Deep Sky - Star Clusters
2004 BL86 Approaching Beehive Cluster
A test shot, but the only shot I got, of near Earth asteroid 2004 BL86 approaching the star cluister M44, the Beehive, on the night of January 26, 2015, at 9:23 pm MST. This was a test shot to check framing, to set up a sequence running from 9:45 to 11 pm MST when the asteroid would be moving past M44. But before I could start the sequence proper, clouds moved in. Aargh! This was 90 seconds at ISO 1600 with the Canon 6D and TMB92mm refractor.
Abell 21, the Medusa Nebula, a large but faint planetary nebula in Gemini. Above and to the right of it is a very loose open cluster NGC 2395. This is a stack of 15 x 8-minute exposures at f/4.4 with the TMB apo refractor and Canon 5D MkII at ISO 1600. Taken from the backyard of the Silver City, New Mexico, house, March 15, 2015.
Abell 426, the Perseus Galaxy Cluster
Abell 426, the populous cluster of galaxies in Perseus, that includes the active radio source galaxy, NGC 1275, aka Perseus A, at the heart of the cluster. To the right of 1275 is slightly dimmer NGC 1272. The galaxies are about 235 million light years away, and appear as fuzzy stars scattered across this field. This is a stack of 10 x 8-minute exposures with the Quattro 8-inch astrographic Newtonian reflector at f/4 with the coma corrector. The camera was the Canon 5D MkII at ISO 800. While shot with 800mm of focal length even that is not really enough to do the cluster justice — the galaxies are small smudges.
Abell 426, the Perseus Galaxy Cluster
Abell 426, the populous cluster of galaxies in Perseus, that includes the active radio source galaxy, NGC 1275, aka Perseus A, at the heart of the cluster. To the right of 1275 is slightly dimmer NGC 1272. The galaxies are about 235 million light years away, and appear as fuzzy stars scattered across this field. This is a stack of 10 x 8-minute exposures with the Quattro 8-inch astrographic Newtonian reflector at f/4 with the coma corrector. The camera was the Canon 5D MkII at ISO 800. While shot with 800mm of focal length even that is not really enough to do the cluster justice — the galaxies are small smudges.
Alpha Cruxis, or Acrux, the brightest star in the Southern Cross, Crux. It is a blue-white star 320 light years away. This is a superb double star but is not resolved here. Small star clusters NGC 4349 (above) and NGC 4609 (at left) appear near Acrux. The area is also rich in dark nebulas near the Coal Sack. I shot this April 3, 2016 from the Tibuc Cottage, Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia using the 77mm f/4 astrographic refractor and filter-modified Canon 5D MkII, for a stack of 4 x 6 minute exposures at ISO 1600.
Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to the Sun (at left and aka Rigel Kentaurus) and Beta Centauri (at right, aka Hadar) in Centaurus, and together known as the Pointer Stars. The open cluster NGC 5617 is to the right of Alpha. The field simulates a binocular field of view. This is a stack of 4 x 2-minute exposures with the 200mm lens at f/2.8 and filter-modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 2500. Tracked on the AP 400 mount.
Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Perseus and an Aurora
A weak aurora on July 15, 2017m below the stars of Perseus, Cassiopeia, and Andromeda, with the Andromeda Galaxy, M31, at upper right. The Double Cluster in Perseus is above centre. Capella is below the faint lone spire of auroral curtain. A single 25-second exposure at f/2.8 and ISO 1600 with the 24mm Sigma Art lens and Nikon D750.
The Milky Way, from Andromeda to the Pleiades
The northern autumn Milky Way from Cassiopeia (at top) to Perseus (at bottom), running along the left, with Andromeda and the Andromeda Galaxy at upper right, and the Pleiades in Taurus ar lower right. The red streak is the California Nebula, NGC 1499, in Perseus. The Milky Way here is rife with dark lanes and dust clouds. The star cluster below the Andromeda Galaxy is NGC 752. This is a stack of 5 x 2.5-minute exposures at f/2.8 and ISO 1600 with the 35mm lens and filter-modified Canon 5D MkII, plus two other exposures taken through a Kenko Softon filter to add the star glows. Taken from the Quailway Cottage near Portal, Arizona.
