Space and The wonders/mysteries of The Universe

What's all those boxy things around it? Are those Venusian space craft? Dang it, I just knew they were ahead of us.

Yep.... Uber Eats doesnt travel that far so they have to come to us!

The moon and another Venus shot from last night. I made quite a significant mistake when trying to shoot Andromeda yesterday that resulted in my set of images being a waste!

Always next time!

Back a page or two is my original attempt at photographing the Andromeda galaxy. Here it is again...



Today I had another go...



Improving I think.

Why is the first version green?

You asked me that last time!

{{ That second shot of Andromeda is excellent Lance! }}

Lancebloke wrote:You asked me that last time!

yeah, but I forgot.

Basically because I had a light pollution filter on taking a lot of the reds out... hence left with more greens and blues that I couldn't colour balance because the reds didn't exist!

The latest did not have any filter on so I had more colours to balance. Did have the problem of a 46% (ish) waxing moon to contend with too, plus Andromeda disappearing the other side of my house which all in all meant I only got about 26 minutes worth of data to use for the latest version.

Really need both dark and open skies if I am going to get much improvement on that.

Think I am going to go back the the Pleiades when the moon and clouds fuck off.

"when the moon and clouds fuck off."

I think that's the first time I've heard anyone tell the moon and clouds to fuck off. Astronomers are a crotchety bunch, aren't they?

Nearly as bad as those Scotshobbits!


Nearly.

I have just found 2 other galaxies (other people found them first)... trying to photograph them now.

They're cute. One wants to leave out dishes of milk and see if they'll stay.

So...

M81, Bode's Galaxy, is a spiral galaxy like ours. M82, the cigar galaxy, looks a lot different!!!

They are both located in Ursa Major (the Big Dipper is part of that) albeit 12 million light years away. So yes... the light that hit my cameras sensor last night first emanated from those galaxies 12 million years ago!!!

Nicely done!  And much deeper blacks than before - did the decrease in traffic mean less pollution so less haze?

that's mind boggling. so that light started on its journey when there were dinosaurs roaming the planet, or maybe before?

Nah, dinosaurs were long gone. There were some mastadons stomping about. Primates on the level of lemurs.

Halfy - I am getting better with Photoshop. Using masks to remove colour from certain parts but leaving it where it should be.

Still lost a lot of colour from the shot though because of light pollution and I am sure a professional that knows all the tricks would be able to pull for more out of the data collected than I have managed on any of my current efforts.

This was attempt number 4 at a deep sky object... getting better at it.

Mrs Figg wrote:that's mind boggling. so that light started on its journey when there were dinosaurs roaming the planet, or maybe before?

Had to look it up, but this was the air of time that Chimps and human ancestry split. Early evolutions of what would become horses in north America. Most main groups if whales evolved to what we see today. Sabre tooth cats still existed.

Fun time.

{{ Great work Lance, getting better every picture. And yeah it melts the brain the scale of the universe. Wonder what our galaxy looks like from over there?! }}

"Wonder what our galaxy looks like from over there?!"


Like this -> .

M35 / NGC2168 - A cluster of over 100 stars (top middle of image) visually located in the constellation of Gemini. Another, NGC2158, can also be seen toward the middle of the picture.

Had some technical issues again that limited this to only 13 x 60s images out of a planned minimum of 40. Also, no calibration frames to help reduce noise etc.

Not been in good enough health to have the telescope put for a while but have managed a couple of photos with the camera.

The first is one thay everyone in the northern hemisphere can take (assuming no clouds). It is Jupiter and the 4 Galilean moons (Io, Europa, Calisto and Ganymede). If you have a steay hand you could probably get that with a camera phone. Look south east at sunset, it very obvious (look for the bright light that dies not move or flicker). You may also notice Saturn a bit further east.



The second is of a comet that is about at the moment, called Neowise. This can be seen with the naked eye in dark skies or a little pair of binoculars in more polluted skies. If you know the big dipper, follow the front of the pan directly south and you should see it. For anyone that has some kind of access to a map of constellations, it is at the bottom right of Ursa Major (the bigger dipper is a part of that) near the bears front right foot!