Leo II Galaxy (UGC6253)

The BAA Deep Sky Section has monthly objects of interest for us to have a go at imaging and this month's is the Local Group galaxy Leo II. Leo II is one of 24 known satellite galaxies of the Milky Way and was discovered in 1950 from an examination of the Palomar Sky Survey plates. It is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy that lies at about 210 kpc from our own. Four days ago on the 15th February after some dreadful weeks of cloudy wet weather we had a break in the clouds and I was able to have a go at imaging this galaxy. Fortunately, it was two days before new moon and the skies were nice and dark. I used my Dwarf 3 smartscope to observe this object and this is what I obtained after 253x15s (63.25 minutes) of integration:-

 

Leo II is the faint smudge of light in the centre of the field (you can enlarge this image by 'clicking on it'). With the Dwarf none of the stars in the galaxy are resolvable. This is not really surprising given the small aperture (35mm) of the Dwarf. Still, I was pleased that I could actually detect it. The first frame was taken st 22:45 UT and the last at 00:06 UT on the 16th. Midpoint was 23:26 UT. All auto parameters were used on the Dwarf and in the Stellar Studio for post processing. The image has been binned x2 and the gain increased in Photoshop slightly. Notice the galaxy to the right of the image. This is NGC3551 - an elliptical galaxy in Leo that is 150 Mpc from us (a tad further than Leo II). The bright star at the top left of the frame is 72 Leo which is an evolved bright giant star of spectral class M3II (you can see its organgey colour).

All text and images © Duncan Hale-Sutton 2026 

Another spectacular aurora (19/1/2026)

About a month ago we had another large solar storm that set of a memorable auroral display. I wrote up a report for the BAA and I reproduce it here: -

"I was initially unaware that an aurora was in progress on the evening of the 19th January. At about 21:15 UT I looked outside to see if it was clear, as I often do, in case I can start doing some observing. There was some light fragmented cloud about and stars could be seen through the gaps. What caught my attention almost immediately was that part of the cloud formation looking straight above my head looked like it was being lit by some sort of search light hidden amongst the clouds. It was very odd because I couldn’t see what the source of the light was and I began to wonder if it was some sort of laser beam or perhaps the forward landing lights of an aircraft or even the fuel dump of some rocket. It couldn’t have been the moon as its phase at this time was only one day past new and it had already set. I called to my wife as I thought it so unusual. The light was white in colour and as we watched it faded but then grew bright again slightly further south. I was perplexed, as I couldn’t understand it and I must admit that it gave me goosebumps.
 

When I went inside I had my answer because I heard my phone emitting a buzzing noise when it does when it receives an aurora alert. The Aurora Watch magnetometer at Sumburgh Head had just recorded an exceptionally large value of 1128.3 nT (compare this with the value of 950 nT that we had for the big storm on the 10th/11th May 2024). The significant alerts had started at 19:00 UT with a value of 347 nT and then 882.0 nT at 20:00. I grabbed my camera (a Sony RX100) and tripod and began taking pictures at 21:26 UT. What was clear was that the aurora was easily visible to the naked eye in the north. It was a bit like the coming of dawn in intensity (see the image below taken at 21:26 UT – this was 10 secs at ISO 1600, f/1.8 – and it is obvious that this image is over exposed). 

 

Note that neighbours house was confusingly lit up by their multicoloured lights in this image and this had nothing to do with the aurora!

At this time the aurora took the form of a homogeneous arc with a strong pink/red arc lying above a green one. At the top of the image taken at 21:26 is the star zeta Ursa Minoris and this was about 42 degrees above the horizon in altitude and in the red arc. I am sure that the arc stretched well above this. The boundary between the red arc and the green glow beneath was at an altitude of about 27 degrees. 4 minutes later at 21:30 the red arc developed some rays (see the picture taken below – 4s exposure, other settings the same). This view is looking NNE.

 

Looking in a more easterly direction at 21:32 UT (see the photo below – still ISO1600, f/1.8, 4s) I spotted another of the green patches of light developing near the horizon and away from the main auroral arc. 

