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Planets/Galaxies - Apr08
 

May 6th, 2008: The Crescent Moon and Mercury

The Crescent Moon hung spectacularly in the near Twighlight sky with Mercury skimming the horizon below. I took some images with the Canon 300D.  We viewed and imaged Mercury through the telescope, but the images were so blurred by the atmosphere, they were unusable.  I decided to enlarge this non-telescope image using 'illegal' levels of zooming in 'PhotoZoom Pro 2' to see what could be seen of Mercury.  Here is a sequence showing the original image and enlargements of Mercury from that same image.


The Crescent Moon and Mercury



The Crescent Moon in the twilight with

Mercury just above the Trees






Mercury enlarged 1,000 %



Canon 300D on Tripod - 120mm Zoom

Enlarged in PhotoZoom Pro 2

Sharpened in PS

Mercury - B&W











M81/M82 - Galaxies in Ursa Major


The RASC - Sunshine Coast Centre met at

Shirley Macey Park in Gibsons, Saturday 3rd May, 2008. 

It was short notice but a few of us turned out to view

some nice dark skies.  Among the attractions were

the Galaxy pair M81/M82 near

The Big Dipper.







M13 - The Great Cluster in Hercules


West Sechelt, Monday, 5th May, 2008

When I studied the raw frames off the camera,

I was almost ready to email my claim of a new comet

discovery, 'Comet James' imagine that!  But alas the

faint object out to the left of M13 is NGC6207, an

11.6 magnitude Galaxy.  I glimpsed it visually while

I was imaging, but thought

I was seeing reflection or ghosting ...









Saturn - April 2008


Saturn as a shining star with 4 moons in attendance.

Titan is the lower right moon.  A single frame

with the Canon 300D at Prime Focus on

The Celestron Omni



Saturn - April 2008


A stack of 1695 frames of Saturn.

Pentax Pocket Digital











M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy

April 2008



The Whirlpool Galaxy From The Driveway. 

Celestron Omni 150 - Canon 300D. 

A Stack Of Four Frames




M42- The Orion Nebula

February 2008



30 Second Exposure at ISO 1600

Canon 300D at Prime Focus -

Orion 100mm Refractor

A stack of 2 frames.















For More Details See The 'Image Processing' Page

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