Comet C/2013 US10 (Catalina)

Just managed to catch Comet C/2013 US10 (Catalina) last night before it gets ejected from the solar system forever.
























The comet is 68 million miles away travelling at 132,000 miles an hour and was  near the star Alkaid in Ursa Major.

M108 Galaxy & The Owl Nebula M97

Two amazing deep sky objects in one image taken in the Constellation of Ursa Major.

TOP LEFT - M108 (NGC3556) is a barred spiral galaxy discovered in 1781. It is 46 million light years away and has a mass 125 billion times that of the Sun with a diameter of 100,000 light years. Its often called the Surfboard Galaxy as from Earth its seen edge on.
BOTTOM RIGHT - M97 (NGC3587) is a Planetary Nebula about 8000 years old and also discovered in 1781. Often called the Owl Nebula its about 2600 light years away and if you look closely two owl eyes can be seen, The centre star in this nebula is a white dwarf star.

NGC 2903 Barred Galaxy

NGC 2903 is a beautiful, faint barred spiral galaxy similar to our own Milky Way Galaxy but about half the size in the constellation of Leo. NGC 2905 is a bright star cloud within this galaxy.

Its about 25 million light-years away.

That sounds a long way away and it is.

If you could travel at 671 million miles per hour ( the speed of light) it would take 25 million years to get to this Galaxy which is about 80,000 light years across.

Lake Pier, Hamworthy, Dorset.

Taken just after a sunset that didn't really happen. Again taken with a Canon 10-18 lens. I'm starting to get addicted to landscapes!!

Corfe Castle in Black & White.

I found this shot after my main shot when I returned to my car after the the big climb to the top of a hill which looks down on Corfe Castle. The camera was set to ISO100 and the lens was @ 10mm. It looked very ordinary until I converted it to black and white.

The Running Man & M42

Made from 22 x 45 second subs @ ISO1600 after months of cloudy nights I finally managed to get a reasonable image of these two amazing nebula. The camera is an unmodified Canon 40d so I'm quite pleased with the amount of colour in the image.

Corfe Castle sunrise

I've always wanted to photograph Corfe Castle and as I only live 30 minutes away i'm not sure why it took me so long. I used Google maps and the Photographers Ephemeris to plan the shoot and I arrived an hour early. I didn't realise how steep the climb was going to be so its always better to arrive early as rushing to set the camera up can lead to mistakes. The hill in the background is where I'm going to try a sunset image of the castle ruins.

Thurlestone in Devon

On a visit to Devon I found myself faced with a dull overcast and very windy day. The temperature was around 14 degrees which is very mild for the time of year. The shot was difficult to compose and I eventually put the horizon in the middle. In hind site the grass in the foreground nearly took over the image so I probably should have moved forward a bit.  However I quite like this image and I judge that by how many times I keep looking at. The images that attract my attention end up as my laptops wallpaper and this one was no exception.
Taken using a tripod and my Canon 40d, ISO 100 @f/9 and a focal length of 10mm. Four image stitched using Adobe Photoshop CC making use f the Camera Raw filter.

M45 the Pleiades or The Seven Sisters

M45 is found in the constellation of Taurus, Made up of around 1000 member stars its one of the closest star clusters to Earth at only 444 light years away. Dominated by young blue stars (75-100 million years old) its a reflection nebula caused by dust reflecting the blue light.
Its often called the Seven Sisters from Greek mythology but as you can see there are more than 7 bright stars. The image below shows the seven sisters and their parents (Atlas and his wife Pleione).

The Heart nebula IC1805

With my unmodified Canon 40d I almost didn't bother to image this nebula. Although its not going to win any awards but you can see some red nebulosity and make out its distinctive shape.
Discovered in 1787 by Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel its 7500 light years away, located in the Perseus arm of our galaxy in the constellation of Cassiopeia. Its apparent size is 1 degree by 1 degree and its apparent magnitude is 6.5.
The bright stars in the middle making up a open cluster are called Mellote 15, some of which are 50 times the mass of our sun, driving the intense red plasma of ionised hydrogen and free electrons.. At its centre are two stars locked in orbit, doomed to fuse together and explode in a supernova in 700 million years, making the unique shape of the nebula .
I used 26 x 3 minute exposures at ISO1000 guided with PHD2.