NGC 7331 and other galaxies

[chuckp]

I took this a few years ago when I would travel to a dark site. I sure do miss shooting galaxies at a dark site. This was taken with my Celestron 9.25 with a Optec 0.67 reducer. The dedicated Celestron reducer does a much better job on the stars but is was not available at the time. This is 10 subs at 420 sec. using a Starlight Express sx25c one shot color camera. I was not really happy with this camera for how much I paid for it so I traded for a good set of filters for a mono camera. I will be trying more galaxies from my light polluted backyard, taking many real short exposures to see if I can combat the lp.

 

[AlanLichty]

Beautiful deep space scene. I like the feeling of depth in the resulting image.

 

[JimFox]

How far away was your closest dark site?

This one is really great. I looked it up, it is a very small galaxy. It would probably just look like an out of focus star with my setup.

There is something so cool about spiral galaxies, and it’s neat to see a few smaller ones in the background.

 

[chuckp]

Beautiful deep space scene. I like the feeling of depth in the resulting image.

Thanks Alan!

 

[chuckp]

How far away was your closest dark site?

This one is really great. I looked it up, it is a very small galaxy. It would probably just look like an out of focus star with my setup.

There is something so cool about spiral galaxies, and it’s neat to see a few smaller ones in the background.

Closest dark skies was about 65 miles. Bortle 4 skies when I first started to go. Last year FDOT put street lights up to light up the on/off ramps on I-75 known as Alligator Ally. Our site was about 1/2 mile from there. It was called the Fakahatchee Strand. There is a darker site another 25 miles away, which is where the astronomy clubs go on moonless weekends. I have quite a few galaxies that I imaged over the years, some with super nova's. I'm getting the bug again to start going to dark sites.
It is very small, this is cropped considerably even imaging at over 1600 mm.

 

[Yervant]

I took this a few years ago when I would travel to a dark site. I sure do miss shooting galaxies at a dark site. This was taken with my Celestron 9.25 with a Optec 0.67 reducer. The dedicated Celestron reducer does a much better job on the stars but is was not available at the time. This is 10 subs at 420 sec. using a Starlight Express sx25c one shot color camera. I was not really happy with this camera for how much I paid for it so I traded for a good set of filters for a mono camera. I will be trying more galaxies from my light polluted backyard, taking many real short exposures to see if I can combat the lp.
View attachment 37295

Excellent. Speaking of reducers. Is there a reducer that's available to use on a full frame camera? One that won't leave a circle on a FF sensor?

 

[chuckp]

Excellent. Speaking of reducers. Is there a reducer that's available to use on a full frame camera? One that won't leave a circle on a FF sensor?

Usually the dedicated reducers/flatteners for the telescope will work with FF sensor. you would have to check specs on both.

 

[Keith Grice]

I took this a few years ago when I would travel to a dark site. I sure do miss shooting galaxies at a dark site. This was taken with my Celestron 9.25 with a Optec 0.67 reducer. The dedicated Celestron reducer does a much better job on the stars but is was not available at the time. This is 10 subs at 420 sec. using a Starlight Express sx25c one shot color camera. I was not really happy with this camera for how much I paid for it so I traded for a good set of filters for a mono camera. I will be trying more galaxies from my light polluted backyard, taking many real short exposures to see if I can combat the lp.
View attachment 37295

Brilliant..

 

[chuckp]

Brilliant..

Thank You Keith!

 

[Mike Lewis]

Lovely object, that flocculent detail makes this galaxy really unique looking. Great colors too, very natural looking with some color in the stars as well.

This has been on my list for a while, once I am imaging with magnification again.

ML

 

[chuckp]

Lovely object, that flocculent detail makes this galaxy really unique looking. Great colors too, very natural looking with some color in the stars as well.

This has been on my list for a while, once I am imaging with magnification again.

ML

Thanks, It is pretty small even in the 9.25