Bubble Nebula and M52 Open Cluster

The Bubble nebula or Caldwell11 (bottom right) was discovered in 1787 by William Herschel. Located  in the constellation of Cassiopeia its about 11,000 light years away and totally unrelated to M52 (top left). The bubble is caused by the stellar wind from a massive, very hot, young star which disturbs the giant molecular cloud that surrounds it, making it glow. It seems to sit in a fan shaped void.
M52 or NGC7654 was discovered in 1774 and is about 5,000 light years away. Its relatively young at 35 million years and contains 200 stars with a diameter of just 19 light years. It also contains another very small cluster HIP115521 and a white giant star HIP115542.
The image is rich with stars as the view is through our own galaxy, the Milky Way
The image was generated from 20 light frames, 10 dark 10 Flat and 10 Bias frames. exposure was at ISO 1600 for 150 seconds giving 50 minutes. Scope was an ED80 @ 510mm focal length. I'm really please with this image as its very faint and small, taken with an unmodified old dslr.

Messier 33 Triangulum Galaxy

M33 Triangulum galaxy or the Pinwheel galaxy is 2.3 million light years away in the constellation of Triangulum. Containing about 40 billion stars its a small faint deep sky object. Difficult but rewarding to photograph at last. Captured over 2 nights using 32 Light frames, 16 Dark, 11 Flat and 10 Bias. Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, finished in Photoshop CC. Guided using PHD2 and ZWOasi120mc camera. The 0.85 field flattener is great at making round stars right to the edge of the frame and making the scope faster, from focal length 600mm f7.5 to 510mm f6.4. Backyard EOS is a great software program for Canon and Nikon cameras. I used 120 second Exposures @ISO 1600 with an 8 second mirror lockup to settle the scope then a 20 second pause between shots to cool the dslr sensor. BYEOS also enables PHD2 to Dither between shots, helping to reduce noise when stacking.

M31 the Andromeda Galaxy 11th Sept 2015

M31 contains a Trillion stars.The image also contains 3,320 stars (counted by deepskystacker) which must be in our galaxy the milky way.

The image was made using my skywatcher ED80 600mm refractor with a 0.85 field flattener making the scope f6.3. Guided with Phd2 using a zwoasi120mc ccd camera through a Skywatcher ST-80 refractor.
I used Backyard EOS to focus the 40d dslr camera and take the Lights, darks, flats and Bias calibration frames. I also use BYEOS to drift align the mount.
Cartes du Ciel was used to slew and sync the scope via EQASCOM and EQMOD.
The image is made from 21 Lights@ 180seconds and 8 dark frames@iso800, plus 20 flat and 10 Bias frames. A total of 63 minutes exposure. I also used 8 seconds of mirror lockup and 15 second pause between images to allow the sensor to cool down a bit. This is probably my favourite image so far, I cant wait to take some more frames of this wonderful galaxy and bring out more detail.

Messier 15 (NGC 7078) globular cluster.

Messier 15 is 33,600 light years away in the constellation of Pegasus.

Home to over 100,000 stars M15 is the oldest known cluster at 12 billion years old and has a rare type of black hole at its centre. - (Wikipedia).

This image is made from 12x180 second exposures @ISO 800 plus 10 darks, 10 bias and 10 flat frames. I also used a 42 second exposure to bring out some of the detail in the very dense and bright centre of the cluster.
Phd2 guiding was used to guide my field flattened ED80 using a ZWOASI120MC camera (0.2 second exposures) attached to a SW 80T guide scope.
Capture camera was an unmodified canon EOS40D DSLR controlled by my home made camera trigger allowing mirror flip then Stacked using deepSkyStacker.

Because clouds are so unique, so is this image.

