Andromeda Galaxy is the most spectacular spiral galaxy in the night sky; it’s so large and bright that it can be seen even with the naked eye in a dark sky. Its distance is 2.5 million light years away and is over twice as large as our own Milky Way galaxy with a diameter of 260,000 light-years across.
 
You can capture M31 with any size instrument, from camera and lenses to small to middle size telescopes. But be mindful as its size projected on the sky is about 6 moon diameters, so larger aperture telescopes are not recommended if you want to capture the whole galaxy.
 
I took this image at my Stardust Observatory using a Meade 80mm refractor with a focal reducer and Canon 6D Mark11 full frame camera, 30x3 minute exposures with ISO2500. 20x3 minute darks and flats were also captured and stacked in DSS and processed in PS.
 
For more information on this amazing stellar object please go to the links below:
https://lowell.edu/views-from-mars-hill-andromeda-galaxy/
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/galaxy-next-door/

 Starchart Credit: International Astronomical Union “The Constellations”
https://www.iau.org/public/themes/constellations/
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This galaxy is known as the Silver Coin, or Sculptor Galaxy, it’s approximately 11 million light-years away and is the brightest member of the Sculptor group of galaxies.
 
NGC 253 was discovered by Caroline Herschel, the sister of William Herschel on the 23 September 1783 with an excellent small Newtonian telescope of 27 inches, more information at: http://www.messier.seds.org/xtra/ngc/n0253.html
 
Measuring 70,000 light years across, the Sculptor Galaxy is known as a starburst galaxy for its current high rate of star formation, one result of which is its superwind, a stream energetic material spewing out from the center of the galaxy out into space.
 
More information at:
https://www.constellation-guide.com/sculptor-galaxy-ngc-253/
 
Images taken at my Stardust Observatory at Leyburn in September with a Meade 80mm refractor telescope and Canon 6D Mark 11 camera, 30x 3 minute subs with darks plus flats, with ISO 2500. Images were stacked in DSS and processed in PS.

~ International Astronomical Union (IAU) constellations ~
https://www.iau.org/public/themes/constellations/

~ Helix Nebula (NGC 7293) Planetary nebula in Aquarius 655 light years away ~
 
About 10,600 years ago a star like ours exploded and this is what it looks like today…awesome isn’t it, but there’s no need to worry as our life giving star still has 4.5 billion years to go!
 
The Helix Nebula (NGC 7293) was formed when a massive red giant star exploded, resulting in a white dwarf star forming at the nebula centre, expanding band of gases and dust can be seen surrounding the whole area as the star shed its outer layers into space.
 
The Helix Nebula is the closest planetary nebula to Earth and can be found very easily at the moment in a dark sky with binoculars or telescope in the constellation of Aquarius.
 
Image taken at my Stardust Observatory with Meade 10inch LX200 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and Canon 6D Mark11 camera attached. 35X3 minute images captured with dark frames and ISO 2500, stacked in DSS and processed in PS.
 
German astronomer Karl Ludwig Harding discovered the Helix Nebula in about 1824. It is estimated to be about 10,600 years old when the explosion was created and the star could have had planets, moons, comets and other celestial objects orbiting around it just like our Earth.
 
To read more about this spectacular celestial object please go to the links below:
https://theplanets.org/nebula-facts/helix-nebula/

 ~ International Astronomical Union (IAU) constellations ~
https://www.iau.org/public/themes/constellations/

Saturn is now half way up the eastern sky in the evening here in the southern hemisphere, just perfect for viewing in any size telescope.

Saturn’s magnificent rings are now closing up and tilting away from us as viewed from Earth.

​Images were taken at my Stardust Observatory with a Meade 10inch LX200 telescope and ZWO ASI 120 mc planetary camera with 3x Barlow lens attached, AVI movies captured and processed in RegiStax6 and PS.

Jupiter is now rising is the eastern sky around 10pm and looks just awesome in any size telescope, with opposition on the 3rd November we have many months to enjoy this mighty planet.

My image shows Jupiter with its GRS and moon Io transiting the planet with its shadow crossing the surface, I have done up two images taken just 3 minutes apart, if you cross your eyes gently hopefully you can see the planet and moon look 3D…I hope you can see it :-) 
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 Images were taken at my Stardust Observatory with a Meade 10inch LX200 telescope and ZWO ASI 120 mc planetary camera with 3x Barlow lens attached, AVI movies captured and processed in RegiStax6 and PS.