Antares & Rho Ophiuchi Area (77mm 5DII)
The colourful region around yellow Antares (bottom) in Scorpius and blue Rho Ophiuchi (top) in Ophiuchus. The nebulas are largely reflection nebulas, taking on the colour of the stars embedded in the nebulas. However, the field also contains a lot of emission nebulosity, hydrogen gas glowing red and magenta. Plus there are fingers of brown dark dusty nebulosity. It is one of the most colourful regions of the sky. At right of Antares are two globular clusters, NGC 6144 (small, at 2 o'clock from Antares) and the larger Messier 4 right of Antares. This is a stack of 5 x 8 minute exposures with the Borg 77mm astrographic apo (330mm focal length) at f/4.3 and the filter-modified Canon 5D Mark II at ISO 800. I took this March 31/April 1 from Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia.
Aquila (50mm 5DII) Sept 29, 2013
Aquila in a stack of 5 x 4 minute exposures with the Canon 5D MkII at ISO 800 and 50mm Sigma lens at f/3.2. Plus two exposures taken thru the Kenko Softon filter for the star glows. Includes the Serpens-Ophiuchus double cluster (SO Double Cluster) of IC 4756 and NGC 663 at right. Altair and Terazed are at top. Taken from home Sept, 29, 2013.
Aquila, Serpens and Ophiuchus in the Summer Sky
The constellation of Aquila (at centre) surrounded by Scutum and its starcloud (below) and Serpens and Ophiuchus (at right to the west). Altair is the bright star left of centre, with Tarazed above it. Albireo in Cygnus is at the very top Above Aquila and below Albireo are the small constellations of Sagitta, Vulpecula and Delphinus (the latter at left). The Coathanger asterism is visible at top in the Milky Way, as are the large open clusters IC 4756 and NGC 6633, the S-O Double Cluster, at right straddling the Serpens-Ophiuchus border. Taken August 20, 2019 during the brief interval of darkness before moonrise at 11 pm this night. This is a stack of 7 x 2-minute exposures with the 35mm Canon lens at f/2.8 and Canon 6D MkII at ISO 1600, with an additional exposure taken through the Kenko Softon A filter layered in to add the star glows. On the Star Adventurer tracker from home.
The constellation of Aquila the Eagle with the small constellation of Scutum the Shield below, with its bright starcloud, in the northern summer sky, with parts of Serpens and Ophiuchus at right. The Serpens-Ophiuchus Double Cluster is at right, made of NGC 6633 (right) and IC 4756 (left). Altair is the bright star at left. This is a stack of 4 x 1-minute exposures with the 50mm Sigma lens at f/2.8 and Canon 6D at ISO 1600, plus an additional 1 min exposure through the Kenko Softon filter to add the star glows. All tracked on the MSM SiFo Tracker from China. Taken from home July 24, 2019.
The constellation of Auriga as well as southern Gemini, showing the 4 Messier star clusters: M36, M37, M38 in Auriga and M35 in Gemini. Taken from home with the Canon 5D MkII at ISO 800 and Sigma 50mm lens at f/4 for a stack of 5 x 6 minute exposures, plus a stack of 2 x 6 minutes with the Kenko Softon filter.
The Clusters and Nebulas of Auriga
The field of clusters and nebulosity in Auriga, with — from left to right — Messier 37, Messier 36, and Messier 38, as the main open star clusters here. Below M38 is NGC 1907. The nebulosity at right is IC 410 and IC 405, the Flaming Star Nebula. In between them is the colourful asterism known as the Little Fish. Messier 38 is also known as the Starfish Cluster while Messier 36 is called the Pinwheel Cluster. The bright red nebula at top is Sharpless 2-235. The litttle nebulas at centre are NGC 1931 and IC 417. The field is similar to that of binoculars. This is a stack of 5 x 3-minute exposures with the Canon 5D MkII at ISO 800 and 200mm Canon L-Series lens at f/2.8. Taken with the Fornax Lightrack tracker as part of testing. Diffraction spikes added with Astronomy Tools actions. Taken from home on a rare fine and mild winter night, January 4, 2019.
