Venus

Yesterday, before Merope, I tried to photograph Venus. It was low on the horizon. The result is quite poor...

Venus

Celestron C8 and CCD Imaging Source DMK31AU03.AS Monochrome. 800 frames at 1/200 sec elaborated with Registax.

Merope

Yesterday night it was so cold that my telescope froze! Before to go back inside, I obtained some images of Merope (one of the Pleiades). It is the star surrounded by the major part of the nebulosity (look at my previous post). After processing of the final picture I had a surprise: if you look at the star, you can see a small spot attached on the right side of the disc. I thought it was due to a dust grain on the lens, but then, searching on the internet, I discovered that it is a little nebula (IC349) distant only 0.06 light years from Merope!

Merope and IC349

Canon EOS 1100D at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

80x30 sec frames , 20 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

Here a detail of IC349 in a black and white image elaborated to decrease the luminosity of the star:

Pleiades

The night of my last Moon pictures I decided to try the Pleiades (just after the moonset) with the Canon piggybacked on the telescope. I programmed to do 120 shots of 1 min each. Unfortunately quite soon it became cloudy, so I got only 15 frames... This is the result:

Pleiades

Canon EOS 1100D piggybacked on GE mount (no guide). 200mm macro lens. f/5.6, ISO 800, 15 RAW frames 1 min expo each + 10 dark frames, stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp.

Back to the Moon

After long time yesterday I turned back to the Moon. Images are made with Celestron C8 and CCD Imaging Source DMK31AU03.AS Monochrome, keeping the best 10% of about 1500 frames at 1/125 sec elaborated with Registax.

Apenninus mountains with craters Archimedes (the big one) and Eratosthenes (on the right).

Craters Clavius (the big one in the shadow), Maginus (central position) and Thyco (the round one with high borders)

Craters Ukert (central position) and Agrippa (top left). Between them the Ryma Hyginus.

Craters Alphonsus and Arzachel on the bottom left.

Craters Plato (the big one) and Cassini (centre top). Between them the Alps mountains.

The Moon without telescope

Moon

Canon EOS 1100D macro lens 300 mm

single shot 1/1000 sec  , ISO 800

...and Uranus

Uranus single 1 sec shot:

Uranus

Canon EOS 1100D at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

1x1 sec frame , ISO 800 

Far away galaxies

Another wet night, but the sky was clear enough to look at two faint spiral galaxies:

M 74

Canon EOS 1100D at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

63x60 sec frames , 20 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

NGC 278

Canon EOS 1100D at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

50x60 sec frames , 20 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp