Wednesday, April 23, 2025

Sampling some galaxies with the Seestar S50

 Spring is known as "Galaxy Season" because the galaxy-rich constellations Leo, Virgo, and Coma Berenices are high in the sky during late evening.  Last night was a good opportunity to try out the Seestar S50 for galaxy viewing.

The Seestar was operating in "Station Mode", connected to the home wifi, so it was possible to sit comfortably inside while controlling the scope and watching the data accumulate.  One disadvantage of such comfort is that is easy to lose track of local weather.  Some passing clouds  ruined a couple exposures.

The Leo Triplet.  16 min exposure.

 The Leo triplet consists of NGC 3628 (upper left corner), M65 (middle right edge), and M66 (middle bottom).

 

M87. 12 min exposure.

 M87, also known as VIrgo A, is a giant elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo.  It is the location of the supermassive black hole that was first imaged with the Event  Horizon Telescope array in 2017.  In addition to the obvious bright blob of M87, there are many other galaxies in this image.  Some of them are circled in the version below:


 

Polaris. 2 min exposure.

 The cross-star filter provides an interesting aesthetic effect in the images with bright stars.  Unfortunately, it seems to interfere with the tracking and stacking algorithm of the Seestar.  Polaris does not move much during short exposures, so there was no problem acquiring this image.

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