~ Antares, Rho Ophiuchi region and Blue Horsehead Nebula IC 4592 in Scorpius & Ophiuchus ~
 
The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex is one of the nearest star forming regions to the Sun. It is composed of emission, reflection and dark nebulae; the brightest parts of the cloud complex include the nebulae IC 4604, IcC4603 and IC 4605.
 
IC 4604, also known, as the Rho Ophiuchi Nebula is a reflection nebula illuminated by the star Rho Ophiuchi itself, which is located in the constellation of Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer.
 
Antares is the alpha star in Scorpius, just one and a half degrees away from Antares is the globular star cluster M4.
 
Images taken with Canon 6D Mark 11 camera and Canon f2.8 70-200mm lens piggybacked on tracking telescope. Both images; subs 25x3 minutes darks 15x3 minutes, ISO2500. Stacked in DSS, processed in PS.

~ NGC 6334 Cats Paw & NGC 6357 Lobster Nebulae in a sea of stars in the tail of Scorpius ~
 
This is a wide field star rich image around the sting area of Scorpius near the bright stars Shaula and Lesath. The Cats Paw nebula is also know as the Bear Claw nebula and is an emission nebula about 50 light years across at a distance of 5,500 light years from Earth.
 
It is one of the nearest H II regions that’s a very active stellar nursery and it really does look like a Cats Paw stamped on the sky, I can also see a little hedgehog on his back smiling at me :-)
 
British astronomer John Herschel discovered the nebula in 1837 while observing the southern skies at Cape of Good Hope in South Africa using one of the largest telescopes available at the time.
 
The other nebula close by is NGC 6357 known as the Lobster Nebula or War and Peace nebula that is another emission nebula about 5,900 light years away, it hosts several massive young stars clusters and is a prominent star forming region with proto-stars embedded within the dark disks of gas.
 
Along with all the rich star and dust fields other stellar objects can also be seen, with the large M6 star cluster in the top left hand corner.
 
I’m really getting into discovering the Barnard dark nebulae embedded throughout the Milky Way and have marked a few on the Cats Paw image.
 
This image was taken at my Stardust Observatory in August 2023 using a Canon 6D Mark 11 camera with a Canon F2.8 70-200 lens attached. The camera was being attached to the top of a tracking Meade LX200 10inch telescope.

Saturn is now nearing opposition which means the planet is closest to us in its orbit about the Sun and is best placed for viewing in the night sky, it rises in the east at the same time as the Sun sets so can be seen all night long…time to get those telescopes out and see the most beautiful planet in our solar system.

Saturn’s magnificent rings are now closing up and tilting away from us as viewed from Earth.

Images were taken at my Stardust Observatory with a Meade 10inch LX200 telescope and ZWO ASI 120 mc planetary camera with 3x Barlow lens attached, AVI movies captured and processed in RegiStax6 and PS.

To find out more information and star maps about this opposition of Saturn please go to Earth Sky article:  
​Saturn at opposition – and brightest – on August 26-27 at:
https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/saturn-at-opposition-closest-brightest-best/

These are my first images of Jupiter for 2023 with two of the Galilean moons Io and Ganymede close by.
 The sky was quite hazy but there’s still plenty of time to capture better images, as the planet does not come to opposition until November.
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 Images were taken at my Stardust Observatory with a Meade 10inch LX200 telescope and ZWO ASI 120 mc planetary camera with 3x Barlow lens attached, AVI movies captured and processed in RegiStax6 and PS.

​I’m at my Stardust Observatory for the May new Moon weekend and I had to get out quite early to capture this picture of Venus as the sky was still light. The view over to the north-western part of the sky has lots of trees but I did managed to capture three short AVI videos of the planet…. Yay!
 
Because Venus is very bright it shows up with these pretty colours, if you want to remove them for a more natural colour of the planet there is a setting in RegiStax6 called RGB balance. I find this removes those refracted colours even though I really like them :-)
 
Images were taken with a Meade LX200 10inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and a ZWO ASI 120MC camera with a 3x Barlow lens attached, AVI videos were captured then stacked in RegiSta6 and processed in PS CS4.