Wow.. it's been a long time, but not uneventful to say the least,,, we have been hit with record rainfall and flooding even I,  had 6" of water in my basement...  

but  the sun and stars returned..however to my dismay I find my typical targets (large area targets) no longer in the sky..spring has sprung and galaxy season is upon us again..

usually I dread this season since my imaging setup is not geared for the tight fields of view that  most galaxies have...and since my light pollution level is unforgiving the need to use broadband nebula filters creates a added layer of complexity to galaxy imaging

These filters block light.. and when you image galaxies you want every fleeting photon you can snag...

Lately, I have been imaging widefeild with the canon 350D on my 80MM FD.. for vistas like gamma cygni, north american nebula this scope/camera combination is suited perfectly.

but the canon camera has a large cmos chip and when used with my C8 at f/10 or f/6.3 the field of view is still not tight enough...

the galaxies of plenty need a tighter field of view, kind of like the field of view of my guide camera the dsi pro II,

well here is the problem,, i got a fairly sensitive black and white camera that would get me the image scale suited for these little buggers...but i would not have a camera to guide with and i hate switching cameras since I have to recreate flats...etc...

here is my dilemma ...to Guide or Not to Guide...

In the past I would never even attempt this..but that was before i put my scope on a pier...

my scope really never had "great" polar alignment, i always managed to get close enough and use good autoguiding

but I want to use my guider to image,,, hmmmm

1st requirement to "no guiding" is PERFECT polar alignment.. this will eliminate all the DEC drift out of your scope

In the past, I always used the Celestron polar alignment  in the nextstar controller this allows you to roughly align, 

this works well but is not perfect ...I need PERFECT

I needed to drift align..what is drift aligning ? you ask.... well it's a method of polar alignment in which you monitor the movement of stars positioned at different locations in the sky with inaccurate polar alignment stars tend to drift up and down in the field of view, by monitoring this drift and making fine adjustments to the mount, you can dial out the drift and put the scope in perfect polar alignment, I would get more into details but  you can learn Drift Alignment with a quick google "drift alignment" there are many sites that describe this better than I...:)

the 2nd requirement for "no guiding" a good PEC training. this way you can offset the known worm gear error in almost every mount on the planet... to get my mount "trained" as best as possible i decided to use Celestron's own PEC training utility which records training runs and averages  them for a final PEC training profile i  then uploaded to my mount...   (how many reading this is saying .. Huh???)...

PEC is Period Error Correction this is a feature in Celstron's scopes which allow you to record guiding corrections that will repair the error your mount has when tracking in right accession, there is a round gear with teeth like a bike's sprocket, this gets turned but a small gear that turns slowly, as it turns it pulls the large sprocket in RA, the error is caused by imperfections in this gear as it pulls along, and most mounts have this problem, getting a good number of training passes at guiding different locations in the sky allows you to combine guiding runs for a pretty accurate autoguide in RA which is stored in the mount and played back on demand using no guide camera 

I spent  a few nights working on both these problems I decided to give it a go with no guiding..

Visit my photo gallery for the results everything black and white and the latest two new images from my widefield setup was captured without using my guider..

the standard I use now is 60 sec exposures with the DSI, I can go longer but i only capture more of the lightpollution skyglow

and I work to get 60+ subs of any one target

with any stack, you usually throw away a few subs, but on some of these images I did not..so a total of 60 frames all used :)

so now I image galaxies something I never enjoyed until now..

now I need a filter wheel ;)

cheers John

The Andromeda Galaxy (also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224; often referred to as the Great Andromeda Nebula in older texts) is a spiral galaxy approximately 2,500,000 light-years (1.58×1011 AU) away in the constellation Andromeda. It is the nearest spiral galaxy to our own, the Milky Way. As it is visible as a faint smudge on a moonless night, it is one of the farthest objects visible to the naked eye, and can be seen even from urban areas with binoculars. It is named after the princess Andromeda in Greek mythology. Andromeda is the largest galaxy of the Local Group, which consists of the Andromeda Galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy, the Triangulum Galaxy, and about 30 other smaller galaxies. Although the largest, Andromeda may not be the most massive, as recent findings suggest that the Milky Way contains more dark matter and may be the most massive in the grouping. The 2006 observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope revealed that M31 contains one trillion (1012) stars, greatly exceeding the number of stars in our own galaxy. While the 2006 estimates put the mass of the Milky Way to be ~80% of the mass of Andromeda, which is estimated to be 7.1 × 1011 solar masses, a 2009 study concluded that Andromeda and the Milky Way are about equal in mass.

