Moonless Sky

Galaxies, Globulars, and Nebulae

Clear skies near new Moon are favorable conditions for deep sky imaging. On April 29th, nine days before new Moon, the constellation Corvus was prominent in clear southeastern skies. I used my Seestar to take a 30-minute exposure of famous edge-on galaxy M104, located just above Corvus.

On May 12th, four days after new Moon, the sky was clear again. I went out late in the evening after the crescent Moon set. With a 40-minute exposure I set out to capture a group of three closely grouped galaxies in the constellation Draco. In the next image below spiral galaxy NGC 5985 is at lower right. Elliptical galaxy NGC 5982 is in the middle, about 7.5 arc minutes from NGC 5985. Edge on galaxy NGC 5981 is the third bright galaxy about 6.2 arc minutes from middle elliptical NGC 5982. Although these galaxies seem close together in the sky, they are actually quite far apart in distance away from us. 5985 is 180 million light years distant, 5981 is 170 million light years distant, and 5982 is 600 million light years distant. 

If you enlarge the image to full size by clicking on it, you can see a very small fuzzy smudge up to the left along the rough diagonal containing the 3 brighter galaxies. This is 15.8 magnitude galaxy NGC 5976 about 8.2 arc minutes from NGC 5982. Wait! There's one more dim galaxy in the image, a round dim fuzz ball near the left bottom edge. This is 13.6 magnitude galaxy NGC 5989. So five galaxies are together in one picture! I really enjoy being surprised by unexpected members of celestial scenes!

Face on spiral galaxy M83 in the constellation Hydra was not very high above the horizon, but a 30-minute exposure captured it surprisingly well. Experience has taught me Seestar galaxy images don't improve substantially with exposures much longer than 30 minutes.

Globular cluster M92 in Hercules showed nicely in the following 15- minute exposure.

Midnight passed by and the constellation Scorpius had risen in the south. Globular cluster M4 in Scorpius was a good target for another 15-minute exposure shown next. This globular has several curved lines of stars like beads on a string. 

By now, well after midnight, the constellation Sagittarius had risen. Among many celestial targets in Sagittarius is M8, the Lagoon Nebula. When looking through a telescope eyepiece from my mid-northern latitude I've found the Lagoon Nebula to be the second easiest nebula to see after the Orion Nebula. I enabled Seestar's nebular filter and began a 30 minute exposure of M8. The result, shown next, astounded me! It was amazing to see how much of this nebula appeared on my tablet screen after only a few minutes of exposure time!

Two hours after midnight both Seestar's battery and my personal energy level were running low, but I couldn't pass up one last target, M20, the Trifid Nebula. The next image is only a 5-minute exposure without the nebular filter. Again, it's amazing to see how much shows up in a short time! I'd like to try this again with a longer exposure. 

I'm extremely happy with Seestar's imaging performance. This little device is magical!