WT5L Blog

The image above is of the globular cluster Messier 12 (M12) located in the constellation Ophiuchus.  All subframes used for this image were captured at the Chiefland Astronomy Village on 24 & 25 April 2009.  The image was taken with an unmodified Canon XSi (450D) at ISO 800 with 300 seconds (5 minutes) subframes.  In all, 23 subframes were used for this image for a total integration time of 115 minutes.  All subframes were calibrated using dark, flat, and bias frames in Maxim DL and final image processing was done in Adobe Photoshop with Gradient Exterminator and Noise Ninja plug-ins.  The scope used for this shot was a Takahashi TSA-102s reduced to f/5.96 (608mm) riding on a Takahashi EM-200 Temma 2 mount.  All subframes were autoguided using a Fishcamp Starfish uncooled guide camera attached to a Orion 80mm f/5 short tube guide scope.

In this field of view where north is up and east is to the left, the camera has been centered on the 14 arcminute wide, magnitude 6.1 globular cluster.  M12 lies at a distance of approximately 18,000 light years and is also catalogued as NGC 6218.   (Click on the image above to view the full-size image of M6.)

More information regarding this image can be found here:

http://astro.wt5l.com/m12_01.htm

The image above is of the open cluster Messier 6 (M6) located in the constellation Scorpius.  All subframes used for this image were captured at the Chiefland Astronomy Village on 25 April 2009.  The image was taken with an unmodified Canon XSi (450D) at ISO 800 with 300 seconds (5 minutes) subframes.  In all, 12 subframes were used for this image for a total integration time of 60 minutes.  All subframes were calibrated using dark, flat, and bias frames in Maxim DL and final image processing was done in Adobe Photoshop with Gradient Exterminator and Noise Ninja plug-ins.  The scope used for this shot was a Takahashi TSA-102s reduced to f/5.96 (608mm) riding on a Takahashi EM-200 Temma 2 mount.  All subframes were autoguided using a Fishcamp Starfish uncooled guide camera attached to a Orion 80mm f/5 short tube guide scope.

In this field of view where north is up and east is to the left, the camera has been centered on the heart of the 33 arcminute wide, magnitude 4.2 open cluster.  M6 is famous for its butterfly pattern and contains about 126 stars to magnitude 14.  Most are blue-white stars with the exception of orange BM Scorpii whose magnitude varies between 5.5 and 7 over 850 days.  M6 lies at a distance of approximately 1600 light years from us and is also catalogued as NGC 6405.  The diffraction spikes were artificially created using pieces of monofilament stretched across the scope’s dew shield.   (Click on the image above to view the full-size image of M6.)

More information regarding this image can be found here:

http://astro.wt5l.com/m06_01.htm