September 20, 2009

More cool, clear nights. After watching the summer slip away in rain and clouds, I wasn't about to waste any time. The scope was out and the camera exposing all night long Friday and Saturday night, right up until the break of dawn.

IC 434 - The Horsehead Nebula

A little taste of the winter sky, captured around 4 a.m. I hadn't planned on staying up quite that late, but when I spotted Orion climbing above the treeline, I couldn't resist taking a try at the Horsehead.

The nebula's eponymous horsehead shadow is the result of a jet of sooty dust colliding with the ionized hydrogen gas cloud of an reflection nebula. The Horsehead is about 1500 light years away and appears near the bright star Alnitak, the leftmost star in Orion's belt.

This image is composed of ten, 300-second sub-exposures, for a total exposure of fifty minutes.

M45 - Pleiades

This image comprises six, 600-second sub-exposures for a total exposure time of one hour.

NGC 1805

This image captures part of a large nebula complex, sometimes referred to as the Heart Nebula. The full nebula is larger than the Starshoot Pro's field of view.

Ten, 600-second sub-exposures were combined to create this image with a total exposure time of 100 minutes.

NGC 7293 - The Double Helix Nebula

This faint planetary nebula in Aquarius is the result of a star's death throes and formed about 10,000 years ago. The nebula is about 700 light years away.

This image comprises two sets of sub-exposures: 35, 150-second subs, captured on September 18; and 10, 180-second subs, captured on September 19. Total exposure time was one hour and fifty-seven minutes and thirty seconds.

IC 5146

A parting shot at the Cocoon Nebula as its slips away.

Eight, 300-second sub-exposures were stacked to create this 45 minute exposure, taken on September 19

M33

The Triangulum Galaxy is a spiral galaxy, seen face on, located about three millions light years away in the direction of the constellation Triangulum (near Andromeda).

Eleven, 300-second sub-exposures, taken on September 18, were stacked to create this 55 minute exposure.