m35

Full moon so not ideal but better than going out and spending too much. Astronomy is a very economical pastime. Now, where's that offer on the latest camera gone...

open clusters m35 and ngc2158 in gemini
700d on nt150s    35x4min @ ISO800

...and here's the photometric colour corrected version...

m35

Accompanied in the distance by it's line of site cluster.

An unashamedly in-your-face rendition, a la good old days.

open cluster m35 below with companion ngc2158 in gemini
700d on gso203    41x4min @ ISO800

m35 revisit

open cluster m35 in gemini
700d on pn208    42x3min @ ISO800

m35

 Yes, again. Same reason. Terrible seeing with full moon.

open cluster m35 with ngc2158 in gemini
700d on pn208    35x4min @ ISO800

auriga clusters

Three clusters to practise getting that star colour. No easy. Star colour. For male astronomers. Firstly, a few meaningless numbers.

cluster   distance ly 

 M36       3900

 M37       4200

 M38       3900

 ngc1907   4500

canon 700d on a bresser 150nt

20 snaps each of 60s or 90s

m35 in in auriga

m36 in auriga

m38 -top- and ngc1907 in auriga

cluster XIV

This year's visit. Nice steady seeing helped a lot with this. Probably the sharpest yet helped in part I'm sure by the OAG. Clusters at 2800 and over 4 times more distant, the smaller cluster is 1000 million years old. Many of it's stars are running out of hydrogen: orange-red

clusters m35 and ngc2185 in gemini

700d + nt150s    25x150s @ ISO800

twin clusters

I feel as though I can almost say foreground and background. Perspective even. An idea of distance, the smaller of the two clusters is much older -orange-stars- and further away: 2800 and 16000 light years. Maybe a little improvement over my last effort...

clusters m35 and ngc2158 in gemini
700d + bresser nt150s  23x90s @ ISO800

cúmulo noche buena

First reported by John Bevis in England  and Philippe Loys de Chéseaux in  France around 1745, at 2800 light years distant, this cluster is much closer and younger than the predominantly orange cluster which appears in the same frame but at 9000 light years.

Taken on Noche Buena with the eerie silence only Noche Buena in Spain can bring...

open clusters m35 and ngc2158 in gemini
700d on nt150l    35x150s @ ISO800

autumn clusters

A semi automated effort in between trying to stabilise the ekos-phd2 relationship.

Each target was set for 42 frames of 3 or 4 minutes using ekos' scheduler with a 5.3 pixel dither between each frame. Whether finished or not, we shut down 1/2 hour before sunrise.

eos 700d @ ISO800 and a bashed around ES pn208

m103 in casseopeia

m38 with ngc1907 in auriga

m34 in perseus

m35 with ngc2158 in gemini

ngc129 in cassiopeia

new canon

last time to have a go at this for a while...

m42 in orion

canon 1200D + ar152  12 x 30s @ ISO 1600

... and a quick look at this

m35 and ngc2158 in gemini
18 x 15s @ ISO 1600

pn208 coma mpcc and the germans

My trusty old MPCC worked. Out of the box. Almost. I must be doing something wrong. You know. Cheap-Chinese-rubbish-not-worth-the-paper-it's-written-on and all that. But wait. I think Baader are German. Ah, but made in China of course.

Must try the Cheap Chinese SWCC. Not only a cc but a 0.9 reducer: 208mm f3.5? I wonder.

Time to test the cc. Star fields are tough on all ccs...

Comparison with the nt150

clusters m35 centre and ngc2158 in gemini
canon 1200d + pn208 with baader mpcc  20 x 60s @ ISO800