February 27, 2017
The first thing I did was try for a shot of Uranus. It was right next to Mars last night, otherwise I would have a very difficult time even finding it. Not very impressive at 700mm focal length, but I have a photo of Uranus now!
This is Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak. I've been trying to find it for days, using Stellarium. Last night I finally figured out that Stellarium had it in the wrong place. I used The Sky Live and finally got to the right location in the constellation Leo. Here's a LINK to The Sky Live.
NGC 4559. A nondescript galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices.
Just another one to add to my collection of galaxies.
This is M 44, the Beehive Cluster. It located in the center of the constellation Cancer. The hardest thing about photographing star clusters is getting the colors in the stars. I was pretty happy with this one.
I have always tried to photograph the Sombero Galaxy at 700mm since it is so small. But, the results are usually not that great. This is at 500mm and I like it much better, even though it is a big crop.
The Double Cluster. A large pair of star clusters near Cassiopeia.
This is what I stayed up late for. The Great Cluster in Hercules, M 13. From Wikipedia:
"M 13 is about 145 light-years in diameter, and it is composed of several hundred thousand stars, the brightest of which is a red giant, the variable star V11, with an apparent visual magnitude of 11.95. M 13 is 25,100 light-years away from Earth."