At an apparent magnitude of 4.4, the Andromeda Galaxy is notable for being one of the brightest Messier objects, making it easily visible to the naked eye even when viewed from areas with moderate light pollution. Although it appears more than six times as wide as the full moon when photographed through a larger telescope, only the brighter central region is visible with the naked eye.

-Desc Wiki

Captured 09-18-09
30x360sec light
33x1 sec flat
36x360 sec dark
Calibration with Nebulosity
Stacked with DSS
Processed with Photoshop CS3
Camera -Canon 350d IR/UV mod
Scope Celestron C8 w/.63 reducer
Filter is AstronomikCLS and Baader IR/UV
Guided with 80mm and DSI proII and PHD Guiding
Captued with Nebulosity
Seeing 7/10

NGC 891 is an edge on unbarred spiral galaxy about 30 million light-years away in the constellation Andromeda. It was discovered by William Herschel on October 6 1784. The galaxy is a member of the NGC 1023 group of galaxies in the Local Supercluster. It has an H II nucleus.[3]

Visually, the object is visible in small to moderate size telescopes as a faint elongated smear of light with a dust lane visible in larger apertures.

Captured 09-21-09
30x360sec light
33x1 sec flat
36x360 sec dark
Calibration with Nebulosity
Stacked with DSS
Processed with Photoshop CS3
Mount Celestron CGE
Camera -Canon 350d IR/UV mod
Scope Celestron C8 w/.63 reducer
Filter is AstronomikCLS and Baader IR/UV
Guided with 80mm and DSI proII and PHD Guiding
Captued with Nebulosity
Seeing 5/10 Hi Clouds Passing

NGC 6820 is an emission nebula that surrounds open cluster NGC 6823 in Vulpecula, near M27, the Dumbbell Nebula. The nebula NGC 6820 is also callled Sharpless catalog Sh 2-86.

The most striking feature is the trunk-like pillar or dust and gas protruding from the east side of the nebula towards the open cluster, NGC 6823 in the west. The center of the open cluster is about two million years old and is predominantly represented by many young, bright blue stars. Outer parts of the cluster intimately involving pillars of emission nebula NGC 6820, contain even younger stars. The huge pillars of gas and dust are probably formed when surrounding gas and dust is pushed and eroded away by radiation from nearby stars. Remarkable dark globules of gas and dust are also visible in the nebula, much as is seen in the better known Eagle Nebula in Serpens or the Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius.

Open star cluster NGC 6823 is about 50 light years across and lies about 6000 light years away.  -Wiki

Captured 09-22-09
30x360sec light
33x1 sec flat
36x360 sec dark
Calibration with Nebulosity
Stacked with DSS
Processed with Photoshop CS3
Camera -Canon 350d IR/UV mod
Mount - Celestron CGE
Scope Celestron C8 w/.63 reducer
Filter is AstronomikCLS and Baader IR/UV
Guided with 80mm and DSI proII and PHD Guiding
Captued with Nebulosity
Seeing 5/10

Messier 92 (also known as M92 or NGC 6341) is a globular cluster in the constellation Hercules.
It was discovered by Johann Elert Bode in 1777 and independently rediscovered by Charles Messier on March 18, 1781.
M92 is at a distance of about 26,000 light-years away from Earth. -Wiki

Captured 09-21-09
15x360sec light
33x1 sec flat
36x360 sec dark
Calibration with Nebulosity
Stacked with DSS
Processed with Photoshop CS3
Camera -Canon 350d IR/UV mod
Mount- Celestron CGE
Scope Celestron C8 w/.63 reducer
Filter is AstronomikCLS and Baader IR/UV
Guided with 80mm and DSI proII and PHD Guiding
Captued with Nebulosity
Seeing 5/10

NGC 7380 is an open cluster discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1787. William Herschel included his sister's discovery in his catalog, and labelled it H VIII.77. It is also known as 142 in the 1959 Sharpless catalog (Sh2-142). -Wiki

Captured 09-22-09
45x360sec light
33x1 sec flat
36x360 sec dark
Calibration with Nebulosity
Stacked with DSS
Processed with Photoshop CS3
Mount Celestron CGE
Camera -Canon 350d IR/UV mod
Scope Celestron C8 w/.63 reducer
Filter is AstronomikCLS and Baader IR/UV
Guided with 80mm and DSI proII and PHD Guiding
Captued with Nebulosity
Seeing 5/10

