Posts Made By: Enrico Africa

Hello,

One more for the night, this time data from 2015. It’s about time! 😊

According to Wikipedia, M88 is one of 15 Messier objects listed in the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. It lies between 50-60 million light-years away, and while it is part of the Virgo Galaxy cluster, it is actually located in the constellation Coma Berenices (go figure).

M88 is classified as an Sbc spiral, which is between the Sb and Sc categories of medium-wound and loosely wound spiral arms, respectively.

The last supernova recorded in this galaxy was back in 1999.

http://www.skiesbyafrica.com/Galaxies/M88.html

75% size:
http://www.skiesbyafrica.com/Galaxies/Images/M88/M88-2015.jpg

Eric

Good evening, and happy Black Friday/Day after Thanksgiving for those who celebrate them

I'd been drooling with envy over the images and reports of the big filament over the Sun this past week in other forums, frustrated that I couldn't view it nor image it (work or clouds constantly getting in the way).

Conditions and circumstances finally allowed me to spend some time with the Sun today. I initially viewed it with my DS Lunt60: I was not disappointed. The DS really shines when interesting surface features are visible - the filament was okay in SS mode, but really leaps out in DS mode. And other filaments that were invisible unless I knew where to position the scope in SS mode were THERE in DS mode.

I was in "experiment mode" once again with our Quark filter though (I bought a ND filter to help boost contrast, and this was my first time to try it out), so I thought I'd image the filament with that filter. The filament was indeed visible visually with some slight help through the ND filter (my favorite view was still through the DS Lunt60). However, I figured the Quark would be definitely helpful with the boost in aperture and magnification. I set it up on my Borg 90 and used an ASI174.

So here's "Big Phil". 500 frames out of 1000 with the ASI174.

The filament images are my first successful use of flats in solar surface imaging. I was also hoping to capture some full disk images with the Lunt60DS, but clouds got in the way (and cleared after I tore down!!!!).

Eric

Superb image! Knowing now what do, would you still have started with an LX200? I'm asking 'cuz I'm just starting - I have an 8" LX200 and an ST-7i that I plan to add a guiding chip and color filter wheel later. Or would you suggest I go the refractor route?

Eric

Great image! Hats off to you!

Eric

Nice! It kinda reminds me of Kokopelli's (sp?) sillhouette.

Eric

I'm sure there are options out there, but I went ahead and bought the Takahashi 110V-24V converter from Anacortes.

I'm assuming you have the 24V version. If not, a 110-12V adapter should be available.

HTH,
Eric

I forgot to add: camera is an ST-7e (formerly ST-7i, now with a guiding chip).

Eric

http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/3712/tapo.html
http://phcnas.tripod.com/apohikingsociety.html

:-)

FYI, I pronounce it as "ap" (like in "apple") - "o" as in "orange"

Chris,

Great job, great image! Congratulations on your new camera!

Eric

This was extensively covered in the SBIG Yahoo! group. If you are a member, check it out. The discoverer has posted there extensively about this, and a lot of other imagers have posted images taken of the area before and after the discovery.

What's interesting is, images taken as recently as a few months ago showed nothing, so this is indeed a discovery!

Eric