Views of the Universe

It's Galaxy Season

I have two projects I'm currently working on, astronomically related, that is. The second one is imaging the Herschel 400 list, on which I've made at least some progress, having imaged about 129 of the 400 so far. The first project, which is much closer to completion, is imaging the Messier catalog. Checking back through my list of imaged targets, I have about 30 left to go (of the 110). That is, until a few nights ago. On the night of the 17^th, I was able to image another 11 objects. On the night of the 20^th, I got another one. For those of you who are math challenged, that leaves 18. I've already plotted when I should be able to finish the list, which will be September or October. I should be able to image all but one target by June, and if I wanted to stay up all night one night, I might be able to get the last one then as well. If my medicine lets me continue sleeping as well as I am now, that's a possibility.

As with the Herschel list, these are very short exposures (usually 3, 1 minute exposures), stacked, dark and flat calibrated and finally stretched so we can see what is actually there. The exception is the image of M44, the Beehive, in the constellation of Cancer. That one was taken with the Canon Xsi mounted on the telescope to help with tracking (and finding, since the constellation is essentially directly overhead; and area that I can't see with my current problem). M44 is a stack of 11, 30 second images, that have been dark calibrated, but no flat correction. I took two images, one at an 18mm focal length, the other at a focal length near 40mm. The 40mm is an estimation, since I am using the only lens I have for that camera, which is a zoom lens. Per the lens markings, it was somewhere between 35mm and 50mm. The 50mm image will be the one that looks “zoomed”. I'll circle the Beehive in the 18mm image so you can find it. See if you can see it for yourself in the 40mm image.