Stars and Planets: Messier101 - The Pinwheel Galaxy

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Messier101 - The Pinwheel Galaxy

A new attempt on the famous The Pinwheel galaxy in constellation Ursa Minor. With the distance of 27 MLY from us, it is one of the larger galaxies (almost 2x the Milky Way). It contains enormous hydrogen starforming clouds. Apparent magnitude 8.3. 13 subframes each 6min, ISO3200 throught CPC 11-f10 and camera Canon 40D(modified). Guided C8oED.

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Welcome to my Blog

My interest in Astronomy goes back to when I was 10 years old and started looking at stars with binoculars. Since then I have always been fascinated by the Universe.

Astrophotography is a difficult game and I am certainly a newbie here. The pictures are mostly made out of multiple subframes stacked and aligned. Since I am using a regular DSLR cameras the noise is high and sensitivity low compared to what you get from the more expensive CCD astronomy cameras. But you can still get decent result if you are patience and have stamina to use one night to get pictures and one day to stack and process them. Anyway I hope you will enjoy watching.

Some help for first time visitors:

I use the term Mxx or Messier xx, I refer to object # xx in Charles Messier's catalogue, first published in 1774. Messier objects

A more comprehensive catalogue of galaxies and objects is the NGC catalogue also with its number. It contains open and globular star clusters, diffuse and planetary nebulae, supernova remnants and galaxies of all types. List of NGC objects .

Sometimes the Index Catalogue (IC) is used for reference. Category:IC objects

MLY = Millions of Light Years, the speed of light is 300 000 km/sec.

kLY= Thousand Light Years.

Apparent magnitude refer to the how the light is seen by us. A minus figure would be bright object, like the Moon -12, the star Sirius -1.5, Vega 0, Andromeda galaxy about 4. Magnitude 4-6 would be the best you can see with naked eye, in a light polluted district (which we have almost everyone) the limit would be like magnitude 3. With a telescope and a camera I can take pictures up to magnitude 12-15 without too much trouble. The really faint objects in the sky.

Telescopes and cameras:

Today I am the lucky owner of four telescopes, and I certainly are using them as often as I can, for visual viewing and astro photography. My telescopes are:

Astro Physics 1200 mount. (2010)

Celestron CPC 1100 SCT focal lenght2800mm, f10 on a Milburne wedge, With focal reducer to f6.3 and 1760 mm focal length.

Celestron C80ED Refractor focal lenght 600 mm, f7.5. With focal reducer/flattener 0.8 to f6 and 480 mm.

Williams Optics 110 APO refractor, f7. (2010)

Celestron C6 A on a CG-5 equatorial mount very little used now.

Takahashi TOA130 with 4 inch focuser and flattener.

Canon EOS 40Da (Modified by Hutech)

Apogee Alta F16M

Filterwheel: StarlightXpress Universal Filterwheel. Astronomics Ha, Oiii and Sii and LP 2" filters.

Filterwheel: Apogee AFW50-7S, 7 postion, 50 mm, LRGB, Ha, Oiii and Sii Astrodon filters.

Stellarvue, 50mm, 200 mm focal lenght, f4.

Guiding, NexImage video camera and StarlightXpress Superstar Autoguider mono.

Stars and Planets

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Messier101 - The Pinwheel Galaxy

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