Jupiter, Callisto transit

Jupiter is 365 million miles away and is so big that 1300 Earth's could fit inside.
The black dot showing on Jupiters surface is the shadow cast by Callisto just to the right of the shadow,
one of its 62 moons. Callisto has a diameter 1.4 times bigger than our moon.
To the left of Jupiter is the moon Io which is almost the same size as our moon.
Our Moon orbits the Earth every 27 days, however, Io orbits Jupiter in just 1.8 days
so I could see it travel across Jupiter in just 3 hours.

The image was made from 1201 frames taken using my ZWOASI120MC camera
and my Meade Etx 105 Maksutov Cassergrain telescope.
Captured using Sharpcap and stacked with Registax. The mount was a Skywatcher Heq5 pro.

Messier 3 Globular Cluster (NGC 5272)

Messier 3 is a globular Cluster in the constellation of Canes Venatici.
It is not possible to see with the naked eye and appears as a faint smudge in binoculars.
Discovered in 1764 by Charles Messier it contains 500,000 stars like our Sun.
The Earth is 4.5 billion years old but this cluster is much older at 11.4 billion years old.
Its over 200 light years in diameter and 34,000 light years away.
To put this distance into perspective:
Light takes just 4.1 light hours to travel from the Sun to the farthest planet Neptune.
Oh and by the way M3 is hurtling towards us at 331,200 mph.

This image took 2hrs of exposure at ISO1000.

The Horsehead Nebula

Also known as Barnard 33 this dark nebula is 1500 light years away in the constellation of Orion, just below Alnitak (the left hand star in Orion's belt). The horse head is easily recognisable and is made up of thick black dust. Just below and to the left is the Reflection Nebula NGC 2023 and to the left of that is the amazing Flame Nebula.
Imaged with only 20 minutes of data very near to a full moon its my first go at this amazing object with my astromodified dslr. Hopefully I can do better next year when Orion comes around again!!

The Rosette Nebula NGC 2237

TThe Rosette nebula is about 4700 light years away in the Perseus Arm of our Galaxy in the constellation Monoceros. Its about 130 light years in diameter.

The young open star cluster at the centre is NGC 2244 is only a few million years old and is only visible using binoculars or a small telescope. However the red Nebula can only be shown in detail using modified cameras with light pollution filters. The hot bright stars in the centre are super heating the gas cloud of hydrogen gas, ionising it and making it emit red light in a specific wavelength.

Object: Rosette Nebula NGC 2237(and central star cluster NGC 2244)

Distance to Earth: 4700 light years

Age: 4 million years

Magnitude: 9

Constellation: Monoceros (Unicorn)

Discoverer: (NGC2244 John Flamsteed 1690) (NGC 2237 John Herschel 1840)

Imaging telescope/lens: SKY-WATCHER EVOSTAR-80ED DS-PRO + 0.85x focal reducer.

Imaging camera: Astro modified Canon 40d.

Guiding telescope or lens: Sky-Watcher Startravel-80T

Guiding Camera: ZWOASI120MC

Mount: Sky-Watcher HEQ5 PRO SynScanTM GOTO Equatorial mount

Guiding Software; PHD2, Stellarium Scope, Stellarium.

Image Software: Backyard EOS, DSS, Photoshop cc.

Filter: Astronomik CLS EOS clip filter for deepsky/light pollution.

Accessories: DIY dew heater bands and Arduino contoller. Bahtinov Mask.

Dates: Feb. 14, 2016

Frames: 9×240″

Integration: 0.6 hours

Moon phase: 40.4%

Location: Home observatory, Poole, UK.

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.