Edge On Spiral

NGC 4565 in Monoceros would be seen as a classic spiral shape, were it not edge-on to our line of site.

This is a combination of 30min exposures through each of red, green and blue filters to produce the final image.

On the Terminator

The first quarter moon has some fascinating terrain on the terminator that can provide a lifetime's worth of exploration, in even a modest telescope. This is a stacked web-cam image taken to the north of the crater Archimedes and is centred on Aristillus, with Cassini just to the north, below the Montes Alpes.

Vanishing Rings

This stacked, web-can image of Saturn was taken on the evening of the 2nd April using a 4X barlow on an 8" f5 Newtonian. A little sharper than the last image taken in February due to the planet's greater altitude in the sky, from my observing site.

A Cosmic Whirlpool

This image of M51 in Ursa Major is combination of about 30mins each of RG &B through the WO Megrez 72 refractor. The background has suffered due to a build up of dew on the lens towards the end of the imaging session, as a result of a dodgy dew heater connection.

Edge On Rings

At last a clear spell at 3:00am! Despite poor seeing conditions, the first image of Saturn this season, showing the near edge on rings. Contrst this with the image taken last year.

Pushing the magnification

I recently tried to image Saturn, which is not currently visible from my garden until about 3:00am due to the tree cover. In preparation, I set up the scope during the evening and used the waxing moon as a target to focus the web-cam. As usual, the weather frustrated any hope of imaging Saturn as by 3:00am, the clouds had rolled in.

All I was left with was about 30seconds worth of sub frames of two of the craters on the moons southern hemisphere.

So instead of Saturn, here are a couple of high magnification shots of both Gassendi and Marsenius.

Waxing Moon

The waxing gibbous moon as photographed on the evening of 5th January 2009. A stack of 10 images taken with a Canon 350D at the prime focus of an 8" Newtonian.