IC 1795

The Fish Head Nebula in Cassiopeia lies next to the Heart Nebula. For the image  Ha,S11 and O111 filters on a SX Trius 694 mono camera were connected to a Takahashi 106 refractor over a period of 4 and 1/2 hours last night.
 This is an emission nebula spanning about 70 light years across approximately 6000 light years away.

IC 1396

The Elephant's Trunk nebula is a concentration of interstellar gas and dust within a larger ionized gas region I.C.1396 in Cepheus.In the bright moonlight narrowband filters were considered appropriate,12x600sHa,6x600sO111 and 6x600sS11 using the Hubble palette.The telescope was a Takahashi 106,camera a SX Trius 694,guided with an OAG and Lodestar, location Hatfield Woodhouse.

I have been trying out with the Society's LDX55-AR6 refractor which the Society wishes to sell.  I have got the system working enough to try it out under the stars.

I took these pictures of the Moon and Saturn last night in less-than-perfect conditions, although I am quite pleased with the final results.  Both pictures were taken with the same camera at prime focus of the telescope.
I have pasted the picture of Saturn onto that of the Moon to illustrate their relative sizes in the sky.

Peter

Recent Sunspots

Solar activity is diminishing in its 11-year cycle, but there have been a few nice spots recently and I have used them to try out the Society's 6-inch refractor.  There was a nice single spot at the end of May and the AR-6 gave me a nice picture once I tried using a narrow-band filter with it.  Then more recently there has been a nice set of three spots.

Here firstly are whole-Sun pictures taken with a 270-mm SLR lens in white light.

Top:  Sunspot 12546 taken 24 May 2016



Below: Sunspots (left to right) 12567, 12565, and 12566 taken on 17 July 2016












The here are close-up pictures firstly of 12546 taken with the AR-6 refractor and an OIII filter.

And then the group of three taken in white light using my ETX125


Sadly this last is not as good as I would expect.  Maybe seeing conditions were worse than they appeared to be.

Peter