M42 - Orion Nebula - 20140825

The Orion Nebula (also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) is a diffuse nebula situated south^[ of Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion. It is one of the brightest nebulae, and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky. M42 is located at a distance of 1,344 ± 20 light years^[3][6] and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. The M42 nebula is estimated to be 24 light years across. It has a mass of about 2000 times the mass of the Sun.  M42 is one of the most viewed and imaged deep space objects.

This image of M42 was shot the morning of  August 24 using an Orion StarShoot Pro Version II camera I borrowed from John Love, WD5IKZ. The camera was mounted to a Celestron C6N six inch Newtonian telescope.  The C6N was mounted on a Celestron CI-700 mount and tripod.  Auto guiding was preformed using an 80mm refractor with a Meade DSI Pro camera with PHD 2.3 software. The image is a combination of 6 five minute exposures.  The images were calibrated, stacked and combined using Nebulosity 3.2.1.  Final processing was done using Photoshop CS5. 

Lunar Eclipse - 20140415 - With Mars & Spica

Lunar Eclipse 20140415 image was taken at approximately 02:04 AM on April 15 from my backyard.  The cameras was a Canon T3i using a Canon 55-250mm f8 zoom lenses set to 55mm focal length.  The image is a single shot.  The camera was mounted on a camera tripod which lacks a lot to be desired in stability.  The two stars shown faintly in the image are: Spica, the star to the lower right of the Moon and Mars in the upper right of the image.  Click on the image to see a larger view.

Lunar Eclipse 20140415 - Sometimes Called "Blood Moon"

Lunar Eclipse 20140415 image was taken at approximately 02:01 AM on April 15 from my backyard.  The cameras was a Canon T3i using a Canon 55-250mm f8 zoom lenses set to 250mm focal length.  The image is a single shot.  The camera was mounted on a camera tripod which lacks a lot to be desired in stability.  The two stars shown faintly in the image are: Spica, the star to the lower right of the Moon and Virgo 76 the faint star to the upper left.  Click on the image to see a larger view.