RASC - St. John's Centre
Members Photos

M11 "Wild Duck Cluster", in Scutum, backdropped by the Scutum star cloud, photographed from Lady Lake Observatory on September 2, 2007 by Chris Stevenson.  A Celestron Nexstar 80GT f/5 refractor was used, tracked by means of a homemade poncet platform, and a Canon EOS 350D Rebel dSLR camera at ISO1600. All starfields show strong coma at the edges and annoyingly blue-violet fringed bright stars throughout - the 80GT's optics are not the sharpest.  Pic is a Registax3 sum of  two 15-second exposures, curves adjusted in simple photo viewers (Windows Photo Editor, XV under linux)

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M16 "Eagle Nebula", in Serpens Cauda, photographed from Lady Lake Observatory on September 5, 2007 by Chris Stevenson, with a Celestron Nexstar 80GT f/5 refractor, tracked by means of a homemade poncet platform, and a Canon EOS 350D Rebel dSLR camera at ISO1600.   This pic is a single 15-second exposure.

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NGC6603 in M24, in Sagittarius, photographed from Lady Lake Observatory on September 5, 2007 by Chris Stevenson, with a Celestron Nexstar 80GT f/5 refractor, tracked by means of a homemade poncet platform, and a Canon EOS 350D Rebel dSLR camera at ISO1600. M24 is the "Sagittarius starcloud", and NGC 6603 appears as a tight cluster near its centre. Also visible are dark nebulae Barnard
92 and 93 (right of NGC 6603), and others. Four of nine 15s exposures were usably tracked and summed..

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M31 "Andromeda Galaxy", in Andromeda, photographed from Lady Lake Observatory on September 5, 2007 by Chris Stevenson, with a Celectron Nexstar 80GT f/5 refractor, tracked by means of a homemade poncet platform, and a Canon EOS 350D Rebel dSLR camera at ISO1600. M32 can be seen just below it, and M110 above it. A total of 15 of 24 15s exposures were usably tracked and summed..

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