M81 and M82

The fine weather continued on the following day, the 18th March 2026, (now over a week and a half ago) and I wanted to find another target for observation. The book "The 100 Best Astrophotography Targets" by Ruben Kier (Springer 2009) is a very good book for gaining ideas about what to photograph. This time I decided to go for the galaxies M81 and M82 in Ursa Major (see page 82 of this book). These galaxies are found up near the head of the bear and not far from the star 24 Ursae Majoris. This time I took two sets of images on the Dwarf 3. One of 136x15s using the astro filter (first frame 23:01 UT and last 23:42 UT) and one of 201x15s using the duo-band filter (first frame 22:00 UT and last 22:59 UT), both gain 60. The ones with the duo-band filter were to capture the red emission light that can be seen in M82 due to the burst of star formation in that galaxy. Here is my resulting image:-

 

M82 (the Cigar Galaxy) is at the top of this image and M81 (Bode's Galaxy) is at the bottom (to obtain a better view please 'click' on the image). The majority of this image is the set of frames which used the astro filter. Just a small portion of this image around M82 is using the duo band filter. Both sets were processed in Stellar Studio with auto parameters. The combined result has been binned x2 and the saturation and sharpening increased in Photoshop. Here is a close up of M82 at the full resolution of the Dwarf:-

 

The strange shape of this galaxy becomes more apparent. M81 and M82 have gravitationally interacted about 20 million years ago and this has caused the deformation and burst of star formation that you see. In deeper images the red light appears to be exploding outwards either side of the galaxy from the centre. Here is a close up of M81:-

 

This is a very nicely defined spiral galaxy and, interestingly, contains an active galactic nucleus resulting from a black hole of 70 million solar masses. What can also just about be made out in this image is another much fainter satellite galaxy of M81, Holmberg IX or UGC 5336. This is a faint but fairly large dwarf irregular galaxy.

All text and images © Duncan Hale-Sutton 2026 

Venus is back in the evening sky

 

On the same evening that I captured the Leo Triplet of galaxies (March 17th) I also took a picture of Venus in the evening sky about 45 minutes after sunset. This planet was at superior conjunction on the 6th January 2026 and is now moving eastwards from the Sun and will be gaining altitude each night after sunset. It will reach its greatest elongation east on August 14th 2026. Between now and August its phase will go from gibbous to half and it will be increasing in apparent diameter as it approaches the earth. Hopefully I should be able to carry out some further observations of this planet in the evening sky as I did last year.

This picture was taken on a Sony RX100 (1/10s ISO 1600) at 18:54 UT. 

All text and images © Duncan Hale-Sutton 2026  

Leo Triplet of Galaxies

A week ago on March 17, the clear skies continued to be available and I decided to have a go at observing the Leo Triplet of galaxies consisting M 65, M 66 and NGC 3628. I have observed this trio before (see below) but I wanted to try this time with the Dwarf 3. It was two days to new moon at this time and the skies were nice and dark. Here is what I obtained after 459x15s (nearly 2 hours) of observation:-

 

M65 is in the centre of the frame. M66 is to the lower left of it and NCG 3628 (the Hamburger Galaxy) to the upper right. The other prominent galaxy at the far right of the image is NGC 3593. Here the gain was set to 60 and the astro filter was employed in the Dwarf 3. The image was subsequently processed in Stellar Studio using auto settings. Binned x2 and sharpened slightly in Photoshop. The first frame was taken at 20:07 UT and the last at 22:57 UT. Midpoint 21:32 UT. This group of galaxies also appears in Halton Arp's catalogue of peculiar galaxies (Arp 317).

Almost exactly ten years ago I obtained this image using my Celestron NexStar 102 SLT:-

 

This was 11 minutes of exposure (22x30s) using a D90 at prime focus (ISO 3200) and was taken on the 5th April 2016. There is obviously a problem with pink halos around the stars. For comparison I have rotated, scaled and cropped my Dwarf 3 image above to match this and this is the result:-

 

To get the same exposure on the Dwarf as 11 minutes on a 102mm aperture telescope I would need (102/35)²x11 = 93 minutes (around an hour and a half). I have gone a bit deeper than this but currently I think I know which telescope I would rather be using!

All text and images © Duncan Hale-Sutton 2026 

The Cone Nebula and Christmas Tree Cluster

In the constellation of Monoceros (The Unicorn) and not far from the border with Taurus and Orion is a large area of nebulosity that contains the open cluster NGC 2264 which has been dubbed the Christmas Tree Cluster. Just below this is a darker area of gas and dust which is called the Cone Nebula. I have tried a few times to image this with the Dwarf 3 but my most successful attempt came a week ago on the 14th March (one day after looking at M101). Here is what I obtained after 506x15s (just over two hours) of observation (you can 'click' on this image to see it in more detail):-

 

All auto settings were used on the Dwarf (which includes using the duo band filter) and in Stellar Studio. The image has been binned x2 and the gain and saturation increased slightly in Photoshop. The first frame was taken at 20:00 UT and the last at 22:46 UT. Midpoint 21:23 UT. 

The Cone Nebula is quite obvious from its shape at the bottom centre of this picture. The Christmas Tree Cluster is the group of bright blue stars that can be seen above this and are responsible for creating the red emission that covers a lot of this frame. There is also a smaller patch of blue reflection nebula. The shape of the Christmas Tree is not so easy to see in this orientation where north is roughly up. The base of the tree is the near brightest star in the centre of the field and its 'topper' is the blue star just above the tip of the Cone Nebula. I have rotated (through 180 degrees) and cropped the original image so that the shape is more obvious:-

Certainly, it looks to me like the nebula provides the shape of the fir tree and the cluster stars are the shining lights and ornaments. However, the stars do seem to make a tree shape in themselves with the brightest star being the bole of tree.

