This month, four section members sent in a total of twenty – four images of deep sky objects.
Mark Beveridge used a Celestron 200mm Edge HD f10.4 SCT and an SXR- H814 mono camera plus red, green and blue filters to produce thirteen of these: nine of galaxies.
First are galaxies NGC 1156, NGC 691 and a pair of galaxies NGC 678 and 680, all to be found in the constellation of Aries:
The NGC 691 group of galaxies is about 122 million light years from the Earth and has nine members in total, including the two galaxies in the image below. The group is close to 1 Arietis, a double star of magnitude 5.86, which makes the group a challenge for visual observers.
The next two galaxies are NGC 157 and NGC 1087, both in Cetus:
Below are galaxies NGC 514 and NGC 660, in Pisces:
The final two galaxies are NGC 1637 in Eridanus and NGC 2595 in Cancer:
The remaining four images are of three emission nebulae, NGC 2024 the Flame nebula, NGC 2174 the Monkey Head nebula, the central part of M42 (the Trapezium) and a planetary nebula NGC 2022 all in Orion:
Pete Clark imaged M33 the pinwheel galaxy in the constellation of Triangulum using a Canon 400D DSLR mounted on a guided telescope:
Alan Clitherow, SPA planetary section director, imaged reflection nebula M78 in Orion, noting as others have since November 2018, that McNeil’s variable nebula is no longer visible:
Below is an image of the same region taken in January 2018, and here McNeil’s nebula is clearly visible, in the dark lane at the left side of the nebulosity – it is quite small, and you have to know where to look!
Alan made two images of emission nebula IC 434, which includes Barnard 33 the Horsehead dark nebula plus NGC 2024 the Flame nebula. The first uses Hydrogen alpha data as a luminance only image, the second adds more data to produce a colour image:
Alan used a Williams Optics 77mm refractor and a ZWO ASI 178MM-cool camera plus a selection of colour and narrow band filters.
Steve Norrie submitted seven images to the section; four emission nebulae, two planetary nebulae ans a supernova remnant. Below are NGC 2244 the Rosette nebula and NGC 2264 the cone nebula, both in the constellation of Monoceros, then NGC 2359 Thor’s Helmet in Canis Major and NGC 7822 in Cepheus.
NGC 7822 is a region of new star formation; the emission nebula is designated Sharpless 171 (Sh2-171) and the cluster of young stars Berkeley 59, including a very hot class O star BD+66 1673 which has a surface tempersture of about 45,000 K and is 100.000 times more luminous than the Sun.
The two planetary nebulae are M76 the Little Dumbbell in Perseus and NGC 1514 in Taurus:
Steve’s final image is of IC 443 the Jellyfish supernova remnant in Gemini:
Steve used a Celestron 9.25 SCT and a Starlight Xpress Trius 694 camera plus narrow band filters.
Dave Finnigan