The Whale barred spiral galaxy NGC 4631

The Whale galaxy is about 30 mly away. Its 90,000 ly in diameter and contains about 50 billion stars. Its calf swimming along just above is a dwarf eliptical galaxy called NGC 4627.
Below left is the Crowbar or Hockey Stick galaxy which is actually 2 galaxies NGC 4656 & NGC 4657. Although this is a cropped image I'm still pleased with the amount of detail.
I used 29 x 5 minute exposures at ISO 1600 with my ED 80 scope and light pollution filter even though the sky was good due to a new moon. I added 20 each of Flat,dark and Bias calibration frames. Within an about my scope needed a Meridian flip. I normally don't like doing this as its often a pain realigning losing valuable imaging time.This time however I used Astro Tortilla and plate solved it in 28 seconds. The target was bang in the centre. Just amazing!!!

M13 : Great Cluster in Hercules

Messier 13 is a Globular Cluster of 300,000 stars in the constellation of Hercules. Its 25,100 light years away, 145 light years in diameter and 11.65 billion years old. 

In 1974 a radio wave message, directed at the cluster was sent from the Arecibo Observatory. The message contained information such as details about the Human Race, DNA, Atomic numbers and Earth's position. The message will take 25,100 years to get there and if any one lives there it will take 25,100 years to get back. We already know of 15 stars in this cluster which have orbiting planets, so you never know.

You may notice that there is a small galaxy in the bottom left of the image. Its called NGC 6207 and its only small because its so far away at a distance of 30 million light years.

So when you look at this amazing cluster of stars, its relatively close to us but where is it?

This is where it is within the constellation of Hercules.

The Stars in the constellation are only a few hundred light years away but M13 is much further away at 250,100 light years away.

All of the stars in the image are within the disk of our own galaxy. However, clusters are often positioned just above or below.

M13 is no exception.

This diagram below courtesy of thinkastronomy.com shows where we are in relation to M13 and our position in our galaxy the milky way.

You can download this brilliant program called "Where is M13"  by Bill Tschumy from -
http://www.thinkastronomy.com/M13/common/download.html

My image was made from 27 x 2 minute exposures combined with 41 darks, 21 flats and 20 bias frames. Camera was an astro modded Canon 40d without LP filter. Phd2 guiding was used and for the first time I successfully used Astro Tortilla to plate solve rather than aligning the scope to three stars.

M101 The Pinwheel Galaxy Widefield

M101 is a beautiful Face-on Galaxy about 21 million light years away and 170,000 light years across. Its also home to 1 trillion stars and can be found in the constellation Ursa Major ( The Plough).
The image contains 8 galaxies including NGC 5474, the fuzzy galaxy near the bottom right of the image. Its the closest galaxy to the the Pinwheel galaxy and they have both been distorted by the gravitational forces between the two.
This wide field image is 2.5 degrees across and a full moon is about 0.5 degrees across.
The diagram below shows its position relative to the Plough.

The image _ ISO 1600 x 300 seconds 67 images stacked in Deep Sky Stacker.