 

 

The main bright star is alpha Leonis. It is possible to judge from this image how far east the arc stretches. It seems to end almost due east, namely at an azimuth of 90 degrees. At 21:34 UT a large green patch of sky developed in the SSW (see below). 

 

Orion can be made out to the left of the patch. The top of the patch is at around 43 degrees in altitude and the bottom 26 degrees. This had then disappeared by 21:35. Two minutes later at 21:37 UT another green patch developed at a lower altitude in the SSE (see below). 

 

 

This was a more intense green and Orion can be seen to the right of it. The bright star just above the horizon is Sirius. The top of the features was at an altitude of 32 degrees and the bottom of it at 18 degrees.

These green patches came and went in the south from 21:38 UT to 22:00 UT. The patchy cloud had thickened somewhat in this direction. At about 22:09 my attention was caught by a large bright red area of sky that was developing in the NE (see the image below taken at 22:12 UT – ISO1600, f1.8, 3.2s). 

The shape of the Big Dipper can be seen clearly to the left of this image. The very top of the picture is at an altitude of 67 degrees. The red light doesn’t seem to extend beyond an azimuth of 98 degrees. Following this more rays began to appear in the red arc (see the images below at 22:14 and 22:16 UT, respectively – same settings as before). 

A large red patch began to develop at 22:17 UT looking slightly north of due west (see image below, same settings as before).

The shape of the constellation of Aries is to the left of it. This shows that the auroral arc stretched from due west to due east and probably up to an altitude of 70 degrees at least.

From about 22:30 UT the aurora began to dissipate, however it did continue to be visible. The magnetometer at Sumburgh Head was 550.2 nT at 23:00 UT and 548.8 nT at midnight. Although I stopped taking pictures after 22:20, I popped my head outdoors at 23:26 and 23:55 and it seemed that the aurora was still occurring reasonably strongly behind a much thicker layer of cloud. Judging from the spaceweather the auroral storm continued right through the 20th of January and into the morning of the 21st."

All text and images © Duncan Hale-Sutton 2026

The Aurora makes an appearence on the 10th January 2026

The Saturday before last the aurora made another appearance in the skies above Norfolk and I wrote the following report for the BAA:-

"On the night of the 10th/11th January we had an aurora warning beginning around 20:00 UT with a strength of 240 nT on the Aurora Watch magnetometer at Sumburgh Head. This then fell back to 190 nT at 21:00 but then increased to 310 nT at 22:00 and 370 nT at 23:00. I went out outside in the garden with my camera at 21:10 UT but there was no evidence of an aurora in the sky at that time. It was a clear night dark night with medium transparency and the last quarter moon wasn’t due to rise until 01:16 UT on the 11th. At the time I was carrying out other deep sky observations.

At 23:20 after 2 more alerts, I thought I would check the sky in the north again and at this time I could see a reasonable red glow with the naked eye. I again started taking pictures and the first image I took at 23:25 (see image below) showed a red weak rayed arc (or possibly rayed band) which wasn’t very homogeneous. It stretched from a base height of about 9 degrees to a maximum height of 37 degrees. In azimuth it ranged from 299 degrees to 57 degrees. 

 

There was a very faint green glow looking north west above the red arc:-

 

No green glow was seen below the red arc (probably due to a thin mist).

From 23:25 the aurora display began dissipate, so I had either missed the peak of the display or it had occurred at this time. Around 23:33 UT there was a noticeable (by eye) weird pale light in the north which was reminiscent of a noctilucent cloud and I was confused as to whether this was part of the aurora or some cloud being somehow lit by the aurora. A picture taken at this time shows the pearly looking whorls of cloud:-

The only reasonable explanation I can think of was that it was mist that was being lit from a nearby light source but it dissipated as the aurora dissipated. At 23:33 the height of the red arc was still 37 degrees.

Looking NW at 23:49 UT when the red arc had mostly vanished it was still possible to see a faint green glow. 

I stopped observing at 23:52 UT."

