First Clear Night for 2021

 A very frosty and clear night, though the moon was gibbous. I chose NGC 2841 as a target and captured around 3 1/4 hours of data at 114 s, gain 139.

NGC 2841 in Ursa Major

Wikipedia:

NGC 2841 is an unbarred spiral galaxy in the northern circumpolar constellation of Ursa Major. A 2001 Hubble Space Telescope survey of the galaxy's Cepheid variables determined its distance to be approximately 14.1 megaparsecs or 46 million light-years. 

This is the prototype for the flocculent spiral galaxy, a type of spiral galaxy whose arms are patchy and discontinuous. The morphological class is SAa, indicating a spiral galaxy with no central bar and very tightly-wound arms. There is no grand design structure visible in the optical band, although some inner spiral arms can be seen in the near infrared. 

The properties of NGC 2841 are similar to those of the Andromeda Galaxy. It is home to a large population of young blue stars, and a few H II regions. The luminosity of the galaxy is 2×1010 M☉ and it has a combined mass of 7×1010 M☉. Its disk of stars can be traced out to a radius of around 228 kly (70 kpc). This disk begins to warp at a radius of around 98 kly (30 kpc), suggesting the perturbing effect of in-falling matter from the surrounding medium.

The rotational behavior of the galaxy suggests there is a massive nuclear bulge,with a low-ionization nuclear emission-line region  at the core; a type of region that is characterized by spectral line emission from weakly ionized atoms. A prominent molecular ring is orbiting at a radius of 7–20 kly (2–6 kpc), which is providing a star-forming region of gas and dust. The nucleus appears decoupled and there is a counter-rotating element of stars and gas in the outer parts of the nucleus, suggesting a recent interaction with a smaller galaxy.

NGC 672 in Triangulum

 This image is based on around 90mins of 114 s , gain 139, offset 21, exposures, all in luminance. Finally done some new flats, but moved the camera slightly when checking for dust, so still not the best.

NGC 672 in Triangulum

Interesting galaxy, plus  several small ones in the background.

Wikipedia: NGC 672 is a spiral galaxy in the northern constellation of Triangulum, positioned around 2° to the southwest of the star Alpha Trianguli.

This galaxy is located at a distance of approximately 23.4 megalight-years from the Milky Way,where it forms an interacting pair with the irregular galaxy IC 1727. In the neutral hydrogen radio band, a tidal bridge is observed between the galaxNGC 672 appears to be the more massive of the two, and hence IC 1727 shows more distortion from the interaction. Together they form members of a combined group of galaxies that includes NGC 784.

The morphological classification of NGC 672 is SB(s)cd, which indicates this is a barred spiral galaxy (SB), with no ring structure around the central bar (s), and moderately to loosely-wound spiral arms. In the visual spectrum, the galaxy appears symmetrical with clearly defined spiral arms.

Two Galaxies far far away

 Last few times I have ben concerned the mount was not accurately aligned, so the first thing done tonight was to check the polar alignment. I gave up using the polarscope and in the end used the Drift tool in APT. This seemed to work very well and thereafter  the     scope went to its target fairly accurately, with Sync being used to correct any slight errors.

I ended up looking at a couple of galaxies, one of which I imaged in Jan this year. Next job is to redo the flats, those dust bunnies are still there!

IC2166 in Lynx

IC2166 is a barred spiral galaxy about 120 million lights years away!

NGC 2403 in Camelopardalis

NGC 2403 (also known as Caldwell 7) is an intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation Camelopardalis. It is an outlying member of the M81 Group, and is approximately 8 million light-years distant. It bears a similarity to M33, being about 50,000 light years in diameter and containing numerous star-forming H II regions

Grainy Mars

 Too pixelated but hey ho

Some galaxies and an Open Cluster

The galaxy images are in mono. I need to take some new luminance flats as there are dust bunnies showing!  

NGC6688 is a galaxy in Lyra, with some friends.

NGC2300 is a galaxy in Cepheus, interacting with an elliptical galaxy.

M34 is an open cluster in Perseus.

NGC 281 The Pacman Nebula in Cassiopeia

 This has taken a lot for time (for me), in total around 2hours 30 minutes per channel ,so around 10 hours total . I haven't tried to control the size of the stars,  will leave that, to another day maybe. The image has much less noise than most of the ones I do, because of the long integration time. The nebula is bigger than the field of view, I have missed the edges.

Wikipedia: NGC 281, IC 11 or Sh2-184 is a bright emission nebula and part of an H II region in the northern constellation of Cassiopeia and is part of the Milky Way's Perseus Spiral Arm. This 20×30 arcmin sized nebulosity is also associated with open cluster IC 1590, several Bok globules and the multiple star, B 1. It collectively forms Sh2-184, spanning over a larger area of 40 arcmin. A recent distance from radio parallaxes of water masers at 22 GHz made during 2014 is estimated it lies 2.82±0.20 kpc. (9200 ly.) from us. Colloquially, NGC 281 is also known as the Pacman Nebula for its resemblance to the video game character.

Mars and first colour image of Jupiter

 Mars was at its closest to Earth on 6th October, three days ago. It was quite high in the sky, so this is the best image I have to date.

The image of Jupiter was taken at the end of September, when it was low on the southern horizon, so in disturbed air.