NGC 7635, also called the Bubble Nebula and Sharpless 162, is a H II region emission nebula in the constellation Cassiopeia. It lies close to the direction of the open cluster Messier 52. The "bubble" is created by the stellar wind from a massive hot magnitude young central star,The nebula is near a giant molecular cloud which contains the expansion of the bubble nebula while itself being excited by the hot central star, causing it to glow It was discovered in 1787 by Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel -Wiki

Captured 09-20-09
23x360sec light
33x1 sec flat
36x360 sec dark
Calibration with Nebulosity
Stacked with DSS
Processed with Photoshop CS3
Camera -Canon 350d IR/UV mod
Scope Celestron C8 w/.63 reducer
Mount Celestron CGE
Filter is AstronomikCLS and Baader IR/UV
Guided with 80mm and DSI proII and PHD Guiding
Captued with Nebulosity
Seeing 7/10

The Triangulum Galaxy Messier 33 (M33, NGC 598) is another prominent member of the Local Group of galaxies. This galaxy is small compared to its big apparent neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy M31, and to our Milky Way galaxy, but by this more of average size for spiral galaxies in the universe. One of the small Local Group member galaxies, LGS 3, is possibly a satellite of M33, which itself may be a remote but gravitationally bound companion of the Andromeda galaxy M31.

Captured Multiple Nights

9-16- 9-17- 9-22

49x360sec light

33x1 sec flat
36x360 sec dark
Calibration with Nebulosity
Stacked with DSS
Processed with Photoshop CS3
Camera -Canon 350d IR/UV mod
Mount Celestron CGE
Scope Celestron C8 w/.63 reducer
Filter is AstronomikCLS and Baader IR/UV
Guided with 80mm and DSI proII and PHD Guiding
Captued with Nebulosity
Seeing 7-9/10 Varies Some hi clouds

Western Veil Nebula  is part of the Cygnus Loop, radio source W78, or Sharpless 103. Other parts of the loop include the 'Eastern Veil', the 'Western Veil' or 'Witch's Broom Nebula', and Pickering's Triangular Wisp. It is a large, relatively faint supernova remnant in
the constellation Cygnus. The source supernova exploded some 5,000 to 8,000 years ago, and the remnants have since expanded to cover an area of ~3x3 degrees; about 6 times the diameter or 36 times the area of a full moon. The distance to the nebula is not precisely known, with estimates ranging from 1,400 to 2,600 light-years. It was discovered on 1784 September 5 by William Herschel. He described the western end of the nebula as "Extended; passes thro' 52 Cygni... near 2 degree in length." and described the eastern end as "Branching nebulosity... The following part divides into several streams uniting again towards the south."

 
Captured 09-13-09
35x360sec light
33x1 sec flat
36x360 sec dark
Calibration with Nebulosity
Stacked with DSS
Processed with Photoshop CS3
Camera -Canon 350d IR/UV mod
Scope Celestron C8 w/.63 reducer
Filter is AstronomikCLS and Baader IR/UV
Guided with 80mm and DSI proII and PHD Guiding
Captued with Nebulosity
Seeing 7/10

The Easter Veil Nebula, is part of the Cygnus Loop, radio source W78, or Sharpless 103. Other parts of the loop include the 'Eastern Veil', the 'Western Veil' or 'Witch's Broom Nebula', and Pickering's Triangular Wisp. It is a large, relatively faint supernova remnant in the constellation Cygnus. The source supernova exploded some 5,000 to 8,000 years ago, and the remnants have since expanded to cover an area of ~3x3 degrees; about 6 times the diameter or 36 times the area of a full moon. The distance to the nebula is not precisely known, with estimates ranging from 1,400 to 2,600 light-years. It was discovered on 1784 September 5 by William Herschel.

 
Captured 09-14-09
15x360sec light
Captued -09-18-09
15x360sec light
33x1 sec flat
36x360 sec dark
Calibration with Nebulosity
Stacked with DSS
Processed with Photoshop CS3
Camera -Canon 350d IR/UV mod
Scope Celestron C8 w/.63 reducer
Filter is AstronomikCLS and Baader IR/UV
Guided with 80mm and DSI proII and PHD Guiding
Captured with Nebulosity
Seeing 9.5/10