflow of gas from the added energy of rapid star formation and X-ray binaries - this galaxy is losing material for making stars.
I have shot this numerous times, with exposures of typically 6 minutes and 8 minutes. The latest data, with better guiding, was taken in Lone Pine, CA on 2018-02-17 and has noticeably reduced how oblong the stars were from previous attempts. I may need to do a stack with only the better data, once I have more. (Yes, I'm sure I will shoot this again - it's one of my favorites.) Celestron Edge HD 9.25" at f/2.3 with HyperStar and an Atik 314L+ color CCD. Pre-processing in Nebulosity; stacking and initial processing in PixInsight; final touches in PS CS 5.1.
The center (J2000) of this image is at
RA 9h 32m 10s
DEC +21° 30' 24"
The image spans 47' x36'. North is toward the left and east is at the top.
Tags: space cosmos astronomy astrophoto stars galaxy spiral galaxy barred spiral starburst galaxy NGC 2903
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This spiral galaxy is known for its thick dust lane near its nucleus that gives it the appearance of a bruised eye. The Black Eye Galaxy (M64) is 17 million light years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. Also known as "The Sleeping Beauty Galaxy", this image was taken from Mesquite Springs Campground in Death Valley, CA.
This is a stack of 12 unguided 125s subframes with a Celestron Edge HD 9.25" scope at f/2.3 with Hyperstar and an Atik 314L+ color CCD. Initial preprocessing and stacking in Nebulosity; final processing in PixInsight and PS CS 5.1.
Image center is at RA 12h 56m 43.03s, DEC +21° 40' 57.01"
Tags: spiral galaxy astrophoto space M64 Black Eye Galaxy
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We view this spiral galaxy edge-on, making it look very thin and long from our perspective. It also has a distinctive dust lane along the center of its rotational plane.
The image is a stack of 14 125s exposures taken at Mesquite Springs Campground in Death Valley, CA, on 2015-03-18. The scope and camera used were an unguided Celestron Edge HD 9.25" at f/2.3 with Hyperstar and an Atik 314L+ color CCD camera. Initial stacking and preprocessing in Nebulosity; final processing in PixInsight and PS CS 5.1
Image is centered at RA (J2000) 12h 36m 20.53s, DEC (J2000) +25° 59' 18.04"
Tags: space astrophoto spiral galaxy Needle Galaxy edge-on spiral galaxy
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I keep adding data from different sessions to this one. This has about 20 minutes worth of exposure added from my trip to Death Valley in December 2016. All totalled, this is over 90 minutes worth of exposures with a Celestron Edge HD 9.25" at f/2.3 with HyperStar and an Atik 314L+ color CCD. Preprocessing of images in Nebulosity; registration, alignment, stacking, and initial processing in PixInsight; final touches in PS CS 5.1.
I like how I was able to get better control over the size of the stars in this image over my previous attempts.
Image scale: 2.5" per pixel
Image center (J2000):
RA 9h 55m 49.9s
DEC +69° 19' 47"
Tags: space cosmos astronomy astrophoto stars galaxies M81 M82 spiral galaxy irregular galaxy Bode's Galaxy Cigar Galaxy
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