NGC4565 Edge On Galaxy

©2008 Richard Murray
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©2008 Richard Murray
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Notes: This is a good specimen of an edge on galaxy located in the Coma Berenices constellation which is not too far from the grandaddy of all galaxy clusters, Abell 1656. The galaxy in the upper left is NGC4562.

Although I didn't get quite the resolution I'd hoped for (considering the number of images I took) I think it's a well balanced image overall.

Be sure to click on the image for a full size view.

Date: 4/27/08
Object: NGC4565 Edge On Galazy
Telescope: Megrez 80mm APO, WO 0.8 FR/FF
Mount: LX90
Camera: Atik 16hr
Guiding: Lx90 8" SCT, DSI Pro, Phd Guiding
Filters: IR RGB
Exposure: IR 21x5min 1x1 bin, R 10x4min G 10x4min B 13x4min all 2x2 bin
Processing: CCDStack, Photoshop CS2, PixInsight
Location: Burke Ave. Observatory, Three Rivers, Michigan

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M45 The Seven Sisters Open Cluster

©2008 Richard Murray
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Notes: This is the Pleiades Open Cluster nicknamed the Seven Sisters which is a reflection nebula that gets its light from the surrounding stars.

I had just completed a long imaging session of the Crescent Nebula and decided to just take a test shot of M45 to see how many of the main stars I could fit in my field of view. So I just took one short 5 minute shot using a blue filter and this is the result. It turned out pretty good for just one short exposure and no stacking.


Date: 8/8/08
Object: M45 Pleiades Open Cluster
Telescope: Megrez 80mm APO 0.8 Focal Reducer
Mount: LX90
Camera: Atik 16hr
Filters: Blue Filter
Exposure: Blue 1 x 5min binning 2 x 2
Processing: CCDStack, Photoshop CS2
Location: Burke Ave. Observatory, Three Rivers, Michigan

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NGC7380 With Star Colors

©2008 Richard Murray
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Notes: This is a reprocessed image from 7/5/08 with star color added from RsGB images taken on 7/9/08. For the nebula the Ha and OIII images were mapped to the RGB channels as Ha for red, OIII as green and OIII as blue.

To me it's quite an improvement in the image. Look at the old image below.

Date: 7/9/08
Object: NGC7380
Telescope: Megrez 80mm APO with 0.8 Focal Reducer
Mount: LX90
Camera: Atik 16hr
Filters: Red and Blue
Exposure: Red-25 min (5 min subs), Blue-25 min (5 min subs) bining 2x2
Processing: CCDStack, Photoshop CS2
Location: Burke Ave. Observatory, Three Rivers, Michigan

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NGC7380 Open Cluster with Nebula

©2008 Richard Murray
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Notes: This is open cluster NGC7380 with emission nebula SH2-142 taken from my home observatory. This is a narrowband image taken with an Ha and an OIII filter with Ha as Red, OIII as blue and a synthetic green channel created from the Ha and OIII data using Steve Cannistra's Bicolor Technique.

A drawback of narrowband imaging is that you don't get any color information in the stars. So weather permitting, I may take some RGB images just to give the stars back some of their color.

Date: 7/5/08
Object: NGC7380
Telescope: Megrez 80mm APO
Mount: LX90
Camera: Atik 16hr
Filters: Ha6nm and OIII14nm
Exposure: Ha-100 min (10 min subs), OIII-50 min (10 min subs bin2x2)
Processing: CCDStack, Photoshop CS2
Location: Burke Ave. Observatory, Three Rivers, Michigan

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M81-M82 Companion Galaxies LRsGB

©2008 Richard Murray
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Notes: After about four months off without processing any images (I was taking them, just not processing them) I'm back with an image of M82(on top) and M81 (below).

This was taken at my home observatory and is an LRsGB with a synthetic green channel and Ha blended into the red channel. The Ha (hydrogen alpha filter) helped to bring out some of the active star forming regions (the red areas) particularly in M82 which is being severely distorted due to the huge gravitational pull of it's companion galaxy.

