Finally! A night where the Canberra sky wasn't pure poo.
I pulled an all-nighter, going to bed at 5:30am to capture a bit of photon data from the distant cosmos.
Here's two DSO's from the night.
Baz.
Here's the first image stack, processed from last night's data capture through ASIGN's telescope.
The Jewel Box (Kappa Crucis Cluster or NGC 4755) is an open cluster in the constellation Crux, originally discovered by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1751–1752. This cluster was later named the Jewel Box by John Herschel when he described its telescopic appearance as "...a superb piece of fancy jewellery". It is easily visible to the naked eye as a hazy star some 1.0° southeast of the first-magnitude star Beta Crucis. This hazy star was given the Bayer star designation "Kappa Crucis", from which the cluster takes one of its common names. The modern designation Kappa Crucis has been assigned to one of the stars in the base of the A-shaped asterism of the cluster
This cluster is one of the youngest known, with an estimated age of 14 million years. It has a total integrated magnitude of 4.2, is located 1.95 kpc. or 6,440 light years from Earth, and contains just over 100 stars.
Here's the second image stacked and processed from last night's capture. Total of 1 hour and 36 minutes of exposure.
I actually got quite cold last night, which was a surprise after the last couple of months of hot nights.
NGC 4945 is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Centaurus, visible near the star Xi Centauri. The galaxy was discovered by James Dunlop in 1826 and is thought to be similar to the Milky Way Galaxy, although X-ray observations show that NGC 4945 has an unusual energetic Seyfert 2 nucleus that might house a supermassive black hole. This object has an estimated mass of 1.4+1.4
−0.7×106 M☉.
NGC 4945 one of the brightest galaxies of the Centaurus A/M83 Group, a large, nearby group of galaxies. The galaxy is the second brightest galaxy in the subgroup centered on Centaurus A.
I pulled an all-nighter, going to bed at 5:30am to capture a bit of photon data from the distant cosmos.
Here's two DSO's from the night.
Baz.
Here's the first image stack, processed from last night's data capture through ASIGN's telescope.
The Jewel Box (Kappa Crucis Cluster or NGC 4755) is an open cluster in the constellation Crux, originally discovered by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1751–1752. This cluster was later named the Jewel Box by John Herschel when he described its telescopic appearance as "...a superb piece of fancy jewellery". It is easily visible to the naked eye as a hazy star some 1.0° southeast of the first-magnitude star Beta Crucis. This hazy star was given the Bayer star designation "Kappa Crucis", from which the cluster takes one of its common names. The modern designation Kappa Crucis has been assigned to one of the stars in the base of the A-shaped asterism of the cluster
This cluster is one of the youngest known, with an estimated age of 14 million years. It has a total integrated magnitude of 4.2, is located 1.95 kpc. or 6,440 light years from Earth, and contains just over 100 stars.
Here's the second image stacked and processed from last night's capture. Total of 1 hour and 36 minutes of exposure.
I actually got quite cold last night, which was a surprise after the last couple of months of hot nights.
NGC 4945 is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Centaurus, visible near the star Xi Centauri. The galaxy was discovered by James Dunlop in 1826 and is thought to be similar to the Milky Way Galaxy, although X-ray observations show that NGC 4945 has an unusual energetic Seyfert 2 nucleus that might house a supermassive black hole. This object has an estimated mass of 1.4+1.4
−0.7×106 M☉.
NGC 4945 one of the brightest galaxies of the Centaurus A/M83 Group, a large, nearby group of galaxies. The galaxy is the second brightest galaxy in the subgroup centered on Centaurus A.