2014-08-31: Images taken at Rocky Mountain National Park

Post date: Sep 07, 2014 3:53:0 AM

I had a great viewing session on the night of August 30 – September 1, 2014 at Upper Beaver Meadows in Rocky Mountain National Park. The exact location is a parking lot, across from a helipad, at N40.37249° W105.60016° at an altitude of 8,400 feet (2560 meters) .

The air was a cool 40F (4C) all evening with humidity at 75%. There was low levels of sky glow to the east from Estes Park and South east from Denver.

NGC7293 the Helix Nebula

I had difficulty with this image because it was so far south, with relatively high humidity and a lot of turbulance.

Celestron C6N 150 mm aperture, 750 mm focal length F/5 on a Celestron Avanced VX mount, Orion Magnificant Mini 50 mm StarShoot auto guider, Nikon D5200 at prime focus

Multiple exposures totaling 15 minutes 30 seconds at ISO-1600

Images stacked in DeepSkyStacker and processed in Adobe Photoshop

September 1, 2014 08:25 UTC

NGC0598 (M33) the Triangulum Galaxy

I was very pleased with this image of M33, which was almost directly overhead. The diagonal streak near the bottom of the image is from an earth-orbiting satellite.

Celestron C6N 150 mm aperture, 750 mm focal length F/5 on a Celestron Avanced VX mount, Orion Magnificant Mini 50 mm StarShoot auto guider, Nikon D5200 at prime focus, Multiple exposures totaling 17 minutes 40 seconds at ISO-1600

Images stacked in DeepSkyStacker and processed in Adobe Photoshop

September 1, 2014 09:10 UTC

NGC0224 (M31) The Andromedy Galaxy, with NGC0221 (M32) and NGC0205 (M110)

This image of M31 could have been excellent, except I forgot to lock-up the camera mirror. As a result, I had significant vibration induced streaks in the image. I removed some of the effect using shake-reduction filtering in Photoshop.

Nikon D5200 300 mm focal length, F/5.6 piggyback on Celestron C6N with Celestron Advanced VX mount

Orion Magnificant Mini 50 mm StarShoot auto guider

Multiple exposures totaling 17 minutes 40 seconds at ISO-1600

Images stacked in DeepSkyStacker and processed in Adobe Photoshop

September 1, 2014 09:10 UTC

M45 The Pleiades

Nikon D5200 300 mm focal length, F/5.6 piggyback on Celestron C6N with Celestron Advanced VX mount

Orion Magnificant Mini 50 mm StarShoot auto guider

Multiple exposures totaling 36 minutes 10 seconds at ISO-1600

Images stacked in DeepSkyStacker and processed in Adobe Photoshop

September 1, 2014 09:45 UTC