These two galaxies will eventually merge which is what will also happen to our own Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy.


Date: 4/2/08(Images taken on three separate nights concluding on 4/2/08)
Object: M81-M82 Companion Galaxies
Telescope: Megrez 80mm APO
Mount: LX90
Camera: Atik 16hr
Filters: Luminance, Red, Blue, Ha14nm, Ha6nm
Exposure: Luminance-115 min (5 min subs), Red and Blue-20 min (4 min subs bin2x2), Ha 6nm 45min total, Ha 14nm 50min total
Processing: CCDStack, Photoshop CS2, Maxim DL
Location: Burke Ave. Observatory, Three Rivers, Michigan

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M104 Sombrero Galaxy LRsGB Image

©2008 Richard Murray
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Notes: This is a reprocessed image of M104 taken on 1/20/08. This time I used wavelet filters in a program called Registax and a few other processing tricks to bring out much more detail in the galaxy core and surrounding area. This is the color version which is an LRsGB image (sG = synthetic green).A lot of processsing work but well worth it.


Date: 1-20-08
Object: M104 Sombrero Galaxy
Telescope: RCOS 10" - FL 1510mm @ F/6 (GRAS-15)
Mount: Paramount ME
Camera: SBIG ST-8XME NABG
Filters: Luminance, Red, Blue
Exposure: Luminance-20 min (5 min subs), Red-10 min (3.3 min subs)bin2x2, Blue-10 min (3.3 min subs)bin2x2
Processing: CCDStack, Photoshop CS2, PixInsight, Registax
Location: Moorook, South Australia

Forum Threads Regarding This Image:

Cloudy Nights
IceInSpace
MelbMeadeScopes
CCD-NewAstro

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M104 Sombrero Galaxy

©2007 Richard Murray
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Notes: This is a luminance image taken with a robotic telescope in southern Australia. The color image will follow soon. The second image is a crop of the full size image.

Each time I image this I get just a little more detail in the galaxy's dark lanes. Be sure and take a look at the full size image.

Imaging Details:

Date: 1-20-08
Object: M104 Sombrero Galaxy
Telescope: RCOS 10" - FL 1510mm @ F/6 (GRAS-15)
Mount: Paramount ME
Camera: SBIG ST-8XME NABG
Filter: Luminance
Exposure: Luminance-20 min (5 min subs)
Processing: CCDStack, Photoshop CS2, PixInsight
Location: Moorook, South Australia

M81 Spiral Galaxy

©2007 Richard Murray

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Notes: Ok, here is the color version of the image posted several days ago. This is an LRsGB image with the sG meaning 'synthetic green' as no green filter was actually used during imaging.

Imaging Details:

Date: 1-11-08
Object: M81 Spiral Galaxy
Telescope: Takahashi TOA 150 (GRAS3)
Mount: Paramount ME
Camera: SBIG ST-10 XME ABG
Filter: Clear
Exposure: Luminance-25 min [5 min subs], Red-9 min (3 min subs),
Blue-9 min. (3 min subs)
Processing: CCDStack, Photoshop CS2, PixInsight
Location: GRAS Observatory, Mayhill, NM

M81 Bode's Spiral Galaxy

©2007 Richard Murray

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Notes: With Michigan's clouds still not going away I used one of the GRAS robotic telescopes in New Mexico to image this beautiful galaxy which is part of our local group. You can see M81's faint satellite galaxy off to center left.

I also took some color images which I'll upload later when processing is done.

Imaging Details:

Date: 1-11-08
Object: M81 Spiral Galaxy
Telescope: Takahashi TOA 150 (GRAS3)
Mount: Paramount ME
Camera: SBIG ST-10 XME ABG
Filter: Clear
Exposure: 25 min [5 min subs]
Processing: CCDStack, Photoshop CS2, PixInsight
Location: GRAS Observatory, Mayhill, NM

Horsehead and Flame Nebula Narrowband Color

©2008 Richard Murray


©2008 Richard Murray

Notes: Here's the color version of the image that was taken on Christmas night (see Ha black and white image below). This is lower resolution than I'd like because of the 2x2 binning and the moon being out but the colors did turn out better than I expected.

