8th JulyM51 Supernova
M31 nova PNV J00430685+4115308 A nova was spotted in M31 on July 1st. It is hard to find in this image, being close to the galaxy core. A cropped negative image shows the nova. Magnitude estimates are difficult because of the nearby core. Readings on four frames give 20.55, 18.49, 18.19, and 17.03 9th JulyAbell 2065 Galaxy cluster10x10 minutes. Conditions were awful, with all images taken through wispy cloud. Abell 2065 is a very distant cluster of about 400 galaxies. The distance from us is between 1.0 and 1.5 billion light years, so this is probably the furthest object I have imaged. Nearly all the objects in the image are galaxies, with just a handful of stars that belong to our galaxy. This shows the positions of the brighter galaxies 11th July
Hubble images Hubble images are often published at a scale similar to the ones produced by amateurs. It is easy to lose sight of the incredible resolution of full-scale Hubble images. This shows ngc3314 produced by Hubble, and the size it would appear if imaged by my 10" Newtonian. 23rd July
Sky conditions were better than the 14th July. 7x10 minutes on Abell 2065 |