SK Astro
Author

Stephen Kirk

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Asterisms

Kemble’s Cascade with Samyang 135mm

Kemble's Cascade Zoomed

Kemble’s Cascade in Widefield Setting Kemble’s Cascade (Kemble 1) is a chance straight-line alignment of 17 or so stars between the 5th and 10th magnitudes in the far northern constellation of Camelopardalis. The stars are of different colours and look lovely in a widefield telescope or binoculars. At the end of line of stars is the open star cluster NGC 1502. This asterism is named after the Franciscan monk and amateur astronomer Lucian Kemble. The cascade itself is about three angular degrees in length. Image Technical Data Imaged from my backyard in Nottingham, UK on 14 September 2020. Part of an automated capture sequence and the exposures were taken between 02:00 > 04:00 in the morning. Needless to say I was in bed asleep at the time 🙂 I processed the images afterwards. I used Samyang 135mm DSLR lens connected to my Moravian Instruments G2-8300 CCD camera with Astrodon RGB…

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Nebulae

The Veil Nebula – Samyang 135mm Lens

The Veil Nebula in Cygnus is the remnant of a supernova of a star about 20 times the mass of the sun that exploded about 20000 years ago. The nebula is a huge, very faint and diffuse object, about six moon widths in diameter and is located about 2500 light years away. Very few telescopes can capture the entire Veil Nebula complex due to the huge angular size that it presents on the sky and creating a multi-frame mosaic is a very time consuming process, especially in the UK where clear nights are such a rare and premium time. This makes DSLR lenses ideal and few are better or as cost effective as the Samyang 135mm that was used to capture this image. The Veil Nebula in HaRGB Image Technical Details The image was captured from my backyard in Nottingham in the UK on the nights of the 13th and…

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Nebulae

The Heart and Soul Nebulae Samyang 135mm

HaRGB_PS

The Heart and Soul Nebulae are a well known and famous pairing of Nebulae in the late summer/autumn sky of the Northern Hemisphere.  These nebulae are located far away – 7500 light years – in the Perseus arm of the galaxy, further out from the core of the galaxy than the Sun and are vast star forming regions rich in Hydrogen Alpha that gives the images the intense red glow.All image data collected with a Samyang 135mm lens at F2.8 with a Moravian G2-8300 CCD camera.  Below is the RGB image gathered with Astrodon RGB filters.  All binned 1×1:  Red 14 x 300s; Green 13 x 300s; Blue 14 x 300s.  This gives an RGB integration time of 210 minutes or three and a half hours.The picture looks nice but it does lack punch and vibrancy as it stands.  It needs the addition of the Hydrogen Alpha data that will…

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Galaxies

M96 Group in Leo – FSQ85

The M96 Group is a cluster of galaxies in the constellation of Leo.  Not to be confused with the separate and arguably more famous Leo triplet.  The M96 group contains three Messier galaxies (M95, M96 and M105) and many fainter galaxies in the background.  The three main galaxies are about 35 million light years away and are easily visible in small telescopes.  M96 Group Image Technical Data Technical Information Imaged from my backyard, March 2019, in Nottingham, UK.  I used my FSQ85 refractor with 0.73 reducer and my Moravian instruments G2-8300 CCD camera and Astrodon LRGB filters.  Mount is my MESU200 and guided with an Off-Axis guider. Image acquisition data:Luminance 11 x 600s 1×1; Red 9 x 300s 2×2; Green 10 x 300s 2×2;  Blue 10 x 300s 2×2 M96 Group Annotated

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Galaxies

NGC 2403 – TEC140

NGC 2403

NGC 2403 is a spiral galaxy located about eight million light years away in the constellation of Camelopardalis in the Northern hemisphere. It is an outlying member of the M81/M82 group. You will note that it bares a striking resemblance to M33 and contains huge HII star forming regions. NGC2403 is much smaller than our own galaxy, being only about 50000 light years in diameter as opposed to about 120000 light years for our own Milky Way galaxy. It is not known why a smaller galaxy like this should have such huge HII regions that dwarf those of our own, larger galaxy. NGC 2403 Image Technical Data Imaged from my backyard, March 2019, in Nottingham, UK. I used my TEC 140 refractor with Atik 460 CCD camera and Astrodon LRGB filters. Image acquisition data, everything binned 1×1 Luminance 29 x 600s; Red 12 x 300s; Green 12 x 300s; Blue 12…

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