Plateau Observatory Imaging Set Up

                                                                                           
Top: Looking East
Bottom: Looking South


This is the imaging set up on the back deck in Abbotsford.  I have a clear view of the sky from ENE through to the SSW and a restricted view elsewhere over the roof.  Fortunately Polaris is visible to the North, which facilitates telescope alignment.  The downtown area of Abbotsford is situated to the South.  The Clear Sky Chart lists the light pollution level as "red".  I use a Baader UHC-S filter which does an excellent job of removing any colour effects of the city lights.


The photo shows:

Stellarvue 115T20 Apo Triplet Refractor

HEQ-5 Mount

Orion Star Shoot Pro One-Shot Colour Camera

          7.8X7.8 micrometer pixels

          ~2.01 arc sec/pixel resolution

          102x68 arc min field of view

KW Telescope Guide Scope (QHY-5 Camera) (mounted on the telescope rings)

          9X50 scope, ~210mm focal length

          QHY-5 camera, 5.2X5.2 micrometer pixels

          1280X1024 pixels

          ~5.1 arc sec/pixel resolution

          109X87 arc min field of view

Ring Nebula (M57)

This image was captured on May 14, second clear sky night in a row.  The image is composed of 15 4-minute exposures with my normal set up (see preceding post).  The Ring Nebula is very tiny - 1.4X1 arc minute but still visible through the eye piece as a faint grey ring.  It is located in the constellation Lyra, south of Vega.  The Ring is a Planetary Nebula.  In this case a torus of bright light-emitting gas surrounding its central star (at 15th magnitude to faint to be seen by my 115 mm telescope).  The inner ring of green is light emitted from exited oxygen and the red outer ring from excited hydrogen.  Its distance and age is estimated at 2,300 ly and 6,000 to 8,000 years respectively.  The Ring is the remainder of a Sun-like star which has blown away its outer envelope of gas after its hydrogen fuel has been exhausted in its inner core.

M13 The "Great Hercules Cluster"

This image was captured on May 13th from my deck in Abbotsford.  It was the first clear night for several weeks.  The image is segment of a larger image and is composed of 15, 4 minute exposures.  M13 is 25 thousand ly distant, has a diameter of 145 ly (about 20 arc minutes in the image) and contains several 100,000 stars.