In the realm of the nebulae

May 25, 2015 19:16

This is the twenty-inch Newtonian reflector at the Centre for Observational Astronomy in the Algarve, where I have just spent five nights


Read more... )

Leave a comment

Comments 3

anonymous May 28 2015, 04:47:43 UTC
well done!

Reply


tau_iota_mu_c May 31 2015, 04:33:00 UTC
There's more than 6½ there. Lots more fuzzy nonstarlike blobs quite a bit above the noise floor.

Reply

fivemack May 31 2015, 09:54:17 UTC
With the slight differential focus across the field, and auto-guiding against a strong wind giving me stars with an FWHM of about five arc-seconds, I'm not sure I can confidently tell a fuzzy non-starlike blob from a fuzzy star.

I did a plate solution with http://nova.astrometry.net/user_images/687126#annotated to get to six and a half; I don't know of an on-line tool where I can say '36x24 arc-minute image around 12 25 39 +12 49 12, east is up, superimpose the whole PGC catalogue'; if I ask SIMBAD for ten arc-minute radius around NGC4387 http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-plot?ident=NGC++4387&coo=12+25+41.715%2B12+48+37.29&radius.unit=arcmin&x=69&y=58&radius=10 it takes several minutes to return me a tiny image which could well be the Wikipedia title image for 'source confusion'.

Reply


Leave a comment

Up