February 2, 2017
The bright star is Phad, in the Big Dipper. The two larger galaxies are M109 (lower left, also
called the Vacuum Cleaner Galaxy) and NGC 3953. A couple of smaller galaxies are also visible.
One of my favorites, the Whirlpool Galaxy, M51. I'm still working on gather enough data for a really good image, this is what I have so far.
Got up at 1:30 last night hoping to do just that and found that high cirrus clouds made it impossible.
The Great Orion Nebula. I did it again. This time at ISO 3200 so I don't have to deal with that dark horizontal banding.
This is an HDR image with twenty one minute exposures and twenty 5 second exposures for the core.
This is a new one. The Seagull Nebula in the upper left, while this large nebula, known as NGC 2327 spans nearly the entire view at 500mm focal length. I will be spending more time on this one someday. It is easily found near Sirius, the brightest star in the sky (other than our sun, of course). Like most nebulas, it is too faint to see with the eye, even aided by binoculars or a telescope.
The Sunflower Galaxy, M63. This is new one for me, it is located not far from the Whirlpool Galaxy.
I reworked the Needle Galaxy and used a tighter crop. Here is the result. I am looking forward to gathering more photons from this one.