M15: Globular Cluster in Pegasus - George Dingwall

6x60 secs exposures, 10 matching dark frames subtracted. MX7C Starlight Xpress CCD camera, Nexstar 11GPS. Processed with Astroart, stacked with Maxim Dl and tweaked in Photoshop.
Picture added on 27 March 2005.

George Dingwall

M45: The Pleiades 09/2002 - Maarten de Vries

This picture of the Pleiades star cluster (M45) was taken on September 2002 from Knockban near Munlochy using a Pentax K1000 at the prime focus of a Helios Startravel 102 on a dual axis driven EQ3/2 mount. The focal ratio of the setup was f/5 and the exposure was 5 minutes on Kodak 200 asa film.

Maarten

M31: the Andromeda Galaxy 21/09/02 - Maarten de Vries

This picture was taken on the 21st of September in 2002 from Knockbain in Munlochy using a Pentax K1000 at the prime focus of a Helios Startravel 102 scope on a driven EQ3/2 mount. The exposure was 10 minutes on Kodak 200 asa colour film. The image was then scanned in black and white.
Picture added on 16 January 2005.

Maarten

M42: The Great Orion Nebula - George Dingwall

M42 - The aptly named Great Nebula in Orion - imaged using Nexstar 11GPS, Starlight Xpress MX7C CCD camera. Composite of 10x60 sec exposures, stacked in Photoshop.

George Dingwall

M42: Orion Nebula 04/01/05 - Eric Walker
The heart of the Great Orion Nebula taken on 04 January 2005 using a Meade DSI Pro with f/3.3 focal reducer at prime focus through an 8" SCT from Conon Bridge.

Individual RGB and IR-L FITS images were combined and processed using Photoshop CS (ref. Faulke's Telescope - Going Nova Science Festival 2005).

After 3 hours of imaging I was covered in a sparkling layer of frost - the final result was worth it though.

www.astrophotos.plus.com

M33: The Pinwheel Galaxy - George Dingwall

Composite of 10 x 60 second exposures with Starlight Xpress MX7C CCD camera, Nexstar 11GPS scope and f3.3 focal reducer. Images stacked with Astroart 2 and tweaked in Photoshop.

George Dingwall

M74: Face on spiral galaxy in Pisces - George Dingwall

Composite of 10x60 sec exposures through Nexstar 11GPS, MX7C Starlight Xpress CCD camera and f3.3 focal reducer. Images stacked with Astroart 2 and tweaked in Adobe Photoshop.

George Dingwall

M2: Globular cluster in Aquarius - George Dingwall

Nexstar 11GPS, f/3.3 focal reducer. 5x60 secs exposures with Starlight Xpress MX7C colour CCD camera. Processed with Astroart, combined in MaximDL and tweaked in Photoshop

George Dingwall

M57: The Ring Nebula - George Dingwall

Central star (15th mag) visible. Nexstar 11GPS, f3.3 focal reducer, Starlight Xpress MX7C CCD camera. 10x60sec exposures combined/processed in Photoshop.

George Dingwall

M1: The Crab Nebula - The Faulkes Telescope Team

The picture seen here of M1, the famous Crab Nebula, is a preview of the sort of images that may be produced by the Faulkes Telescope imaging team at the forthcoming Going Nova event on Saturday 12th November.

The image was taken remotely, using the 2m Faulkes telescope in Hawaii, by Bill Lesley of SIGMA. The FITS images were then processed by Eric Walker of HAS using the Photoshop 'FITS Liberator' plug-in software. This makes the image a true SIGMA/HAS collaboration- hopefully the first of many!

More information about the Going Nova event, which takes place at Horizon Scotland, in Forres, can be found on the 'Events' page of the Spacegazer website.

M97: The Owl Nebula 12/11/05 - The Faulkes Telescope Team

Great image of M97 in Ursa Major. Known as the 'Owl Nebula' because of its distinctive similarity to the face of an owl, M97 is a planetary nebula with a 16th magnitude central star- here easily captured by the Faulkes telescope in Hawaii.

The image was captured and processed by Bill Leslie at the Going Nova science event on Saturday 12th November.

M51 and NGC 5195 13/04/07 - Eric Walker

This image, taken on (Friday 13th April no less) captures the spiral galaxy M51 in Canes Venatici along with galaxy NGC 5195. It is thought that the interaction between the two galaxies caused the irregular shape of NGC 5195 and has created areas of star formation within M51.

The image was captured using a Meade LX50 8" SCT telescope with f3.3 focal reducer, Meade Deep Sky Imager Pro, and Meade AutoStar Envisage software. Images processed using FITS Liberator in Adobe Photoshop CS, and Neatimage. A Haartman mask was used to achieve perfect focus.

www.astrophotos.plus.com

M65 13/04/07 - Eric Walker

Taken on Friday 13th from Conon Brodge, using Meade LX50 8" SCT with f3.3 focal reducer and Meade DSI Pro camera with AutoStar Envisage software. LRGB, 20 images each, 15 seconds per exposure, total exposure time 300secs per filter. Hartmann mask used to achieve best focus, and images tweaked in FITS Liberator (Adobe Photoshop CS) and Neatimage.

M65 is one of the Leo Triplet galaxies, and is fairly easy to observe at magnitude 10.5. It is a spiral galaxy, but appears slightly edge on to us, so appears elliptical.

www.astrophotos.plus.com

M13 - Great Globular Cluster in Hercules 21/08/07 - Eric Walker

M13 - 25,100 light years away. Several hundred thousand stars in cluster. 145 light years across. Around 14 billion years old. Globular cluster M13 was selected in 1974 as target for one of the first radio messages addressed to possible extra-terrestrial intelligent races.

Taken from Beinn View Observstory, Conon Bridge, fairly early on the evening of 21 August 2007 (around 10:45pm BST) and the skies weren't totally dark at this latitude (57°N).

Got focus pretty good (Hartman mask) but there was some high thin cirrus cloud present.Canon EOS 400D attached afocally to Meade 8" SCT with no focal reducer. ISO 1600, f/5.8, 30 & 45 second exposures. 7/11 images stacked with Registax V4 then further processed using Photoshop CS and NeatImage.

www.astrophotos.plus.com

M42 & M43 01/2008 - Eric Walker

Testing out my new autoguiding interface and software. By the time I got everything set-up and worked out how to use things Orion was getting a bit low in the SW. I still wanted to squeeze off at least one image of The Hunter's Sword and managed to get this single image.

Canon EOS 400D piggybacked on auto-guided LX50 mount with Sigma 70-300mm f4-5.6 APO DG Macro telephoto zoom lens. One manually focused 90sec exposure at ISO 1600. Image processed as Tiff file in Photoshop CS and NeatImage.

(Not bad for a test image! - Antony)

www.astrophotos.plus.com

M45: The Pleiades - Alan Tough 09/01/10

This image of The Pleiades was taken from Elgin on January 9. Thin high level cloud caused me some processing difficulties though.

The 50 minutes worth of data were processed using Photoshop 7 (including Noel Carboni's astronomy actions and StarSpike Pro plug-in) and Neat Image.

Equipment used: Sky-Watcher ED80, HEQ5 mount, Canon EOS 40D at prime focus, Astronomik CLS filter. Exposure details: 5 x 10 minutes @ f/7.5, ISO-800. Guiding equipment: Sky-Watcher ED100, StarShoot Autoguider.