A survey of Galaxies

Galaxies can be very beautiful objects to image. They are all unique, can often have very intricate spirals, and don't take much work to get a good picture of. The tricky part is knowing which galaxies to take images of, as there certainly are a lot! Over the past 18 months I have been taking images of some promising galaxies and here I present the results of that endeavour.

Supernova in M82

There is an unusually nearby supernova in the Galaxy M82. It's bright and easy to observe, and M82 is a brilliant target at this time of year.

Object of the Month: The Crab Nebula (Messier 1)

On the 4th of July 1054, a bright new star appeared in the sky. Astronomers is China, Japan and across the Arab world took notice and of course it was heralded as an omen of great importance. This new star was a supernova explosion and while the initial glow faded long ago, the aftermath of this explosion is easily seen with a telescope: the crab nebula.

A BVR+Halpha image of the Crab Nebula

On the Fringes

I have been investigating some ways to further improve the automatic post-processing of images from the telescope. While I haven't really succeeded in that goal, the results are still interesting.This has to do with the swirling patterns seen on some images, particularly when imaged close to the horizon. In my previous post on flat-fields, these patterns were visible on the resulting image of M51.

Object of the Month: Comets

November is looking like the month for comets. With several prominent comets gracing our skies this month, we have developed a new comet targeting system, which allows you to easily take stunning images of these objects.

C/2012 S1 (ISON), Galaxy Cam

Massively Improved Flatfield System

The telescope has had flat fielding built into it for some time now in order to improve the quality of images we return. Today I fixed some problems with how those flat-fields are applied, which will improve images enormously.

Object of the Month: Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31)

The Andromeda Galaxy is the closest large galaxy to our galaxy, the Milky Way. It is 2.5 million light-years away from us (and closing, as it is projected to collide with us in about 4 billion years time). It is the brightest messier object in the sky, and due to it's size and close distance compared to other galaxies, also appears very large. Although our eyes are not sensitive enough to see the full extent of it, it actually appears 6 times larger than a full moon.

A colour image of Messier 32, Cluster Cam