Post a Pic : Out of this World - Astro Images

As we have a section for the moon i thought i would also add one for Astrophotography. Just been going through my archives and chose a small selection of images taken between 2008/09.

Messier 64 - The Sunflower Galaxy

This Galaxy can be found in the constellation of Canes Venatici. And it is a mere 37 Million light years away. Its quite a large galaxy and a bright one too with a magnitude of approx 9.3.



Messier 27 - The Dumbbell Nebula

Found in the constellation Vulpecula. It is approx 1360 light years away from Earth so a very close neighbor in astronomical terms. This nebula can be easily seen through a decent set of bins on a very dark night (No moon)



Messier 57 - The Ring Nebula

In the constellation of Lyra, this is one of the best known instances of planetary nebula.



Messier 13 - A Globular Cluster & Messier 29 - An Open Cluster

There are two types of clusters, Globular and open. Globular have the appearance of tightly packed stars when viewed from Earth, but in reality each star is at least 1 light year away from its neighbor, there are usually 100`s of thousands of stars that make up the cluster. Open clusters contain very few stars, maybe a few thousand, they were all formed from the same molecular cloud though. The most famous open cluster is Pleiades, or the 7 sisters as it is known. It consists of 9 bright stars which have magnitudes from 2.8 to 5.6. In Greek Mythology the7 sisters are : Sterope, Merope, Electra, Maia, Taygeta, Celaeno, and Alcyone, along with their parents Atlas and Pleione.

Brilliant Mark. If I had the money it's something I would like to do.

Thanks Dave. Its time also, not just money needed. Best time to do astrophotography is mid winter, scopes work better at lower temps. Summer is not a good time for astro photography as there are only 4 hours where its completely dark and on warm summer nights you end up with heat haze....More patience needed for this type of photography But well worth it when you get results.
Never say never Dave too

A fascinating read Mark and some great shots.

I guess with globular clusters, although each star is at least 1 light year away from its neighbour, everything is relative. So in the grand scheme of things they are still in a tight cluster

But I think some scientists now think it may be possible to travel faster than light, so your cluster could be a lot tighter than you thought

Thanks Ken.
Distance from each stars neighbors in a Globular cluster differs depending on size of the cluster. Two of the biggest clusters Messier 13 and Omega Centurai have quite small diameters but lots of stars so distance between each star is much less than 1 light yr. A general rule is the smaller the cluster the more widespread the stars are, usually around the 1 LY mark, less gravity keeping them all together, and larger the cluster the more tightly they are packed in.

I dont know about traveling faster than the speed of light, that would be one mean feat, considering the speed of light is 671 million miles per hour. The fastest man made craft upto now i think is Helios 2 which traveled at a speed of 150,000 mph. Neutrinos are now said to travel faster but the scientific community is not quite in agreement yet. If it does turn out to be correct i can just imagine Einstein turning in his grave right now.

Fascinating - and awesome images! How do you go about getting them?

xx

My modded Canon 350D. A 10" scope and lots of patience Laura. Things like the galaxy and Nebulae are built up with many images, i think between 25 and 30, 30 second exposures in this case. And then stacked using deep sky stacker, after stacking images are processed in PE6 to bring the colors out, on some occasions though, due to the earths atmosphere the color brought out is false color. The only true images are taken by hubble with it not having to battle with the atmosphere.