All text and images © Duncan Hale-Sutton 2026

Palomar 2, M34, M42 and IC443

Last Saturday night, the 10th January 2026, we had some decent clear skies and it gave me the opportunity of observing a number of deep sky objects with my Dwarf 3. The transparency wasn't great as it was very cold and I think a thin mist had formed. By the end of the evening there was quite a hard frost but the Dwarf coped very well and it didn't freeze or dew up. The moon was at last quarter and it didn't interfere with observations as it didn't rise until 01:16 UT on the morning of the 11th.

The first object I was interested in was the globular cluster Palomar 2. This was the BAA Deep Sky Section's object of interest for January. This faint object can be found in the constellation of Auriga near the south west boundary and was so named as it was one of 15 globular clusters that were first discovered on the Palomar Sky Survey plates in the 1950s. 

Here is my image from the Dwarf 3 based on 246x15s exposures:-

 

This is approximately the full field of view of the Dwarf and the globular cluster is the small reddish hazy object in the centre of the frame. The reason it is so red is that it has been dimmed nearly three magnitudes by interstellar dust. The start of this 61.5 minute observation was at 18:32 and it ended at 19:47. For all the observations I took that evening I used auto parameters in the Dwarf and in Stellar Studio. The image has been cropped slightly and binned x2. What I think is interesting about this wide field is how you can see a dark area of obscuration in the upper centre of the frame. This is probably the same obscuration that reddens and dims the globular cluster.

Here is a cropped image of the full frame to show more detail:-

The cluster doesn't really resolve into stars and this is not surprising since the dwarf only has an aperture of 35mm.

The next object I looked at was the open star cluster M34 in the constellation of Perseus. Stewart Moore had written about this 'splendid open cluster in the winter sky' in the latest issue of the BAA Journal (Vol. 135, No. 6, p428). It lies near the western boundary with Andromeda  and not far from 14 Persei. Here is my 101x15s observation with the Dwarf 3:-
 

The start of this 25 minute observation was at 19:55 and it ended at 20:32. The image has again been cropped slightly and binned x2.

As Orion is well placed at this time of year I couldn't resist imaging the Orion Nebula (M42). Here is my 121x15s observation of this object:-

 

This has come out very nicely even though the central area has been overexposed. The start of this 30 minute observation was at 21:04 and it ended at 21:43. The image has again been cropped slightly and binned x2. I have photographed this nebula several times in the past and you can see my most recent observation in 2023 here. I hope to make a more detailed comparison of the two images in due course. The Dwarf has made use of the duo band filter in this case.

My final, and most exciting, image of the evening was IC443 or the Jellyfish nebula. This can be found in the constellation of Gemini. It lies between the two stars of mu and eta (Propus) Geminorum. The illuminated nebula is a supernova remnant that perhaps exploded 30 to 35 thousand years ago. Here is my 484x15s observation of it:-

 

The two bright stars you can see are mu (left) and eta (right). There jellyfish is close to eta but there is quite an extended area of nebulosity covering this whole frame. The start of this 2 hour observation was at 21:49 and it ended at 00:17. The image has again been cropped slightly and binned x2. This is the first time I have ever attempted to image this nebula and I am very pleased with the result. Again, the Dwarf has made use of the duo band filter.

All text and images © Duncan Hale-Sutton 2026 

Image of M33 and the asteroid Eros

On the 4th January when it was still very cold and there was snow lying on the ground, we had a relatively clear night and so I thought I would have another go with my new Dwarf 3 smartscope. The moon (one day past full) rose about 17:15 UT but wouldn't interfere too much with my observing until later in the evening. So at about 6pm I set my tripod up with the Dwarf 3. I had been intending to observe some fainter targets but, as a bit of cloud began to roll in, I thought I would photograph something a bit more obvious, so opted for M33 (The Triangulum Galaxy). It was a very fortuitous choice! Here is the result of 216 x15s images:-

This is the virtually the full frame of the Dwarf 3. Auto parameters were used in the observation and in the post processing. I have binned the image x2 and cropped it slightly to remove field rotation effects. The first image was taken at 17:56 UT and the last at 19:05 UT. Midpoint 18:30 UT, approximately. This spiral galaxy is the third largest member of the Local Group of galaxies (after the M31 and our galaxy) and is perhaps just under 1 Mpc from us.

