Summer's humidity and haze still lingers despite the calendar, but there have been a solid number of good nights this month. The following images were taken with the new Orion 6" f/4 Astrograph (with a GSO Coma Corrector) and the modified T2i camera.
NGC 6992
The most prominent segment of the eastern side of the Veil Nebula, this supernova remnant, stretches for 90 light years or more and is about 1,500 to 1,900 light years distant.
This image comprises 61, 60-second sub-exposures for just over an hour of total exposure.
NGC6960
The western segment of the Veil, and possibly it's most beautiful and ephemeral slice as a major filament appears to pass near a relatively bright star.
This image comprises 66, 60-second sub-exposures for a total exposure time of one hour and six minutes.
M31 - The Andromeda Galaxy
One of the most famous objects in the night sky and visible to the naked eye. Located about 2.5 million light years away and possibly twice the size of our own Milky Way galaxy, containing as many as a trillion stars.
This image comprises 79, 60-second sub-exposures for almost an hour and twenty minutes of total exposure time.
M33 - The Triangulum
Relatively bright, but notoriously difficult to image, this galaxy appears in Triangulum, near Aries and Pegasus and visually not far from M31. The galaxy is actually 2.3 million to 3.1 million light years away and is part of the Local Group along with the Milky Way and M31, but is the smaller of the three at just 60,000 light years across and containing perhaps 40 billion stars.
This image is composed of 25, 300-second sub-exposures for a total exposure time of two hours and five minutes.
NGC7830
Sometimes referred to as the Wizard Nebula, this emission nebula surround a small cluster of stars was first identified by Caroline Herschel in 1787. It is about 7,000 light years distant and appears in the constellation Cepheus.
This image comprises 22, 300-second sub-exposures for a total exposure time of two hours and fifty minutes.
