2018 CalStar - Visual Observation of the Markarian 205 Quasar

This is the first time that I attend a star party without doing any imaging...

I picked and studied a couple of challenging targets for my 10" Dob and the particular one is the Markarian 205 Quasar. This Quasar is over 1B light years away from us.

The picture is from http://heritage.stsci.edu/2002/23/supplemental.html

The 14-mag target is very faint for my 10" scope. I observed this for more than an hour and can only see the it about 10% of the time. Hopefully I will get a larger scope in the future to re-visit this target.

Here is my drawing of this target:

I also observe the two faint galaxies near M13

My son, Adrain, also did a drawing on M13... ;-)

Some more images of this party ...

Final Process - NGC7000 3x3 Mosaic (Ha Only)

This is the largest mosaic I ever done - the size of the final image is 8489 × 6123.

NGC7000 is a large target and took me 15 nights (48hr) to collect enough data from my Fremont backyard. Required 3x3 mosaic to cover this...

Detail and large image at https://www.astrobin.com/364311

NGC7000 3x3 mosaic

Just a preview...
More to come later...

Protostar Jet @ NGC-2244 / Rosette Nebula

Besides taking pretty pictures, I am always excited about the science behind that.

After reading the "Jet Steam" in the Sky-and-Telescope magazine, I want to see if my previous image catch that. I went through the NGC-2244 Ha image (30min, single exposure) I took last year and can see the protostar jet there !!

From the magazine

48-Hour NGC-1499 - Ha Only

Have been a long time since the last post.
Here is the final image of this large target. Pretty happy with the result !!

https://www.astrobin.com/325875

2017 Nov - First Mosaic - NGC1499

First time try mosaic.
Not process it yet ...

6 panel, each has 6 * 30min Ha sub frames

10/27/2017 UGC 2885 / PGC 213253 - How Deep from Fremont Sky ?

Always curious about how deep I can image at the very light polluted Fremont sky...

Last night, after taking several hours of Ha data on NGC1499 (California Nebula), I point my scope to a random patch near NGC1499 and take a 600sec image with L filter. Originally I was trying to see the faintest star but found an interesting galaxy in the picture.

After plate-solving and cross referencing with SkySafari, I think that galaxy is UGC 2885. I also found a discussion at CloudyNight.

UGC 2885 is 331M light years away from us but it is not the faintest galaxy in the picture. There is a tiny PGC 213253.

 SkySafari said it is a 17.1m galaxy... I am surprised this kind of object can be easily detected in a single frame image (without stacking or processing)...