Astronomical Images - the best from 2012/13

Featuring:

Comet C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS.
M42 (Great nebula in Orion) and the Andromeda galaxy M31.

For some images, clicking on the image will take you to a larger version (or a larger version of a different image), from which you can return here using the Back button on your browser.
Clicking on some images won't do anything, and on others might toggle you through an image sequence.

April 2013

2nd and 5th April

At last - a picture of comet PanStarrs. 3 pictures here, for the first, rather than focus the camera on an easier object (like the moon) and then try to find the comet - I opted to find the comet in the eyepiece of the 600mm 'scope, change the eyepiece for the camera and then attempt a focusing manoeuvre on an object that was barely visible in the view finder. Came reasonably close to being sharp I thought.
The second picture is with camera and 70-300mm zoom lens piggybacked on the telescope, probably set around 100mm focal length. In the top left of the image you can see the Andromeda spiral galaxy.
Both pictures exposed for 25 seconds at ISO 3200 f/6.3, and taken around 21:30 BST.
The third picture was taken at about the same time, but on the 5th April. The movement of the comet over 3 days is very noticable, this time the Andromeda spiral is below the comet.


November 2012

18th November

M42, the Orion nebula in the sword of Orion, 15 seconds ISO 6400. Taken at 04:15 on Sunday 18th November.


July 2012

24th July

As a reminder that autumn is on the way, the Andromeda spiral M31, is rising in the east.


That's the end of the best of 2012/13 images.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mikes astronomy images 2025

Image
December 2025 Christmas Day - the Christmas tree cluster! Up really early on Christmas day to take this picture of NGC 2264, aka 'the Christmas Tree Cluster". Click/tap to go to a bigger image. The question is 'where is the Xmas tree?'. Is it the bright blue patch near the top with the great big white bauble on top? Is it the silhouetted conical shape bottom left? Nasa provides the answer in this webpage in which some Nasa employee had some right good fun with colours. Turns out it's the whole thing, and my image is upside down (for Xmas tree purposes anyway). A bit like this... but it's worth following the Nasa link above for a better interpretation, and also some information on the object. In addition to not really knowing where the Xmas tree was in the image, prior to taking the image above I managed to point the SeeStar at the wrong object, NGC 2169. Took me a while to realis...
Read more

Mikes astronomy images 2026

Image
January 2026 28th January - Moon, Sun and Jupiter. Let's start with the Moon, and an image taken at 16:15, still daylight but the sky darkening towards the East where the moon was well risen. (Image courtesy of Colette). I was using the QHY camera I use for planetary imaging, but this time with no barlow lens, so just the 1000 mm focal length. The Moon doesn't quite fit in the frame. (Click/tap to big the image) Somehow, I managed to create an image that was a bit too over-sharpened, and a bit too contrasty for my liking, but it did bring my attention to a feature I have not noticed before. The oval sea at the right of the image is the Mare Crisium. Just to the left of this is the small bright ray crater Proclus. I say small, it's 27km across so a decent hike. To the left of this there appears to be a fan like area of darkness. I thought 'that's odd', and checked out another image to see if it was ...
Read more