Bob's AstroGallery

This thing is heavy, really heavy. The total weight is around 65 kg.

I replaced the Skywatcher 120/900mm ED Pro with a Celestron C9.25 EdgeHD.

What a difference! Incredible, so much more to see, so much more difficult to get the same quality photos!
My NEQ-6 Pro can’t handle the C9.25 EdgeHD in combination with the 80/600mm ED, it’s taking too long to stop vibrating after a slew… and it’s not steady enough, with a little wind the stars are already moving slightly.
This is bad, really bad, I can’t make any decent photos with this mount 🙁

Luckily, I may be able to sell my NEQ-6 Pro and get an older model Celestron CGE, which can almost handle double the weight, compared to the NEQ-6 Pro.
More on this later…

Below is an inverted image, showing all the galaxies visible in this frame:

NGC 3020
Type: Spiral Galaxy
A.k.a.: UGC 5271
Constellation: Leo
Distance From Earth: 100,000,000 light years

Camera: Atik 314L color
Exposure: 20x240s light frames, 0 dark frames, 0 flats.
Filters: Hutech IDAS LPS-P2
Telescope: Skywatcher 120 ED Pro

NGC 3227:
Type: Spiral Galaxy
A.k.a.: UGC 5620, Arp 94
Constellation: Leo
Distance From Earth: 75,000,000 light years
Diameter: 110,000 light years

NGC 3226:
Type: Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy
A.k.a.: UGC 5617, Arp 94
Constellation: Leo
Distance From Earth: 75,000,000 light years
Diameter: 50,000 light years

Camera: Atik 314L color
Exposure: 26x420s light frames, 0 dark frames, 0 flats.
Filters: Hutech IDAS LPS-P2
Telescope: Skywatcher 120 ED Pro

A.k.a.: NGC2682
Type: Open Cluster
Constellation: Cancer
Distance From Earth: 2,600 light years
Diameter: 10 light years

Camera: Atik 314L (color)
Exposure: 36x 150s, no darks, no flats
Filters: Hutech IDAS LPS-P2
Telescope: Skywatcher 120 ED Pro

The moon got as close to earth as it will ever be, approx. 353.270 km distance.
Luckily, it was a beautiful clear sky earlier this night.

I don’t have a suitable camera for planetary or lunar imaging, but I tried to make something anyway.
So, I took 100 images of the upper part and another 100 from the lower part.
These I aligned and stacked in Nebulosity separately, after which I glued them together in Photoshop CS4.
Both stacks were slightly different in hue and gamma, so I had to do my best to make them as equal as possible.

The images were taken through the Skywatcher 120/900 ED Pro, using the Atik 314L color camera.
The 0.85x focal reducer was used, as well as the Hutech IDAS-LPS P2 filter (not quite necessary, but it was already in there).

A.k.a.: NGC7654
Type: Open Cluster
Constellation: Cassiopeia
Distance From Earth: 5,000 light years
Diameter: 19 light years

Camera: Atik 314L (color)
Exposure: 60x 60s, no darks, no flats
Filters: Hutech IDAS LPS-P2
Telescope: Skywatcher 120 ED Pro

Type: Spiral Galaxy
A.k.a.: NGC3031, Bode’s Galaxy
Constellation: Ursa Major
Distance From Earth: 12,000,000 light years
Diameter: 95,000 light years

Camera: Atik 314L color
Exposure: 43x 10min light frames, 4x 10min dark frames, 0 flats
Filters: Hutech IDAS LPS-P2
Telescope: Skywatcher 120 ED Pro

Type: Barred Spiral Galaxy
A.k.a.: UGC 5079
Constellation: Leo
Distance From Earth: 30,000,000 light years
Diameter: 107,500 light years

Camera: Atik 314L color
Exposure: 30x300s light frames, 0 dark frames, 0 flats.
Filters: Hutech IDAS LPS-P2
Telescope: Skywatcher 120 ED Pro

Type: Spiral Galaxy
A.k.a.: Caldwell 7
Constellation: Camelopardalis
Distance From Earth: 12,000,000 light years
Diameter: 90,000 light years

Camera: Atik 314L color
Exposure: 25x360s & 19x240s light frames, 0 dark frames, 0 flats.
Filters: Hutech IDAS LPS-P2
Telescope: Skywatcher 120 ED Pro