Laying back in a garden chair on a warm sunny June afternoon, I opened my eyes and this amazing cloud filled my gaze. After just a few seconds I knew I had to photograph it before it drifted away . I raced indoors and up the stairs, grabbed my old Canon 400D and ran down again. Hoping the cloud was still there and had not changed shape or disintegrated I hurriedly set the camera. I normally shoot RAW manually but I new I only had a few seconds before the cloud would be obscured by a large tree so I set the camera to AV (aperture priority mode) and chose f/10 as my aperture. I checked the auto focus and image stabilisation were on so I framed it and took the shot. At ISO 100 the camera set itself to 1/40 of a second.
So a couple of things came to mind - You never know where you next image may come from so keep a camera ready and if your in a hurry use AV mode. Because clouds are so unique, so is this image.

M10 Globular cluster in Ophiuchus

A cropped view of M10 situated some 14,300 light years away.

 Discovered on the 29th May 1764 by Charles Messier,this faint cluster (magnitude 6.6) cannot be seen by the naked eye even though its 83 million light years in diameter.
Travelling away from us at 69 kilometres per second it it lies only 16,000 light years from the centre of the our galaxy the Milky Way.

Full size image

Taken using 7 x 180 second exposures at iso800 & Canon 40D.
Sky-watcher ED80 DS pro refractor with 0.85 reducer.field flattener.
Focused using a Bahtinov mask
Heq5 pro mount guided by a Sky-watcher 80T refractor , ZWOASI120MC camera and PHD2.
Processed in Deep Sky Stacker and Photoshop CC.

This is the first time I have used the ED80 focal reducer/field flattener which improves the focal ration from f/7.5 to f/6.375. The field flattening is now very good with virtually no signs of coma (smudged stars away from the centre of the image). Nice round stars, even in the corners of the image!!!

Messier 5 Globular Cluster in Serpens

24,500 light years away, M5 contains up to 500,000 stars and is not really visible to the naked eye.

Discovered in 1702 by Gottfried Kirch, this is one of the largest clusters known at 165 light years in diameter. Its 13 billion years old. The large star in the image is called 5 Serpentis (a white giant) and is only 82.8 light years away.
This is the first guided image I have taken using my ST80 guide scope and ZWO ASI120MC guide camera using PHD2. The image contains only 6 x 3 minute subs and 9 x 30 second subs for the core of the cluster.
Darks, Flats, and Bias frames where also used in Deep Sky Stacker.
So I'm really pleased to have been guiding on my first attempt.

Waxing Moon 29th May 2015

Shot through light cloud, I took 35 images with my Canon 40d @ 1/160 sec ISO 100 with Mirror lockup. The scope was my ED80 with no filter. The 35 images were stacked in AutoStakkert and finished in Photoshop CC.

The image below is a single unstacked image processed only in Photoshop. It gives a less detailed image probably due to the extra noise reduction.

M51 Whirlpool Galaxy. My favourite Galaxy!!

M51a (or NGC 5194) was discovered in 1773 by Charles Messier.

It is about 25 million light years away.

M51a is only 35% the size of our galaxy (the Milky Way) and is about 38,000 light years in diameter.

Made up of two Galaxies, the small galaxy called M51b (or NGC 5195) passed though M51a disturbing it around 550 million years ago and is still seen interacting with it today.

The image was captured with just 11 minutes of data using my ED80 DS PRO refractor attached to a prime focused Canon 40d.

21 x 30 second exposures unguided at ISO 1600.
Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker with dark, flat and bias frames.
Finished in Photoshop CC.

Here is a wider field of view

My plan in the future is to introduce guiding using a guide scope to increase the exposure time to get more data.

Messier 13 (M13) The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules

This is my first attempt at a deep sky object using my new Skywatcher 80ED DS Pro refractor attached to a Canon 40D. 15 x 30 second images @ iso 1600 were stacked in DSS.
M13 contains an amazing 300,000 stars and is 22.2 million light years away.
Discovered by Edmond Halley in 1714 it is an enormous 145 light years in diameter.
By the way, 1 light year is about 6 trillion miles.
A faint side on spiral galaxy, named NGC 6207 is far left of the image and is between 30 and 45 million light years away.