Iris Nebula, NGC7023

The Astro-Tech focal reducer/field flattener that I'm using with my AT-72ED has threads to accept a 2" filter.  I was looking thru Amazon and found a very low cost light pollution filter (in the $35 range).  So I bought one.   It is just enough to get some rather deep images from my moderately light polluted sky.

I have been having a great time taking wide field images, even of small objects that I would normally use a longer focal length.  Take for instance the Iris Nebula.  The bright part is only about 18 arc minutes in diameter, or about 1/3 the size of a full moon.  What surrounds it, however is just as interesting.  This image shows more of the dust that belongs to the Iris, but just isnt lit up like the bright part.

It takes a larger number of exposures to be able to see the unlit dust, as it is extremely faint, but I was able to image it rather well in this composite of 24 - 5 minute frames.

New stars form from within dust clouds, and that is what is lighting up the bright part of the Iris.  You can see the light taper off as you move away from the bright stars in the center of the lit area.

September, 2014 Images

Its been a long time, but now that the nights are getting longer and getting dark earlier, I now have the time to image the sky.  On 9/5 I did a composite of the moon using 15 individual videos and stitched the segments together to get an image of the entire visible moon.

 Then took a few closeups... Crater Copernicus.

Schiller to Clavius 

Tycho

The Iris Nebula (NGC 2023) was imaged on 9/13.  Here is a full frame and a cropped closeup.

9/16.  Albiero, probably the prettiest double in the northern hemisphere....

NGC 6946, the Fireworks Galaxy.  This one is always a difficult one for me due to light pollution.

On 9/23, I got the CCD out and imaged  the Deer Lick Galaxy Group in LRGB.

9/24 it was the Cocoon Nebula's turn, but this one was shot using the Hα filter.

Then on 9/29, I imaged NGC 6939 and M15.   I also imaged the Fireworks Galaxy again, but the transparency wasnt as good as earlier in the month, so I wont duplicate it here.

and finally, M15.