The Andromeda Galaxy with a Samyang 135mm lens
Another test image with the Samyang 135mm F2 Lens setup,
M31 The Great Andromeda Spiral Galaxy, visible light and shot from the city of Dayton, Ohio.
ASI AIR/EAF/ZWO 174MM/L-Pro/Astrodymium/IPAD Combo
Every star you see in this photo are actually foreground stars, we look through all these stars in our own Milky Way galaxy to see our Sister galaxy “The Great Andromeda Spiral” way off in the distance at 2.2 million light years away.
That soft fuzzy glow of the Andromeda Galaxy in the background is actually the combined glow of over 1 trillion stars, it is just too distant to resolve into individual stars with this setup.
The Great Andromeda galaxy is racing towards us and will eventually collide with our Milky Way galaxy in about 6 billion years from now.
Andromeda can be seen with the unaided eye from a dark location, it can be visible or captured in the city with binoculars, telescopes, or Camera lenses.
M31 The Great Andromeda Spiral Galaxy captured in my backyard in the city of Dayton, Ohio on 11/07/2021.
Captured with a Samyang 135mm Lens, Set at F4, ZWO 174mm Cooled Cmos Camera, EAF Focuser, ASI Air Mini Computer via IPAD control, Bisque MyT Mount, L-Pro Filter to reduce light pollution, this is 150 x 60 second sub exposures, 2 hours 30 minutes exposure total.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
The North America Nebula & The Pelican Nebula (135mm lens)
The North America Nebula (NGC 7000 or Caldwell 20)
The North America Nebula is an emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus, close to the bright star Deneb. The shape of the nebula resembles that of the continent of North America,
complete with a prominent Gulf of Mexico.
This Massive Stellar Nursery(star formation region) is located at 2,500 light years from Earth and spans about 100 light years across.
Also visible to the top right is the Pelican Nebula (IC 5070), part of the same larger North American Nebula complex.
This is 120 x 60 second subs exposures stacked, all taken from my backyard in the city of Dayton, Ohio. (2 hour total exposure)
I used an Optolong L-Pro 2″ Filter which knocks out the city light pollution, so it allows you to image/take deep space photos from the city. This is strictly visible light from deep space, with Light pollution removed via the filter.
I have used many types of light pollution reduction filters in the last 30 years of imaging, but most of them did not work as well as they claimed, or gave really strong color casts or strange gradients when imaging with color or mono cameras.
But this one really works well…
I love that I captured this using just a 135mm telephoto lens and ASI Air(2nd gen) and my old ZWO174 cooled camera, Bisque MyT mount, all controlled with an App on my IPAD.
Every 60 seconds a new image appeared on the IPAD, including some with satellites passing by and an occasional Aircraft buzzing through this(4.8 degree x 3 degree) wide field of View.
All automated while watching a movie, image processing other data, or even sleeping in my home, with an occasional glance at the Ipad Screen to see the progress of the images being acquired.
The technology just keeps getting better!!!!
Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com
Mirach – Beta Andromedae & NGC 404 Mirach’s Ghost
Mirach – Beta Andromedae & NGC 404 Mirach’s Ghost!
Beta Andromedae, Latin for β Andromedae, and officially named Mirach is a prominent star in the northern constellation of Andromeda.
It is northeast of the Great Square of Pegasus and is potentially visible to all observers north of latitude 54° S.
It is commonly used by stargazers to find the Great Andromeda Galaxy.
NGC 404 is a small 11.7 magnitude elliptical Galaxy also known as Mirach’s Ghost, visually it is seven arc minutes away from Mirach. Although visible in the same FOV as Mirach, NGC 404 is actually located about 10 million light years away, well beyond Mirach and our Milky Way Galaxy.
It was discovered by Sir William Herschel in 1784, and is visible through small telescopes. NGC 404 lies just beyond the Local Group of Galaxies and does not appear gravitationally bound to it. In the telescope eyepiece it helps to place Mirach just outside the edge of the FOV, so you can easily see the fainter glow of the elliptical galaxy NGC 404.
Mirach has an average apparent visual magnitude of 2.05, making it the brightest star in the constellation.
The luminosity varies slightly from magnitude +2.01 to +2.10.
Based upon parallax measurements, it is roughly 197 light-years (60 parsecs) from the Earth. Its apparent magnitude is reduced by 0.06 by extinction due to gas and dust along the line of sight.
Mirach – Beta Andromedae is a single red giant star with a stellar classification of M0 III, and is currently on the asymptotic giant branch of its evolution.
Since 1943 the spectrum of this star has been one of the stable anchor points by which other stars are classified.
It is suspected of being a semi-regular variable star whose apparent visual magnitude varies from +2.01 to +2.10.
At this stage of the star’s evolution, the outer envelope has expanded to around 100 times the size of the Sun.
It is radiating 1,995 times the luminosity of the Sun at an effective temperature of 3,842 K.
