M31, first of the season

Last night, I did a "first light" run with my new telescope. A William Optics FLT98 CF w/ AFR-IV. I did a quick processing run this morning to see the results, and I have to say I am quite pleased with the result. Sharp image, despite the autoguiding was under par. When I left it, it had a rms of about 1.2"... I will tune that better for the coming season, but for now, I'm happy with the results. The scope at least performed brilliantly. So I cannot complain.

Tech det : WO FLT98 w/ AFR-IV flattener/reducer (0.8x). Pentax K5, ISO 400, 30x5min. autoguided using QHY5II and PHD2. Stacked in DSS, processed in PS.

Edit : New version with more colour.

M82 - "The Cigar"

M82 is part of a galaxy pair in Ursa Major. It is about 12 million lightyears away. It doesn't have the usual shape that we are used to see for galaxies. And there seems to be strings of gas flowing out from the galaxy. It is therefore called an "irregular galaxy". On January 24th, a supernova was detected in this galaxy. I took a photo of the galaxy a week before. But due to terrible weather in the weeks to follow, it took a long time before I was able to see it in an image myself. I decided to take a longer exposure of the galaxy using a remote telescope.
Tech details : 20" F/6.8, FLI PL09000, 3x3 binning. Exposure : Luminance 20 min, R, G & B : 5 min 20 sec each. Stacked in DSS, processed in PS.

NGC4565 - The Needle

This is one of my favorite galaxies. An edge-on galaxy in Coma Berenice. I have tried my luck at this several times, but this is the first time with a bigger scope with longer focal length. It is obvious that the oversampling in this picture does it good. Lots more detail than I have previously been able to aquire. And in such a short exposure. But I guess that is from the fact that the camera uses 3x3 binning... Should be a lot faster then.
Tech data : FLI PL09000 camera, 3x3 binning, Luminance : 15x50 sec exposure, RGB : 5x40 sec exposure. Telescope : 20" F/6.8. Stacking in DSS, processing in PS.

NGC2903, another try

After a dismal spring this year, we have finally had quite a few nights of clear skies. And I and a few friends had to exploit his. Especially since the weather forecast is looking bad in the coming days, and the Sun is intruding more more. In a few short weeks, there will not be more astronomical twighlight this winter.
I decided to try an oldie goldie. The NGC2903 in Leo. This was the very first deep sky object I imaged in the late 90's. It was just a smeary blob on the film. This time, I decided to try autoguiding for longer sub-frame exposures. 2 minutes seemed ok, since that would allow me to evict all the frames containing satellites and bad guiding. There were a lot of satellites this night. Three satellites in different orbits raced through the tail of Leo simultaniously at one point. So it was obvious there would be a lot of streaks. Only had to evict 7 frames from the stack, so I guess I was lucky.
Tech : Pentax K5, ISO 800, 59x2 min guided exposures, TPO 6" RC, w/APCCD67 reducer (f/6), Celestron Advanced VX, stacked in DDS, processed in PS.

Black-eye galaxy

The skies do have a "black eye". And I have taken a snapshot of it. M64, in the constellation Coma Berenices. The "black eye" is quite obvious in this picture. Taken from one of our usual spots outside of Oslo. I tried a bit longer exposures this time around, using autoguider. Still haven't quite mastered the technique, and the guide-scope iced down, so PHD guider was struggling to follow the star properly, but it managed to keep the stars round'ish.
Tech details : Pentax K5, ISO 800, 45x2 min guided exposureTPO 6"RC w/APCCD67 reducer (f/6), Celestron Advanced VX.

3C273

This may possibly be of the farthest object I will ever photograph. The quasar 3C273. It is also the brightest of the quasars.
Tech details : Pentax K5, ISO800, 4x1min unguided exposures. TPO 6" RC w/AP CCD67 reducer (f/6). Stacked in DSS, processed in PS and IrfanView.

M63

The Sunflower galaxy. A beatiful galaxy. I had some problems with my guiding last night. Kept jumping up and down, but I managed to get about 2 hours with sort-of round stars. At the Harestua Solar observatorium, the skies where exceptionally clear. We could clearly see details in the belts of Jupiter, so I figured I'd try this galaxy. The small galaxy at the bottom right corner is UGC 8313.
Tech details : Pentax K5, ISO-800, TPO 6" w/ AP CCD67 reducer (f/6), Celestron Advanced VX mount, 23x5 min guided exposures, QHY-5II guide camera, Orion Mini Guider scope. Stacking in DSS, processing in PS and IrfanView.