SK Astro
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Stephen Kirk

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Open Clusters

M45 The Pleiades

M45

Introduction M45 – The Pleiades Presented here is M45, the famous Pleiades Open Cluster of stars. Image was captured in one imaging run on the night of 18th December 2019. This image shows a small sub-section of The Pleiades, the “head”. This main triangle shape of the bright stars Maia, Electra and Taygeta is visible to the naked eye. Known since ancient times from cultures all over the world and even featured in prehistoric cave paintings, The Pleiades is a large, open cluster of stars in Taurus, visible late autumn and winter in the Northern Hemisphere The Pleiades are actually composed of hundreds of stars, about 470 light years away. The cluster is vert young, about 20 million years, and is moving through a cloud of interstellar gas and dust. At some point many millions of years in the future, the stars will lose their mutual gravitational attraction an d will…

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Open Clusters

M36 Open Cluster in Auriga – FSQ85

M36 Open Cluster

M36 is an Open Cluster of stars (as opposed to a Globular Cluster) in the Constellation of Auriga.  M36 is high overhead in Europe during the nightimes of winter months and is one of three Messier Open Clusters in Auriga, the others being M37 and M38.  All of these are visible in a small pair of binoculars as nebulous and fuzzy blobs.  M36 and the other clusters make a fine site in a telescope and dozens of stars can be seen.  Note also the Red nebula to the top left – NGC 1931 (Sh2-237).  There are some tiny PGC catalogue galaxies, billions of light years away in this image. M36 Open Cluster in Auriga This image was taken from by backyard in Nottingham, UK on the 24th January 2018 with my Takahashi FSQ85 refractor and Moravian instruments G21-8300 CCD camera with Astrodon RGB Generation 2 E series filters on MESU…

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Telescopes

My TEC 140 Refractor – Ordering, Review and Impressions

TEC 140

TEC 140 mounted on MESU 200 Please note, the opinions expressed here regarding my TEC 140 are mine.  No one paid me any money, offered me any free equipment or offered me any discounts or services on anything astronomy or otherwise nor did they request I write this article.  I bought my telescope with my own money and I offer my thoughts, ideas and opinions to help others because I enjoy doing so, not for material or financial gain for myself.  If the scope sucks, rest assured I will say so. Introduction Mention the word “telescope” to the general public and they will almost certainly think of what we astronomers know as a refractor.  If you asked a child to draw a telescope, it’s a refractor they will draw for you.  Refractors are the oldest of telescopes and it was a refractor that Galileo pointed at the stars and Jupiter…

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Telescopes Uncategorized

Further Experience with Takahashi FSQ85 Baby Q

I have had the scope for three weeks now and have used it three times. That’s good going in the UK in case you possibly thought that’s bad; it’s not uncommon to wait for six weeks for a first light in our cloudy climate!  Anyway, leaving aside the usual British moans about our weather……The FSQ is so easy to use.  Just point it, focus and forget.  I am using Baader LRGB filters in 1.25″ guise in an Atik EFW2 filter wheel.  These filters are stated to be parfocal.  However, with my Skywatcher ED80 telescope I found they were not.  The focus wandered slightly between the filters.  I normally focus on the Luminance channel first.  I then grab LRGB in that order.  But by the time I got to the blue filter I found stars were becoming bloated, not massively – but enough to take the edge off the picture.  This…

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