With a mostly clear night for a change I was able to image for over 8 hours and managed to capture three different parts of the sky with my Sky Watcher 80 Esprit and ASI 533MM Pro camera.
Click on an image to get a closer view
Rosette Nebula (NGC2244): I compiled two different data sets of this fine deep sky object; 2.25hrs of RGB and the same amount of SHO which I integrated in Pixinsight and processed separately to produce two different versions. I then blended the two sets together to make a combined RGB/SHO image comprising an integration totalling some 4.5 hours. This rather beautiful region of nebulosity lies in the Monoceros molecular cloud region of the Milky Way where new stars are being born and lies some 5,000 LY from Earth and being over 130 LY in diameter.
RGB
Bodes Galaxy (M81), The Cigar galaxy (M82) and NGC 3077: An RGB and Ha composition of 2.3 hours total integration time. These three galaxies are gravitational bound together and lie in the constellation of Ursa Major (The Plough). The forces exerted by each galaxy on one another strip away hydrogen gas, leading to large filamentary structures that glow in deep red which is particularly prominent in the so called Cigar galaxy M82. The large spiral galaxy of M81 is a so called "grand design" spiral and is around 12 MLY from Earth, with M82 just 1.1 MLY with NGC 3077 being around 13 MLY away.
The Whale and Hockey Stick galaxies (NGC4031/NGC4627 & NGC4656/NGC4657): With dawn approaching, I could only manage a 1.3 hour RGB and Ha capture of these galaxies and their companion dwarf galaxies which lie in the constellation of Canes Venatici. These pairs of interacting galaxies are linked by a stream of hydrogen gas that give them their distorted appearance. The Whale galaxy lies about 25 million light years away and is seen edge on to us and is thought to be comparable in size to our own Milky Way. The Hockey Stick galaxy is around 30 MLY away, with its small dwarf galaxy being suitably nicknamed “the Puck”.
Chris Bowden
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