I used Ken Crawford's tutorial on combing Ha, OIII and SII filtered images using levels and cliping masks.

Click image for full size.

The second image was created using Peter's Photoshop Actions. I just took the top image and used the new action step 'Increase Dynamic Range'. That's all. I think it improved the image quite a bit. Clicking on the two images for full size will show the difference better.

Imaging Details:

Date: 12-26-07
Object: Horsehead Nebula (IC434) and Flame Nebula (NGC2024)
Telescope: W.O. 80mm Super APO
Mount: LX90
Camera: Atik 16hr
Filter(s): Astronomik Ha 6nm, OIII 14nm, SII 14nm
Exposure: Ha 4x10 min subs, OIII 3x10, SII 3x10, Binning 2x2
Processing: CCDStack, Photoshop CS2, PixInsight
Location: Burke Ave. Observatory, Three Rivers, Michigan

Horsehead and Flame Nebula

©2007 Richard Murray

Notes: I started imaging this on Christmas night. Clear nights have been so rare lately I have to go out whenever the skies open up. This was taken on a very bright night with the sixteen day old moon very high in the night sky. Only use of a narrowband filter could result in any kind of useful image so I used an Ha 6nm filter for the above image.

I also got some OIII and SII filtered images so in a few days I'll show the color version which should be fairly colorful despite that pesky moon.

Imaging Details:

Date: 12-26-07
Object: Horsehead Nebula (IC434) and Flame Nebula (NGC2024)
Telescope: W.O. 80mm Super APO
Mount: LX90
Camera: Atik 16hr
Filter(s): Astronomik Ha 6nm
Exposure: Ha - 4x10 min subs, Binning 2x2
Processing: CCDStack, Photoshop CS2
Location: Burke Ave. Observatory, Three Rivers, Michigan

Comet 17P/Holmes Bicolor Narrowband

©2007 Richard Murray

Notes: This is a first light image from my new observatory and is a bicolor image using Ha and OIII narrowband filters with a synthetic green channel. This isn't the natural color of the comet but it does bring out more detail of its inner structure.

The bottom image is a color negative of the above image.

When Comet 17P/Holmes exploded back in October of this year it shed about 1 percent of it's mass which is the equivalent to the Earth losing its entire crust! At this point the comet is actually larger in the sky than the full moon.

Imaging Details:

Date: 12-1-07
Object: Comet 17P/Homes
Telescope: W.O. 80mm Super APO
Mount: LX90
Camera: Atik 16hr
Filter(s): Astronomik Ha 6nm and OIII 14nm
Exposure: Ha - 1x10 min and 3x5 min subs, OIII 1x4 min sub (clouded out)
Processing: CCDStack, Photoshop CS2, PixInsight
Location: Burke Ave. Observatory, Three Rivers, Mi

Just One Clear Night

©2007 Richard Murray

Notes: It's a well known fact in the amateur astronomy community that if you buy a new astronomy gadget you can suffer for days or weeks (depending on the gadget) with cloudy weather. It's been cloudy for three weeks now since I had my new observatory built so I figure I have about a week to go before clear skies. :>))

Since I don't have anything else to take pictures of, above is the latest picture of my observatory through my den window.

Getting Closer to First Light

The Captain and I are almost ready for our first voyage, er ah, I mean first light. I almost thought I heard him say "Take her out Sulu. :>))


©2007 Richard Murray

Notes: We have electric power now. Notice the futuristic gym flooring and the nifty red rope lights. Also the warm room curtains are up. The advantage of installing gym flooring is it's made out of rubber, so if you drop some equipment it doesn't break; it just bounces.