M63 – Sunflower Galaxy

Posted on by
Reply

Discovered first by Pierre Mechain on June 14, 1779, and then included into Charles Messier’s catalog the same day. This was the first Deep Space Object that Messier’s friend, Pierre, had discovered. M63 was one of the first early recognized spiral galaxies. This galaxy is joined in a group of several small galaxies about 6° north of it in the M51 group.

The box marks the location of M63

The box marks the location of M63

Although this galaxy has a visual brightness of 8.6 magnitude I found it a little tricky to pinpoint. I used stars from Ursa Major and Canes Venatici to estimate where to aim the scope and then I had to do a bit of sweeping around with the scope to find it. Visually from where I am it wasn’t much more than a round fuzzy which was mainly the core and a little bit of the spiral disk. This picture brings out a lot more detail than I would have thought this galaxy had.

M63 – The Sunflower Galaxy. 05-05-13

32 images at 2 minutes a piece, ISO 800, and 24 dark frames. Stacked in deep sky stacker and post processing done in Photoshop.

Equipment:
Omni XLT 150 with CG-4 mount
Modded Canon 350D
T-ring and adapter
Intervalometer
Polar Scope for alignment

NGC4565 – Needle Galaxy

Posted on by
Reply

NGC4565, also known as the Needle Galaxy, was discovered by William Herschel in 1785. The Needle Galaxy can be found in the constellation Coma Berenices. This is a prime example of an edge on spiral galaxy, and is visible even through a small telescope. This is a bright galaxy that if it were closer to the Milky Way galaxy it would quite possibly outshine Andromeda. There are two galaxies nearby to NGC4565 and one of which is believed to be gravitationally interacting with it. If our own galaxy was viewed from this perspective at a distance of 50 million light-years it would look very much the same.

The box marks the location of NGC 4565

The box marks the location of NGC 4565

This galaxy was quite easy to spot even from my own backyard. I didn’t magnify the galaxy at all to see it larger in my eyepiece as it may have blocked out too much of the incoming photons to get anymore detail out of it. Quite a view though as this looks like it’s name, a Needle.

NGC4565 – The Needle Galaxy. 05-03-13

This is 29 images at 2 minutes a piece, ISO 800, with 23 dark frames to remove noise. Stacked in deep sky stacker and post processing done in Photoshop.

Equipment:
Omni XLT 150 with CG-4 mount
Modded Canon 350D
T-ring and adapter
Intervalometer
Polar Scope for alignment

M65, M66, NGC 3628 – The Leo Triplet

Posted on by
Reply

M65 is a spiral galaxy and seems to have had little gravitational influence from it’s neighboring galaxies. Discovered on March 1, 1780 by Charles Messier. Tightly wound spiral arms along with a prominent dust lane on face on edge. Dominated by a smooth looking old stellar region and within the lane may contain some star forming regions. In 2013 the first supernova within the galaxy was discovered, known as 2013am first spotted on March 21, 2013.
M66 is another spiral galaxy and is considerably larger than M65. Also discovered by Charles Messier on March 1, 1780. This galaxy has a defined central bulge, and deformed spiral arms which may be the result of interactions with the gravity of it’s neighbors. Unlike M65, M66 shows a bit of nebulous regions signifying star forming regions near the end of one of the spiral arms.
NGC 3628 is an edge on unbarred spiral galaxy completely missed by Charles Messier and later discovered on April 8, 1784 by William Herschel. It may have been too dim to be seen in Messier’s telescopes, although his later instruments may have been able to see it if he went back during very good conditions. There is a dark band of dust along the equatorial region of NGC 3628 which hides not only some of the bright young stars in the spiral arm, but also obscures some of the bright central core. Also slightly deformed which is believed to be from it’s two neighboring galaxies, M65 and M66.

'X' Marks the spot of the Leo Triplet

‘X’ Marks the spot of the Leo Triplet

While viewing this group of galaxies I can’t help but notice the pareidolia of a face, with M65 and M66 as the eyes, and the edge on NGC 3628 as the mouth. With my gear I didn’t struggle to spot all three galaxies as Charles Messier did. The spiral arms of M65 and M66 were not much more than a bit fuzzy looking while the inner cores were bright. NGC 3628 was also quite visible and although it’s equatorial dust lane blocks a majority of the bright core it seems to have been the most prominent feature I could see through the eyepiece.

M65, M66, NGC 3628. 03-30-13

This image is 30 frames at 1.5 minutes a piece, ISO 800, and 30 dark frames. Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, and post processing done in Photoshop.

I get all my Deep Sky object information from The Messier Catalog.

Equipment:
Omni XLT 150 with CG-4 mount
Modded Canon 350D
T-ring and adapter
Intervalometer
Polar Scope for alignment

Weekend Sunspots

Posted on by
Reply

This image is up a day late due to some issues I had while stacking, but I finally got it straightened out. Although it’s a day late these same sunspots are still visible on the face of the sun if you were to look at it today, although slightly different looking.

Sunspots: 1728, 1730 , 1731, 1732, 1734, 1737, 1738, 1739, 1740. Taken 05-04-13

Sunspot 1739, coming around the eastern limb, has just released a M5 flare on May 3rd which isn’t Earth directed, but the spot is slowing making it’s way toward Earth and if the flares continue we could get some good aurora activity. Currently NOAA has an estimated 45% chance of solar activity that could affect Earth, so keep an eye out on www.spaceweather.com for more flare news.

M13 – The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules

Posted on by
Reply

M13 discovered by Edmond Halley in 1714 and then added to Charles Messier’s catalog on June 1, 1764, is a bright globular cluster in the constellation Hercules. This globular cluster is one of the largest visible in the northern hemisphere and on a clear dark night without a moon to interfere it is visible to the unaided eye. M13 is 25,100 light years away with an angular diameter of 20′, or 145 light years. The cluster contains hundreds of thousands of stars, and towards it’s dense core the stars are more about 500 times more concentrated than in the solar neighborhood. The age of the cluster is estimated to be around 14 billion years which was the revised estimate in 1962. There is a peculiar young blue star located within M13 named, Barnard No. 29.

'X' marks the location of M13

‘X’ marks the location of M13

I imaged and viewed this while there was an nearly full moon present and through the telescope it still stood out visually, although it seemed to wash out everything but the core for visual observing, and made resolving individual stars more difficult. Despite having a nearly full moon I was still able to get some pretty good images showing off this large northern hemisphere globular cluster.

M13 04-28-13

This image is 45 images at 1 minute a piece at ISO 800 with 34 dark frames. Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, and post processing done in Photoshop.

I get all my Messier list Deep Sky object information from The Messier Catalog.

Equipment:
Omni XLT 150 with CG-4 mount
Modded Canon 350D
T-ring and adapter
Intervalometer
Polar Scope for alignment