I have also marked a small streak of light to the right of the galaxy with a green line. Initially, I thought that this was some sort of remnant from the processing - the result of a bright satellite or plane being on a few of the frames. However, I learnt from the BAA that this was actually the asteroid 433 Eros and just happened to be in this field of view. The streak of light (40 pixels in length which corresponds to nearly 2 minutes of arc) was caused by the movement of Eros during the period of observation. Eros was about magnitude 10.8 at this time.

Below I include a cropped version of the above image which gives a closer look at the galaxy:-

The open spiral structure of the arms with blue regions of star formation are more easily seen. For comparison I include another image I took of M33 on the 23rd September 2016:-

This is based on 45x30s (22.5 minutes) of observation using a Celestron NexStar 102 SLT and a Nikon D90 camera at prime focus. I think the colour rendition in the Dwarf 3 image is so much better and more detail can be seen. To get the same exposure as this on the Dwarf 3 I would have needed (102/35)² x 1350 = 11466 seconds! I actually got a better image in 3240s on the Dwarf.

All text and images © Duncan Hale-Sutton 2026 

Plate Scale of the Dwarf 3

I wanted to get an idea of how big a patch of sky the Dwarf 3 can image when using the telephoto lens. Here is the unprocessed image of M31 I took on December 21st last year:-

 

It is a shame, in some ways, that this full frame is cropped so much by the post processing. This frame is 3856x2180 pixels. To get an idea of how big an area of the sky this is we can use the positions of the two attendant dwarf elliptical galaxies M32 (lower centre) and M110 (upper centre). M32 is at RA 00h 42m 41.8s and Dec. +40 51' 55''. M110 is at RA 00h 40m 22.1s and Dec. +41 41' 07''. Using my program to calculate the separation of these two objects I find that they are 0.929 degrees apart. Using Photoshop to view this image I find that M32 and M110 are 1204 pixels apart (based on an average 4 measurements of the separation). So this implies that 1 pixel is 0.929x60x60/1204 = 2.78 arc seconds. This is the plate scale. This agrees well with another observer's calculation of 2.75 arc seconds per pixel.

This means that the full frame is something like 2.98 x 1.68 degrees. This is somewhat larger than the field of view of my Celestron NexStar 102 SLT with my D90 camera at prime focus (this has a field of view of 2.07x1.38 degrees) but not excessively so. 

All text and images © Duncan Hale-Sutton 2026 

Comparison between observations of M31

I recently obtained a new image of the Andromeda galaxy (M31) using my recently acquired Dwarf 3 smartscope and I always find it interesting to compare newer observations with those I have obtained in the past. Here is that image again which is based on 2 hours and 4 minutes (536x15s) of integration:-

Here is another image that I took using my Celestron NexStar 102SLT back on the 23rd September 2016:-

I have rotated this image, resized and cropped it so that it matches the one above. This image is 8 minutes of exposure (16x30s) using a Nikon D90 at ISO 3200. To get to the same exposure on the Dwarf 3 (which has an aperture of 35mm) I would have needed (102/35)² x 480 seconds or approximately 1 hour 8 minutes (all other things being equal). So the new image with the Dwarf 3 should be much deeper. 

Comparing the two images it is obvious that I seem to have got the focusing slightly wrong on the older image as evidenced by the pink halos around the stars (this was always a problem with the NexStar). I also seem to have obtained a reddish colour cast. Looking at the images at a 100% there is a lot more noise on the older image as expected and the brighter stars are not so sharp. Also, in the new image the blue star formation areas in the outer fringes of the galaxy are much better defined and do show up as blue in colour. As I said before, I think a lot of this is due to the very good post processing in the dwarf. 

Here are the two crops of the Dwarf Images, one before processing and one after, as before, and for comparison a crop of the same part of the image I took back in 2016:-

 

I think a lot of the gain in image quality from the Dwarf is coming from the post processing.

All text and images © Duncan Hale-Sutton 2025