Star Clusters and Nebulas in Auriga
This is a framing of the rich array of star clusters and nebulas in central Auriga. The large star cluster Messier 38 is at top left, with the small cluster NGC 1907 just below it. The smaller star cluster Messier 36 is at left. M38 is often called the Starfish Cluster, while M36 is the Pinwheel Cluster. The complex of star cluster Stock 8 and IC 417 is left of centre, with the small emission nebula NGC 1931 between it and M36. The large nebula at lower centre is IC 410 with the star cluster NGC 1893 embedded in it. The large nebula at right is IC 405, aka the Flaming Star Nebula, with a mix of red emission and blue reflection nebulosity. The faint streak of nebulosity right of M38 at top is Sharpless 2-230. The tiny intense patch of red nebulosity at upper left is Sharpless 2-235. The colourful asterism of stars between IC 410 and IC 405 is variously known as the Little Fish or the Flying Minnow., made of the stars 16, 17, 18 and 19 Aurigae. The field of view is just under 9° by 6°. This is a stack of just 7 x 4-minute exposures with an Askar FMA230 astrograph (230mm focal length at f/4.5), and filter-modified Canon Ra camera at ISO 800. However, no filters were employed here. Nebulosity was brought out using successive curves with luminosity masks generated by Lumenzia. All alignment and layering in Photoshop. Taken from home on January 27, 2022. Autoguided with the MGEN3 guider and dithered. No LENR or dark frame subtraction was employed on this mild winter night. Some light haze in some frames added the star glows. This was a stack of the best 7 frames out of 30 taken this night!
Complex of Nebulas in Central Auriga (Canon R6)
This is a framing of the rich array of nebulas in central Auriga. The complex of star cluster Stock 8 and IC 417 is at upper left. The large nebula at lower centre is IC 410 with the star cluster NGC 1893 embedded in it. The large nebula at right is IC 405, aka the Flaming Star Nebula, with a mix of red emission and blue reflection nebulosity. The colourful asterism of stars between IC 410 and IC 405 is variously known as the Little Fish or the Flying Minnow., made of the stars 16, 17, 18 and 19 Aurigae. The field of view is just under 4° by 2.7°. This is a stack of 10 x 6-minute exposures with an Askar FRA500 astrograph (500mm focal length at f/5.5), and stock Canon R6 camera at ISO 800. No filters were employed here, and the R6 performed very well for picking up the faint red nebulosity. Even so, nebulosity was brought out using successive curves with luminosity masks generated by Lumenzia, plus an application of the Nebula Filter action in PhotoKemi Startools Photoshop action set. All alignment and layering in Photoshop. Taken from home on January 26, 2022. Autoguided with the MGEN3 guider and dithered. LENR dark frame subtraction was employed to eliminate the edge amp glow the camera is prone to. Some light haze in some frames added the star glows.
Complex of Nebulas in Central Auriga (Canon Ra)
This is a framing of the rich array of nebulas in central Auriga. The complex of star cluster Stock 8 and IC 417 is at upper left. The large nebula at lower centre is IC 410 with the star cluster NGC 1893 embedded in it. The large nebula at right is IC 405, aka the Flaming Star Nebula, with a mix of red emission and blue reflection nebulosity. The colourful asterism of stars between IC 410 and IC 405 is variously known as the Little Fish or the Flying Minnow., made of the stars 16, 17, 18 and 19 Aurigae. The field of view is just under 4° by 2.7°. This is a stack of 10 x 6-minute exposures with an Askar FRA500 astrograph (500mm focal length at f/5.5), and filter-modified Canon Ra camera at ISO 800. However, no filters were employed here. Nebulosity was brought out using successive curves with luminosity masks generated by Lumenzia, plus an application of the Nebula Filter action in PhotoKemi Startools Photoshop action set. All alignment and layering in Photoshop. Taken from home on January 27, 2022. Autoguided with the MGEN3 guider and dithered. No LENR or dark frame subtraction was employed on this mild winter night. Some light haze in some frames added the star glows.
