NGC 55 and 253.

NGC 55(and a bonus NGC 253).

Here is what wikipedia has to say about NGC 55:

NGC 55 is a Magellanic type barred spiral galaxy located about 7 million light-years away in the constellation Sculptor. Along with its neighbor NGC 300, it is one of the closest galaxies to the Local Group, probably lying between the Milky Way and the Sculptor Group.


I photographed this galaxy on the night of the 23rd August 2017.
For the first time I was using a filter for my astrophotography work, a Meade series 4000 nebular-broadband.
This was graciously sent to me by a friend in Germany, many thanks JG.
The filter has helped bring out some finer detail and also reduced the purple halo's around the brighter stars. It makes a tremendous difference when processing the image.
I need to take a closer look at filters and see how they could further be used in future.

Right, let's get down to it with the details of the shoot.

Skywatcher 102 alt/az goto.
Canon 1200D(no astro mods)
Meade filter.
153 X 25 second light frames.
149 X 25second dark frames.
10 Flat frames in AV mode.
ISO 1600.
Used the camera white balance when stacking in DSS and then processed in both Star tools and Photoshop.

First, here is where she found herself in the night sky at the time of capturing the data for the image.

And here we have NGC 55.

As an added bonus I also got a half decent image of NGC 253.


Before shooting NGC 55 I did a bunch of practice exposures on NGC 253.
Later I examined the images and decided to have a go at stacking them to see if there was anything there. Turns out I managed some decent exposures.
I only took 44 exposures and discarded a few and only 32 ended up in DSS along with some darks and flats.

I was very surprised at the results despite the high noise factor due to the low number of light frames.
When you first use the Star tools colour module it selects what it believes to be the best true colour/s.
It selected the colours you see in the image and I liked it and kept it.

So without any further fuss here it is.

And the star chart for NGC 253.

Thanks for taking a look at this blog post and your comments are always welcomed.

Clear skies all!

Sun August 20 2017

SUN AUGUST 20th 2017.

With the fast approaching eclipse I decided to do some solar AP work.
Been a while since I last took images of the sun so I am happy with the results.

Sadly the eclipse will not be visible from South Africa so I will have to make do with imaging the lovely sunspot group designated AR 2671.

96 still frames.
Stacked in Registax 6.
Processed with photoshop and false colour added.

Skywatcher 102.
Canon 1200D.

And a crop of the sunspots.

TUC 47: Short exposure astrophotography.

This is my second attempt at this target for this season.

I have tried something new here. Taking a bunch of different length exposures and combining them in DSS.
It worked out surprisingly well, at least I think so.

The image is composed of the following:

90 exposures ranging in duration from 5 to 20 seconds along with 60 dark exposures.
These were then stacked in DSS and processed in Star tools.
Skywatcher 102 alt/az goto.
Canon 1200D.(no mods).
ISO 800

This is where it was in the sky at the time of shooting.

And here is TUC 47.

Thanks for reading and clear skies!