M17 - the Swan


Taken by Rhys Owen on the 13th of August, from home using a modified Canon 600D DSLR with an Astronomic CLS filter on a Takahashi FSQ106ED. The exposure was 30x60sec at ISO1600 and recorded in Nebulosity. Then calibrated with 5x60s darks and stacked in Astroart, and finally processed in Photoshop.

The Milky Way and the busy centre of Cygnus

 



This is a stack of 9 x 1 min. taken on 8.8.13, from Bessacarr by Bill Hughes, under Sodium Vapour street lights. The camera was set at ISO 1600, with a 50mm. F2.8 and an LPR filter.
See if you can pick out the nebulous areas, the largest and brightest is the North American Nebula, NGC7000, near the middle left with the Butterfly, NGC1813d, lower to the right.


 
Another by Bill Hughes from the same location and using the same camera with the gain set at ISO1600. The same street lights were doing their best to spoil things too. The lens fitted for this was a 14mm f2.8, so drawing in a much larger area of sky. The exposure was 10x1min. Again see what features you can recognise.

In both cases the processing was done in Deep Sky Stacker followed by Photoshop.

M39 - in Cygnus




Taken on the 5th of August 13, as a finish off to a 4 hour job, when the sky was dying out.
The usual kit was used, M25C in the 106 and the H9C guiding with a .67 focal reducer in the Vixen 260.
Stacked in Astroart with bias and masterflat and processed in Photoshop. The exposure was 11x120sec.

IC4665 in Ophiuchus


A wide cluster of blue stars, not many but clearly blue. Taken from the Austerfield Observatory on 5.8.13, with an M25C in a Tak106 at native FL. Guided by an H9C in a Vixen VMC260L with a .67 focal reducer. Nebulosity controlled the taking camera and Astroart the guiding one. Stacked in Astroart and processed in Photoshop. The spikes are of course artificial. Perhaps worth more time on it to highlight the dust lanes more.

NGC1318d in Cygnus




Taken on 3.8.13 from the Austerfield Observatory with the Tak106 and M25C. Not a great night, hazy and with intermittent cloud. Guided by an H9C in the VMC260 with a .67 focal reducer. The focal reducer helped find and hold stars by brightening them through the haze, but couldn't help it see through clouds. The small cluster to the lower left is NGC6910.
North is to the right with extremely bright Sadr cropped to just a glow at the bottom edge of the frame. The exposure was 21x300sec, stacked in Astroart and processed in Photoshop.