The Ring Nebula, Messier 57, in Lyra, the classic planetary nebula, here in a wide shot showing it in context in the rich starfield between the bottom two stars of Lyra: Sulafat (Gamma Lyrae) at lower left and Sheliak (Beta Lyrae) at upper right. North is up in this field. This is a stack of 6 x 8-minute exposures with Astro-Physics 130mm apo refractor at f/6 (with the 6x7 field flattener) and Canon EOS Ra camera at ISO 800.
The Horsehead Nebula (B33) at bottom, below the star Zeta Orionis (aka Alnitak, the left star of Orion’s Belt), plus NGC 2024, the Flame Nebula, above Zeta. The field includes Messier 78 at upper left, a reflection nebula crossed by lanes of dark nebulosity, plus the smaller NGC 2071 above the main M78 nebula. This is a stack of 12 x 6 minute exposures with the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 800 through the TMB 92mm apo refractor at f/4.4 with the Borg. 0.85x field flattener/reducer. Taken from New Mexico, Nov 17, 2014.
A portrait of the pairing of the Owl Nebula, M97, with the edge-on spiral galaxy M108, below the Bowl of the Big Dipper. The Owl is a magnitude 9.8 planetary nebula in our galaxy about 1700 light years away, while M108 is another galaxy about 32 million light years away, and shining at magnitude 10. There are many very tiny 15th to 18th magnitude galaxies in the field as well, carrying PGC designations. North is to the left in this framing. This is a stack of 20 x 6-minute exposures with the Canon EOS Ra camera at ISO 1600, through the Astro-Physics 130mm EDT apo refractor at f/6 with the 6x7 field flattener. Autoguiding was with the MGEN3 stand-alone guider which controlled the camera shutter and performed a 5-pixel dithering move between each exposure. The mount was the AP Mach 1. No dark frames or LENR was applied. Aligning and stacking, with a Median blend mode, was with Photoshop, which worked perfectly on this set. Taken from home on a very clear night on April 13-14, 2021.
