chromosphere

RA: 09h 55.5m, Dec: +69°20′ (approx centre)
M81 and M82 in Ursa Major are two of the brightest members of the M81 group of galaxies. M81 (often called Bode’s Nebula after being discovered by Johann Elert Bode in 1774) is a large bright spiral approximately 12 million light-years distant, whilst M82 (the “Cigar Galaxy”) is an irregular starburst galaxy, highly disturbed by gravitational interaction with other members of the group.

This was taken from Kelling Heath at the 2007 Spring Star Party on an excellent night after we had been fogged out for the previous two nights! I’m hoping to go again this year to do some more imaging…

In the region of M81 and M82 (and across large parts of the northern sky), there is a large faint nebular complex associated with dust and gas expelled from the plane of the galaxy. The region here is part of MW3 (Mandel-Wilson Catalog of Unexplored Nebulae) and the faint dusty areas show up faintly in a strongly stretched image of the region. This has been refered to as an “Integrated Flux Nebula” since it reflects the galaxy’s light rather than that of a single star. Also visible is Holmberg IX (below M81) which is a small, faint blue irregular galaxy also in the M81 Group.

RA: 00h 42m 44.3s, Dec: +41°16′ 9″
The Andromeda Galaxy is a naked eye object from a dark site, appearing as a small smudge in the sky. Long exposures reveal it’s true extent (over three degrees in size!) as well as two smaller elliptical companion galaxies (M32 - top, and M110 - bottom edge partially off frame). It is a member of the Local Group of galaxies, and is actually moving towards us at a rate of about 300km/s. Taken from Abingdon, UK on the evening of September 21st, 2006.

This picture was chosen as Anacortes Telescope & Wild Bird picture of the day on 6th Nov 2006.

Additionally, it was chosen as Sky at Night Magazine Hotshots Picture of the Month, Feb 2007 and subsequently it was chosen as Sky at Night Magazine Hotshot of the Year, 2007. (Sky at Night Magazine). As part of the Sky at Night Hotshots competition, I won a 5x Astro Engineering barlow lens for the photo of the month, and a DMK41AF02.AS camera from The Imaging Source.

I’m very happy with this one - if anything, it needs a bit more data - especially in the colour channels - I’m tempted to have another go at this, maybe as a mosaic at a later date

In late March, 2006 I travelled to Turkey to watch the total solar eclipse. After flying to Antalya, we drove to Kalkan (220 km west) where we stayed for a week around the eclipse. We observed 1m57s of totality from the villa in excellent conditions.
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In 2005, we travelled to Dénia in Spain to watch the annular eclipse that took place on the 3rd Oct. After flying to Alicante, we drove to Dénia to our villa which was located in the line of annularity.

Using a Takahashi FC-60, a Coronado SolarMax 60 and BF15 and an SBIG ST-2000XM, I imaged the solar eclipse from the balcony on the villa.
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