Mike's Astro Photos

Here’s a shot of the open star cluster M37 from January 8th, 2010.

Messier 37 - January 8th, 2009

Here is a photo of NGC 2244 an open cluster within the Rosetta Nebula discovered by John Flamsteed in 1690. The Rosetta Nebula is a giant molecular cloud and the stars inside this cluster were formed from the nebula’s matter. You can see bits of the nebula cloud in the picture below.

NGC 2244 - December 23rd, 2009

Here’s a photo of Messier 103 an open cluster in the constellation Cassiopeia. This image is comprised of approximately 20×2 minute exposures stacked with flats and darks using Deep Sky Stacker.

Messier 103 - November 28th, 2009

Sunday night was a great clear night. The crescent moon set early and the clouds stayed away until about 1:00 AM. I used my auto-guider for the first time since setting up the new observatory and it worked out pretty well. I was able to guide an object and keep it centered for well over an hour. I was averaging a little less than a two arc second error rate which should be improved when I perfect my polar alignment.

Here is my first picture of Messier 15, a globular star cluster hidden in the constellation Pegasus. This image is the result of 3×5 minute exposures and 1×1 minute exposure. I manually stacked the frames in Photoshop.

M15 - November 23rd 2009

For comparison sake, here is a picture of M15 from the Hubble telescope. Its a little nicer than my first attempt, but considering my rig didn’t cost $1,500,000,000 to setup, I think I did alright.