Monday, August 21, 2023

Pluto, M75, NGC 6939 and the Fireworks galaxy

As a bit of a novelty I noticed that Pluto was in the same region of sky as M75, so I thought I'd see if I could image it in the same field of view. Despite the objects being low in the sky (just 15 degrees above the horizon) and with quite a lot of light pollution I was able to take 36 minutes total luminance exposure and was able to identify the tiny and faint dwarf planet Pluto against the myriad background stars. This was the first time I had imaged Pluto and I hope to repeat the exercise in a few weeks' time to show its movement across the sky.

Click on an image to get a closer view

Pluto and M75



After imaging Pluto, I slewed the scope towards the zenith and imaged another nice pairing in Cepheus; the so called "Fireworks Galaxy" and nearby globular cluster NGC 6939. This time I took over three hours’ worth of data in all available channels (L/R/G/B/Ha/SII/OIII).

NGC 6939 and the Fireworks galaxy



The equipment used was an Altair EDF60 doublet refractor fitted with a 0.8 x FR using a ZWO ASI 533MM Pro camera with 8 position filter wheel. Data was captured in NINA and stacked and processed in Pixinsight and Adobe CS2.

Chris Bowden 

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