November 20, 2017
IC 342, a galaxy in the Maffei Group. It lies in the plane of the Milky Way and is hard to see. Most of the galaxies in this group are very difficult to see at all due the obscuring dust, gas clouds and stars of the Milky Way. I have read that this galaxy is hard to photograph but I thought I would try it and I think it came out pretty well.
This is about 1.5 hours of exposure. Read more about at this LINK.
Comet 24P/Schaumasse (2017) as it passes through the Virgo Galaxy Cluster. The comet is the green spot in the center, several galaxies can be seen, M49 is the largest in the lower left. I had a lot of trouble with light gradient coming from the sun, this was about 1.5 hours before sunrise.
Comet 62P/Tsuchinshan 1 (2017) passing near the Leo Triplets.
The comet in the lower right corner, not very big or bright. A troublesome light gradient here too.
Here it is again, my favorite nebula. Sometime this winter I would like to put together about 3 hours of exposure on this and see how it looks. This is about 45 minutes.
M77 (lower right) and companion NGC 1055. M77 is also known as Cetus A, both are near the constellation Cetus. These two galaxies are probably the furthest objects from Earth I've knowingly photographed. They are around 50 million light years from Earth, both are huge galaxies. They look close together, but there is over 400,000 light years separating them.
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