Captured from my observatories in Yellow Springs, Ohio on 10-01-2021 with a TPO 12 inch F4 telescope/ Bisque ME Mount & HAP Modified Canon 6D DSLR Camera,
ISO 800, 10 minute exposure, (10 x 1 minute subs stacked in DSS), Processed in Pixinsight & Adobe CC 2021.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com
52 Cygni and NGC6960 The Veil Nebula – The Witches Broom
Delta Scorpii – Dschubba
Delta Scorpii – Dschubba
A binary star system located at 136 parsecs (443.573 light year) from Earth in the constellation Scorpius.
δ Scorpii is the system’s Bayer designation. The two components are designated Delta Scorpii A and B.
The primary, δ Scorpii A, is a B class sub-giant surrounded by a disc of material spun off by the rapidly rotating star. The secondary, δ Scorpii B,
orbits every 10.5 years in a highly elongated elliptical orbit; it appears to be a normal B class main sequence star.
Delta Scorpii A is a Gamma Cass variable star.(the prototype variable star that it most resembles)
This type of star shows irregular slow brightness variations of a few hundredths of a magnitude due to material surrounding the star.
Delta Scorpii usually shines at magnitude 2.3 but has shown that it fluctuates to as bright as 1.8. It is easily visible to the unaided eye from most urban locations, so an easy one to watch by periodically glancing at the center star at the head of the Scorpion.
Delta Scorpii bore the traditional name Dschubba. In 2016 the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN)
to catalogue and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN approved the name Dschubba for δ Scorpii A on 21 August 2016 and it is now so
entered in the IAU Catalog of Star Names.
Captured with my 12″ diameter F4 TPO Newtonian telescope, Bisque ME Mount, Canon 6D DSLR, ISO 800, 3 minute exposure from my observatories in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com
The Moon, Saturn, & Jupiter Triangular Conjunction 08-20-2021
I almost forgot to post this one…
Here is a quick shot 4.0 second exposure with Camera on a Tripod taken on 08-20-2021 showing the nearly Full Moon with the Planet Saturn above it,
and The planet Jupiter to the far left creating this wonderful right triangle conjunction.
I was on business in the Lexington, KY area and
while visiting with my niece Lisa, we watched the Moon and two planets rise above the neighborhood houses as seen from her backyard in Versailles, Kentucky.
I captured them on 08-20-2021 at 10:01pm EST.
Canon 6D DSLR camera, 24mm to 105mm lens, set to 45mm at F6.3, ISO 800, 4 second exposure camera on a tripod.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com
The Planet Saturn on 08-20-2021
The Milky Way , Mars, and Saturn over Pinnacles at Arches
The Recurrent Nova RS Ophiuci in outburst on 08-11-2021
There is a Bright Nova(not Supernova) in the sky right now easily visible in binoculars, just after dark in the constellation Ophiuchus.
The Recurrent Nova RS Ophiuci is in outburst again, noticed on August 8-9th, the last time I shot RS in outburst was back in February of 2006, the time prior to that was in 1985, see my NASA APOD link for my older 2006 photo of this Recurrent Nova.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060224.html
Now 15 years later it has erupted once again…now it is at 4.8 magnitude. I captured it last night while out watching the Perseid meteor shower.
We know of only 10 Recurrent Nova in our galaxy, so this is a rather rare event, it typically will brighten up every 15 to 20 years,
RS Ophiuci usually has a variable magnitude of 9.5 to 13.5, but now it is shining at 4.8 magnitude.
to learn more about what is happening in this binary star system, read my past NASA APOD link above.
The Recurrent Nova RS Ophiuci is currently in Outburst so go take a look, at 4.8 magnitude pretty easy to see, if you know where to look or
if have a computerized telescope, type in these J 2000.00 Coordinates RA 17h 50’ 13.2” & DEC -06 deg 42’ 28”.
Happy Nova Hunting!
The Nova is the brightest star at center of my image.
Captured with my TPO 12″ diameter F4 Newtonian reflector telescope, Baader Coma Corrector, Bisque ME mount,
a modified Canon 6D DSLR, ISO 800, 6 minute exposure from my observatories in Ohio, USA on 08-11-2021.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
Altair – The Brightest Star in Aquila
Altair is a very bright Star and has one of the most stunning background star fields. You’ll want to put this sharp image up full screen!
Also designated α Aquilae (Alpha Aquilae, abbreviated Alpha Aql, α Aql), is the brightest star in the constellation of Aquila (The Eagle)
and the twelfth brightest star in the night sky. It is currently in the G-cloud—a nearby interstellar cloud, an accumulation of gas and dust.
Altair is an A-type main sequence star with an apparent visual magnitude of 0.77 and is one of the vertices of the “Summer Triangle” asterism
(the other two vertices are marked by Deneb and Vega).
Altair is about 1.8 times the mass of the Sun and 11 times of its luminosity. Altair rotates rapidly, with a rotational period of about 9 hours,
compared to our Sun which completes a rotation in a little over 25 days.
It is relatively close by at 16.7 light-years (5.13 parsecs) from the Earth and is one of the most visible stars to the naked eye.
TPO 12 inch F4 Newtonian reflector telescope, Baader Coma Corrector, Bisque ME mount, Modified Canon 6D DSLR,
ISO 800, 4 minute exposure, captured from my observatories in Ohio on 08-02-2021.
Best Regards,
John Chumack