Thursday, April 11, 2019

NGC 3190 Series - Leo Quartet (2019)

I imaged this almost exactly one year ago with my old set up and am back at it.  The NGC 3190 Series or the Hickson 44, after Canadian astronomer Paul Hickson, is a group of gravitational bound four galaxies about 100 million light-years away in constellation Leo. The two spiral galaxies in the center of the image are edge-on NGC 3190 with its distinctive dust lanes, and S-shaped NGC 3187. The bright elliptical galaxy on the upper central portion is NGC 3193 while the spiral in the lower left portion is NGC 3185.  NGC 3193 shows some detail despite being so small with my equipment and I tried to preserve as much as possible. The shape of NGC 3187 is intriguing with its distinctive S-shape. I did crop the image a bit but I like the wide field look so sort of a half in between crop.

I finished this at the end of March it has just taken me this long to process it. I am doing too many things all at once, preparing for a vacation, boy scout stuff, and my normal day job.  It is a wonder I have time to do anything.



NGC 3190 Series
Location: Home Monroe, CT
Date: 3-26-19, 3-27-19
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Telescope: Astro-Tech AT115EDT 115mm Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 805mm
f/7
Focal Reducer: Astro-Tech 0.8x Focal Reducer/Field Flattener for Refractor Telescopes
Mount: Orion Sirius
Filter Wheel: ZWO EFW 8x 1.25"
Filter: ZWO R, G, B, L
Autoguiding: QHY-5L-II-M attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope with Helical Focuser
Exposure: R 39 x 90, G 35 x 90, B 39 x 90, L 39 x 90
Gain: 139
Offset 21
Temp: 0 C
Post Processing: PixInsight and Photoshop
https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/
http://astroquest1.blogspot.com/

Thursday, April 4, 2019

The Seagull with Thor's Helmet in Tow - Test Image!

The Seagull Nebula or IC 2177 lies along the border between the constellations Monoceros and Canis Major.  I like this view of the Seagull Nebula as it appears to be towing Thor's Helmet (NGC 2359), an emission nebula located in the constellation Canis Major.  I had no idea how big the Seagull was compared to Thor's Helmet. In absolute terms the Seagull is 100 light-years across and Thor's Helmet is 30 ly across so the Seagull is still bigger.

I am happy with the image considering the image is only 25 minutes with no flats, no bias, and no dark frames.  I tried to pull more signal out of the image but with only 25 minutes and no support frames there is only so much you can do.  I did use an Astronomik UHC filter as it is in a heavily light polluted direction.  It was real easy to set up the camera and mount, the hard part was trying locate and frame the object.  However, I discovered that if you first take locate a bright star near the object with camera and then take pictures from the bright star in small steps until you get to the object, you can be centered fairly easily. 

I wanted to test my iOptron SkyGuider Pro and Canon 200mm Lens on a something cool from my yard so I decided on the Seagull Nebula, everything else was behind some trees at my location.  What I wanted to test in particular is how well the SkyGuider Pro tracked for 60-second exposures with a 200mm Lens.

At full view the stars look round but zoomed in they do not - this was after trashing six of the exposures. I did not use the counterweight this time as the entire weight was less the the weight counterweight side.  I believe the slight amount of trailing was due to the weather.  It was breezy when I was doing this experiment not to mention I was using a camera tripod with the legs fully extended which made for a less sturdy set up.

So the bad news is the stars are not perfectly round, the good news is they are not horrible.  I am going on a couple of trips where a compact travel set up will be much more practical.  For my next test I will put the mount on one of my sturdy telescope mounts and then try again with the tripod with the legs lowered.

Anyway, I was happy with the test and got a quick and decent image out of it.  I would like to do this object justice some day with more exposures and different filters but that will have to wait a while.


Seagull Nebula (IC 2177) and Thor's Helmet (NGC 2359)
Location: Home Monroe, CT
Date: 4-1-19
Camera: Canon T3i/600D modified
Lens: Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM
Focal Length: 200mm
f/3.5
Mount: iOptron SkyGuider Pro on a Manfrotto Tripod
Filter: Astronomik UHF Clip-in
Autoguiding: none
Exposure: 25 x 60s
ISO: 1600
Processing: DSS, PixInsight, Photoshop, Lightroom
https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/
http://astroquest1.blogspot.com/