This is one of the first images taken from my back garden in Eaglesham, with an ATIK 2HS modified web cam CCD camera. M42, or the Great Orion Nebula, is a region of new star birth and is one of my favourite objects. It is an obvious first target but I make no excuses.
I use an 8" Newtonian telescope on an Pro-upgraded HEQ5 equatorial mount. At the moment I am trying to get the equipment set-up to autoguide via an Opticstar PL 130C video camera through a Shoestring Astronomy GPUSB autoguiding kit. All of this, unfortunately, is defeating my (t)rusty old Dell laptop, so the family is currently living on dog food whilst I save for an upgrade.
The Flame nebula, NGC 2024 lies to the north of M42, still in the constellation of Orion. The bright star in the image is the left most star in Orion's belt, Alnilam.
Galaxies come in a zoo of shapes and sizes ranging from eliptical through spiral to irregular. This is M51, the whirlpool galaxy in Ursa Major. It is significant as it was the first galaxy to be seen in detail through the 72" reflecting telescope at Birr Castle, Ireland in 1850, hinting at the true nature of its spiral form.
This is M101 in the constellation of Coma Berenices, a classic face on spiral. The image captures something of the dusty spiral arms and concentrations of star burst regions where new stars are forming.
NGC 4565 is also a spiral but this time seen edge on. A dark dust lane can be seen bisecting the spiral arms and the central core. The faint distant galaxy NGC 4562 can just be seen to the upper left.
This image captures two galaxies, M65 & M66, part of a group of three known as the Leo triplet. It highlights one of the limitations of the current set up which is the limited field of view available. This was taken using a 0.5x focal reducer, giving a total field of view of about 25x33 arc seconds.
Globular cluster M13 lies in the constellation of Hercules at a distacce of 250,000 light years and is 150,000 light years in diameter. It is one of the brightest globulars in the Northern sky.
The lunar eclipse of 2007 was an opportunity to capture the event from start to finish, as shown in this series ofimages.
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