2014-07-18 Images from Defiance, MO

Post date: Jul 21, 2014 2:13:13 AM

While staying a night in Defiance, MO, I took these images. The sky glow as moderate, with high thin clouds occasionally passing through. All images were taken with a Nikon D5200 DSLR camera, looking through a Meade LX90 8 inch telescope with .63x focal reducer (F/6.3 total), except NGC7000. The scope was mounted on a Celestron Advanced VX mount and auto guided with an Orion 50mm magnificent mini auto guider and starshoot camera.

NGC5457 (M101) the Pinwheel Galaxy

NGC5457 (M101) at ISO-1600 with 6 minutes total exposure time. Image processing details can be downloaded here.

NGC6205 (M13) the Hercules Cluster

NGC6205 (M13) at ISO-1600 with 6 minutes total exposure time. Image processing details can be downloaded here.

NGC6705 (M11) the Wild Duck Cluster

NGC6705 (M11) at ISO-1600 with 5 minutes total exposure. Image processing details can be downloaded here.

NGC7009 the Saturn Nebula

NGC7009 at ISO-1600 with 90 seconds total exposure. Image processing details can be downloaded here. I was surprised that I could detect structure in the nebula, and want to take better images to pull it out further.

NGC7000 the North American Nebula

NGC7000 taken piggy-back mode, using a Nikon 55-300 mm lens, set at 55 mm F/4.5. Exposures of 2 minutes at ISO-1600 and 4 minutes at ISO-800. Sky glow was becoming significant because because of lights from St. Charles, MO and the rising moon. Image processing details can be downloaded here.