I like the fact that the full frame image contains patches of dark nebulae against a glowing background of red emission light and this is particularly noticeable in the top right (see the image at the top of this blog).

I said that I had tried to image this cluster before and I just want to refer to this. The first time was on the 11th March where I decided to attempt using the Dwarf in EQ (or equatorial) mode. This was supposed to enable you to take longer exposures than 15s and I attempted frames of 60s. However, out of 120 frames that I took 84 failed for one reason or another and I haven't yet got to the bottom of it. I suspect the longer exposure meant that either more satellites were captured crossing the field of view or the tracking wasn't up to scratch.

Anyway, here is the resulting 36x60s image:-

 

Here I used the duo-band filter and the gain was set to 70. Auto settings were used in Stellar Studio. The first frame was taken at 21:03 UT and the last at 22:54 UT. Again I have increased the gain and saturation somewhat in Photoshop. The image is binned x2. You can see that the red emission has not come out so strongly in this shorter overall exposure. However, what EQ mode does give you is a larger image in the vertical direction. This is because the frames are not suffering from the field rotation you get in Alt-Az mode. Also the star in the centre of the fame has come out a lot bluer in this image. EQ mode is a better way to go provided that the frame rejection rate comes down. Perhaps a 30s exposure would be better.

I also had a go at this cluster on the 13th March but I made the mistake of using the Visual filter (which wouldn't get me any of the red emission light). Here is the resulting 53x15s image:-

 

Here the gain was 60. The first frame was taken at 21:41 UT and the last at 21:58 UT. Again I have increased the gain and saturation somewhat in Photoshop. The image is binned x2.  Notice that the blue reflection nebula does come out quite well.

All text and images © Duncan Hale-Sutton 2026 

M101 The Pinwheel Galaxy

The good weather has continued recently and last Friday, the 13th March, we again had a good clear dark night (the moon was two days past last quarter). I thought I would try another object I haven't imaged before and this was Messier 101 - a face on spiral galaxy in the constellation of Ursa Major. The galaxy makes an equilateral triangle with the two end stars of the bear's tail, Alioth and Mizar. After 472x15s this is what I obtained:-

You can see a larger version of this image if you 'click' on it. You can see the well-displayed spiral arms of this galaxy with its blue patches of newly formed stars. The galaxy is relatively nearby at 21 million light years from us (compare this to the 2.5 million light years distance of the Andromeda galaxy). All auto settings were used on the Dwarf (this includes the astro filter) and in Stellar Studio. The image has been binned x2 and the gain and saturation increased slightly in Photoshop. The first frame was taken at 22:08 UT and the last at 00:28 UT on the 14th. Midpoint 23:18.

There are a number of other smaller galaxies in the same field of view and below I include an annotated version of this image.

 All text and images © Duncan Hale-Sutton 2026

Galaxies NGC 4460 and NGC 4449

The BAA Deep Sky Section's object of interest for this month is the lenticular galaxy NGC 4460 and it was suggested that if we wanted to try it we could include the irregular galaxy NGC 4449 in the same field of view. I enjoy these challenges as I like to see what I can achieve with my Dwarf 3 smartscope. On the 10th March we had some more clearish weather and the moon was then one day from last quarter. There was some intermittent cloud which caused a few of the images to be rejected. After 466x15s I obtained this image (centred on the point midway between the two galaxies):-

 

NGC 4460 is the lens-shaped object that lies near the bright star in the upper centre of this frame (the star is actually a double). The irregular starburst galaxy NGC4449 (also called the Box Galaxy) is right of centre and the brightest galaxy in this image (you can 'click' on this image to see a larger version of it). The first 15s frame was taken at 20:55 UT and the last at 23:33 UT. Midpoint 22:14 UT. Auto parameters were used in the Dwarf 3 and in processing the final image in Stellar Studio. There are a number of other galaxies that appear in this image and so below I have produced a version where I have labelled them all:-

 All text and images © Duncan Hale-Sutton 2026

Messier 78 - a reflection nebula in Orion

Since the beginning of March we have had an improving weather prospect with the cloudy wet weather being left behind in January and February. Exactly two weeks ago, on the 3rd March, we had some clear skies to play with, all be it with a full moon that rose at 18:38 UT. Astronomical twilight on this date ended about 19:20 UT. The BAA Journal for February (Vol. 136, No. 1) had a nice picture of M78 and as I haven't imaged this object before I thought I would give it a go. I started observing with my Dwarf 3 at 19:39 UT and finished at 21:46 and this is what I obtained in 364x15s:-

 

This object is in Orion and lies to the north of Orion's belt. It is part of the Orion B Molecular Cloud Complex and it is illuminated by two hot B-type stars (see image below). You can see in this image how there is a dearth of stars running down the middle of the frame. This is because the cloud of dust and gas is blotting out the stars that are behind it. To produce the image auto parameters were used in the Dwarf and in the processing in Stellar Studio. The image has been binned x2 and the gain and the saturation increased slightly in Photoshop.

 

The areas of diffuse nebula around M78 are quite complex and the above image is a crop of the original unbinned image from the Dwarf 3. As well as M78 and its two illuminating B-type stars there are also NGC2071, NGC2067 and NGC 2064. Interestingly there is also a variable patch of illumination called McNeil's Nebula (marked) which at the moment cannot be seen. It was discovered in 2004 by Jay McNeil using a 3 inch telescope.

All text and images © Duncan Hale-Sutton 2026