As described in a previous blog post, we have an 80cm ASA telescope on the roof of our building at work. The telescope needed to be tested and a pointing model had to be made. As the telescope is so huge, it is very difficult to get a star in the field of view of the telescope. We used a Tele Vue 31mm Nagler eyepiece, which gives a magnification of 264x with a field of view of 18' in this telescope. Once the first star was found, the telescope did already point much closer to the next target. After manually searching a few targets, we took some time to observe.
The highlight of the evening was the observation of the Eskimo Nebula (NGC 2392) in the constellation of Gemini. With direct vision, all known details could be easily seen, including the collar of the jacket, even in the very light-polluted sky in Leuven. We also watched some other objects (M 51 for example), but these were less spectacular. I hope to be able to do some of these observations again in the dark skies on La Palma.
After using the telescope visually, we started using the ZWO ASI 6200MM Pro to take some images. We just used the stacking function and were very impressed by the details that could be seen only after a few minutes of exposure. Enjoy the first light pictures!
 |
| M 51, the Whirlpool galaxy (300 seconds of exposure) |
 |
| M 1, the Crab Nebula (80 seconds of exposure) |
 |
| M 63, the Sunflower galaxy (180 seconds of exposure) |
 |
| M 64, the Black-Eye galaxy (210 seconds of exposure) |
 |
| M 76, a planetary nebula in Perseus (80 seconds of exposure) |
 |
| M 82, the Cigar Galaxy (80 seconds of exposure) |
 |
| NGC 40, the Bow-Tie Nebula (70 seconds of exposure) |
 |
| NGC 2392, the Eskimo Nebula (60 seconds of exposure) |
Comments
Post a Comment