Author Archives: astrolavista

Ten 5 minute LRGB sub exposures stacked in Maxim DL6 and processed in Photoshop CS6. A Celestron 11 EdgeHD SCT telescope at F7 was used to acquire images with a QSI583wsg camera.

“M13 is generally considered the finest globular cluster in the northern skies, mainly because it is visible to the naked eye in a well-known grouping of stars that sails high overhead in the summer sky. It is a swollen mass teaming with perhaps 300,000 to a half-million suns spread across 140 light years or more.”Continue reading “M13 – Great Hercules Cluster”

“Once believed to be a great swirling nebula, M51 is now known to be the finest example of a face-on spiral galaxy. A near neighbor of our own galaxy, just 15 million light years away, this graceful pinwheel of stars, dust and gas measures about 50,000 light years across and shines with the luminosity ofContinue reading “WHIRPOOL GALAXY – M51”

This comet was discovered May 19, 2012 using the Pan-STARRS telescope located in Hawaii. This is a stacked image of 40 half minute exposures through RGB filters taken through the 11 inch Celestron. It was processed in Maxim DL and Photoshop. More info about visible comets can be found here: http://www.aerith.net/comet/future-n.html  

This cluster is 65000 light years distant and has a luminosity of 330,000 times that of the Sun. It was taken with the 11 inch Celestron and represents 20 stacked RGB filtered images of 60 seconds each. It was processed in Maxim DL and Photoshop.

NGC 3628 is the faintest member of a trio of Galaxies in Leo that is also comprised of Messier 65 and Messier 66. It has a beautiful dust lane that is quite evident in this photo. The photo is a stacked composite of the best of twenty 200 second images using RGB filters on theContinue reading “An Edge on Galaxy in Leo – NGC 3628”