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One of our closest
neihboring galaxies, M31 The Andromeda Galaxy. At 2.5
million light years away and 140,000 light years in
diameter, it covers 6x the width of the moon in the sky.
The core is visible to the naked eye as a small fuzzy
patch. This is a two-pane mosaic, 72 minutes of exposure. |
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| M-51, 5/21/09.
Three hours exposure. Compare to the earlier attempts
below |
This galaxy
has no name, just the catalog number NGC4565. It's a
spiral galaxy, viewed edg-on. It is 31 million light
years away. This is just under 4 hours of exposure, 5/19/09. |
This is a
galaxy cluster called the Leo Triplet. The galaxies are
about 35 million light years away. Total exposure, about
6 hours over two nights at the end of March, 2008. |
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| M33, The
Pinwheel Galaxy. 3 million light years distant (one of
our closest neighbors) and 60,000 light years across (relatively
large). It covers more area in the sky than the moon and
is visible in binoculars. This is about 4 hours exposure,
LRGB, on 10/20/07. |
M101, the Whirlpool Galaxy. I'm a little
disappointed in how noisy it is, considering how much
time I spent on it - it is 7 hours of exposure over
several nights in May, 07. The galaxy is almost as big as
the moon in the sky even at 27 million light years
distance. It's a huge galaxy, at 170,000 light years
across.
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M-51, again.
this is my favorite galaxy, so I've taken a few pictures
of it. This is about 4 hours of total exposure, taken on
3/5 and 3/9/08. It's much better than the one I took last
year. |
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| This is luminance data
taken on 3/9/07 combined with color data from 2/7. I may
yest redo the luminance data, but obviously the color
data needs to be better. Still, it is a huge improvement.
60x2min luminance. |
This is M-64, AKA the
Black Eye Galaxy due to the appearance of a partial ring
of dust that obscures some of the stars near the core.
The colors aren't' right, but it looks cool. 5 1/2 hours
worth of exposure time, LRGB, taken 4/20/07. |
The Sunflower
Galaxy again, taken 3/18/07. It is nearly five hours of
total exposure. Compare it to the previous one below -
huge improvement. |
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| This is M81,
a spiral galaxy about 12 million light years away and 40,000
across. |
NGC2903, 16x3min,
lrgb. 20million light years distant, taken 2-17-07. There's
more color in there, if I can figure out how to bring it
out. |
M63, the
Sunflower Galaxy, 37 million light years away. Taken 2-8-07.
20x120s, lrgb |
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I spent about 9 hours in a parking lot the
day after Thanksgiving, and I got quite a few good
pictures. This is M81, again. It is a luminance only
image, 25x45s. I learned that night that when the
temperature drops 20 degrees in 2 hours, my telescope
shrinks enough to go out of focus! I took color photos
that didn't come out.
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This is M77, a spiral galaxy about 60
million light years away, also taken 11/24/06. It is
relatively large, at 120,000 light years (ly) across (a
little larger than our galaxy, the Milky Way). 15x45s,
lrgb.
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M51, taken 2/7/07. 1min & 2 min subs,
rgb. It has some issues, such as no dark subtraction and
som weird color gradient. But it is still better than the
one halfway down the page, taken with my old equipment...
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This is M33, aka the Pinwheel Galaxy. It
is big and diffuse, so this is a composite of two images
(I really need a composite of 4 or 6). It is about 3
million light years away and 50,000 in diameter (3rd
largest in our local group, behind M31 and our Milky Way.
20x45s, l.
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This is M82, a neighbor of M81. They are
only about 150,000 ly apart. Sometime, I'll take a wider
angle image, showing both in the same field of view. 20x45s,
rgb.
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This is
another picture of the Andromeda Galaxy, our large, near
neighbor, 3 million ly away and 250,000 across. 20x120s,
c. |