Clusters and Nebulas in Auriga
This is a portrait of the main glowing nebulas amid star clusters in central Auriga, the Charioteer. The main nebula at right is the Flaming Star Nebula, aka IC 405. But in this long exposure its mass blends into the central roundish nebula, IC 410. At top left is the pair of Sharpless nebulas, Sh 2-232 and the small Sh 2-235. The fingerlike nebula at top centre is Sh 2-230. The star cluster just to its left is Messier 38, with the small cluster NGC 1907 just below M38. The star cluster at left centre is Messier 36. At centre frame is the nebula IC 417 around the cluster Stock 8. The line of colourful stars at lower right between IC 405 and IC 410 is the Little FIsh or Flying Minnow asterism, aka Mel 11. This is a stack of 6 x 8-minute exposures at ISO 3200 through an Optolong L-Enhance dual-band nebula filter, blended another filtered set of 6 x 16-minute exposures at ISO 3200 with the Optolong L-eXtreme narrowband filter, all blended with a stack of 6 x 8-minute exposures without a filter (for more natural star colors and the blue reflection nebula in IC 405) at ISO 800. All with the Canon EOS Ra camera through the f/5 51mm William Optics RedCat astrograph with a Starizona filter drawer. Autoguiding was with the Lacerta MGEN3 autoguider which applied a dithering shift between each frame to help cancel out thermal noise when stacking. No darks or LENR were used here on this mild winter night at -5° C or so. All stacking, alignment and blending was in Adobe Photoshop 2021. Luminosity masks (DM2, D and M) applied with Lumenzia helped bring out the faint nebulosity. The set was taken as part of testing the L-eXtreme filter to determine its effectiveness in bringing out more nebulosity. It did not contribute much to this stack and required even more exposure time that would have been better spent taking more unfiltered and L-eNhance frames.
Autumn Stars RIsing at Driftwood Beach
The autumn constellations rising over the autumn trees at Driftwood Beach, Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada, on a moonless night on September 24, 2016. The Pleiades is at lower right, the Andromeda Galaxy at upper right. The W of Cassiopeia is at upper left, Capella in Auriga is at lower right. Perseus is centre right. Illumination is from starlight and by lights from the glow of the townsite across the lake. Faint bands of red airglow are visible in the sky. This is a stack of 8 x 30 second exposures, mean combined to smooth noise, plus one 30-second exposure for the sky, all with the Sigma 20mm lens at f/2.5 and Nikon D750 at ISO 4000.
Backyard Milky Way with Jupiter and Saturn Rising
The late-night spring Milky Way from my rural backyard in Alberta (latitude 51° N) on a fine May night in 2020, with the waxing Moon just setting and lighting the landscape and sky. Jupiter (brightest) and Saturn to the east (left) are just rising together at left, east of the Milky Way. West of the galactic centre at right is red Antares in Scorpius. The Small Sagittarius and Scutum starclouds are prominent at centre, with their various Messier nebulas and star clusters visible. This is a stack of 4 x 2-minute tracked exposures for the untrailed sky blended with a stack of 4 x 2-minute untracked exposures for the sharp ground, with the 20mm Nikon F-mount Sigma Art lens on the Canon EOS Ra camera using the Metabones Nikon F to EOS R lens adapter. I shot this as a test of the lens adapter. Taken May 27/28, 2020. The camera was on the iOptron SkyGuider Pro tracker.
The nearby and fast-moving star, Barnard’s Star in Ophiuchus, captured in a wide field of view about 6° wide taking in nearby IC 4665, a large open cluster above Beta Ophiuchi, aka Cebalrai. Barnard’s Star, as discovered by EE Barnard in 1916, has a large “proper motion” across the sky of 10.4 arc seconds per year, among the largest known, in part because of its proximity of only 6 light years away, making it the closest single star to our solar system (Alpha Centauri is closer but is a multiple star system). Its rapid motion causes it to move 1/4 of a degree in a human lifetime. However, its rapid motion is also because it is plunging through the local solar neighbourhood from the galactic halo where it was born. It does not belong to our local spiral arm and is an intruder from afar. The red dwarf star also has a very low metallacity, meaning it lacks elements heavier than helium, again evidence for its place of origin and old age, as it was born before many of the heavier elements were synthesized in later generations of stars like our Sun. An inocuous looking star with a curious tale to tell! It was tough to identify the star at first because the digital (SkySafari) and print atlases (such as Millennium Star Atlas) showed the nearby stars and patterns fine, as in the photo, but not the star in question. Why? Because Barnard’s Star had moved north since the data for those atlases, even the digital ones, was compiled. They were plotting the star farther south but there was nothing at that spot on my photo. (Starry Night did seem to plot it for its current, not past position.) Even so, Barnard’s Star, while rated as magnitude 9.5, is faint (as you can see) and not an obvious sight at all in the eyepiece in a visual look earlier this night with the 105mm refractor. It did not look red visually and does not look red on the photo, unlike the mag. 6.7 star toward the centre of the frame (HD 162648) which does look quite red. I would have expected Barnard’s to be similar, being a red dwarf. But not so. It is too faint, or simply not red enough despite its temperature of 3200 K. This is a stack of 18 x 2-minute exposures with the Borg 7mm f/4 astrographic refractor and Canon 6D MkII at ISO 800. Taken August 8, 2019 from home just as and after local moonset.
Beta Cruxis, or Becrux aka Mimosa, the second brightest star in the Southern Cross, Crux. It is a blue star 280 light years away. This is a superb double star but is not resolved here. Small star clusters NGC 4852 (at left) and NGC 4755 (at below left) appear near Becrux. The latter is the famous Jewel Box Cluster. The north edge of the Coal Sack apepars at bottom. The large cluster Trumpler 20 is at right. I shot this April 3, 2016 from the Tibuc Cottage, Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia using the 77mm f/4 astrographic refractor and filter-modified Canon 5D MkII, for a stack of 4 x 6 minute exposures at ISO 1600.
The Belt and Sword region of Orion, with the Orion Nebula, Messiesr 42 and 43, at bottom. Below the left star of the Belt, Alnitak, is the famous Horsehead Nebula, while above it is NGC 2024, aka the Flame Nebula. The field is filled with faint red emission and blue reflection nebulas. The large loose open cluster Collinder 70 surrounds the middle star of the Belt, Alnilam. The field is similar to that of binoculars. This is a stack of 5 x 2.5-minute exposures with the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 1250 and 200mm Canon L-Series lens at f/2.8. Some light haze passing through in some exposures added the natural star glows. I left those in as part of the stack to add the glows. I did not take shorter exposures to blend in for the core of the Orion Nebula. Next time! Taken with the Fornax Lightrack tracker as part of testing. Taken from home on a rare fine and mild winter night, January 4, 2019. Diffraction spikes added with Astronomy Tools. Main images stacked with Median stack mode to eliminate satellite trails from geosats that populate this area of sky.
The Belt and Sword of Orion with Barnard's Loop
The Belt and Sword region of Orion, with the Orion Nebula, Messiesr 42 and 43, at bottom. Below the left star of the Belt, Alnitak, is the famous Horsehead Nebula, while above it is NGC 2024, aka the Flame Nebula. At very top left is Messier 78, while part of Barnard’s Loop arc across the field at left. The field is filled with other faint red emission and blue reflection nebulas. The large loose open cluster Collinder 70 surrounds the middle star of the Belt, Alnilam. The field is similar to that of binoculars. This is a stack of 16 x 2- to 3-minute exposures with the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 800 to 1250 and 200mm Canon L-Series lens at f/2.8. Taken with the Fornax Lightrack tracker as part of testing. Taken from home on January 8, 2019 in a clear couple of hours between haze patches, and while battling dying batteries for the drive and camera. Diffraction spikes added with Astronomy Tools. Main images stacked with Median stack mode to eliminate satellite trails from geosats that populate this area of sky.