Dublin Night Sky Observer

	M81 (Spiral Galaxy in Ursa Major), Feb. 20, 2002. Prime focus images through a Vixen VC200L at f/9 using a Starlight Xpress MC516 CCD camera and STAR2000 tracking. Four 5 minute and six 2 minute exposures stacked.
	Lunar Terminator, Feb. 20, 2002. Prime focus images through a Vixen VC200L at f/6.4 (using focal reducer) using a Starlight Xpress MX516 CCD camera. Mosaic of five 0.01 sec exposures. The large large circular area at the top of the imagw is Mare Imbrium. To the right of it is Mare Serenitatis. Crater Plato is just on the terminator above Mare Imbrium. To see an image with feature names, click here.
	M37 (Open CLuster in Auriga), Feb 16, 2002. Prime focus images through a Vixen VC200L at f/6.4 (using focal reducer) using Kodak Elite Chrome II 200 ISO slide film. Three 10 minute exposures and a 5 minute exposure stacked. Tracking with STAR2000 using a guidescope.
	NGC 2683 (galaxy in Lynx), Dec. 6, 2001. Prime focus images through a Vixen VC200L at f/9 using a Starlight Xpress MX516 CCD camera tracking with STAR2000. Four 1-minute, six 2-minute and one 5-minute exposeures stacked.
	M45 (the Pleiades), Sept.13, 2001. Prime focus images through a Vixen VC200L at f/6.4 (using focal reducer) using Kodak Royal Gold 1000ISO negative film. Stacked 5 minute and 9 minute exposures. Tracking with STAR2000 using a guidescope
	The Double Cluster (between Casseopiea and Perseus), Sept.13, 2001. Prime focus image through a Vixen VC200L at f/6.4 (using focal reducer) using Kodak Royal Gold 1000ISO negative film. 5 minute exposure.
	M31 (in Andromeda), Sept.13, 2001. Prime focus image through a Vixen VC200L at f/6.4 (using focal reducer) using Kodak Royal Gold 1000ISO negative film. 10 minute exposure. Tracking with STAR2000 using a guidescope
	M15 Globular Cluster, Sept.13, 2001. Prime focus image through a Vixen VC200L at f/6.4 (using focal reducer) using Kodak Royal Gold 1000ISO negative film. 5 minute exposure. Tracking with STAR2000 using a guidescope
	M27 Planetary Nebula, Aug.27, 2001, 23:20 UT Prime focus image through a Vixen VC200L at f/6.4 (using focal reducer) using a Starlight Xpress MX516 CCD camera and STAR2000. Three 2-min and one 5-min exposures stacked. Dark frames subtracted but no flat fielding applied. Deconvolved in AIP4WIN. Final tweaking with adjustments to brightness/contrast.
	NGC 6503 (galaxy in Draco), Aug. 26, 2001. Prime focus images through a Vixen VC200L at f/9 using a Starlight Xpress MX516 CCD camera tracking with STAR2000. Two 2-minute and two 5-minute exposures stacked.
	M92 Globular Cluster, Aug.24, 2001, 22:20 UT Prime focus image through a Vixen VC200L at f/9 using a Starlight Xpress MX516 CCD camera and STAR2000. Two stacked 120s images. Dark frames subtracted but no flat fielding applied. Deconvolved in AIP4WIN and then DDP applied. Gamma brightness scaling appied to resulting image. Final tweaking with adjustments to brightness/contrast.
	Moon, Jan 15, 2001, 01:50 UT Mare Nubium, craters Ptolomaeus, Alphonsus, Arzachel and Purbach. To see an image with feature names, click here. Two stitched prime focus 0.1s images through a Vixen VC200L at f/9 using a Starlight Xpress MX516 CCD camera and STAR2000. Scope was stopped down (two holes in a 3-hole Hartmann mask were closed off). No dark frames or flat fielding applied. Stitched imaged deconvolved and unsharp masked in AIP4WIN. Resulting image histogram shaped using a Gaussian filter.
	Moon, Dec.17, 2000, 02:10 UT Lunar Terminator: The terminator cuts through Mare Serenitatis at the top of the image. To see an image with feature names, click here. Prime focus image through a Vixen VC200L at f/9 using a Starlight Xpress MX516 CCD camera and STAR2000. Mosaic of eight 0.1 second images. Scope was stopped down (two holes in a 3-hole Hartmann mask were closed off). No dark frames or flat fielding applied. Final mosaic processed using the Unsharp Mask and High Pass FFT filters in Astroart 2.0. Final tweaking with adjustments to brightness/contrast.
	M81, Dec.17, 2000, 02:00 UT M81 (Galaxy in Ursa Major): Prime focus image through a Vixen VC200L at f/9 using a Starlight Xpress MX516 CCD camera and STAR2000. Sum of four 5-min exposures. No dark frames or flat fielding applied.
	Jupiter, Dec 17, 2000, 01:30 UT Prime focus image through a Vixen VC200L at f/9 using a Starlight Xpress MX516 CCD camera and a 2x barlow. Average of five 1-sec exposures. Taken through fast moving high thin cloud. Averaged image processed using the Unsharp Mask and High Pass FFT filters in Astroart 2.0. Final tweaking with adjustments to brightness/contrast.
	NGC 2397, Dec.17, 2000, 00:20 UT NGC 2397 (The "Eskimo Nebula" planetary nebula in Gemini): Prime focus image through a Vixen VC200L at f/9 using a Starlight Xpress MX516 CCD camera and STAR2000. Sum of one 3-min and one 5-min exposures. No dark frames or flat fielding applied.
	M1, Dec.16, 2000, 21:45 UT M1 (Crab Nebula in Taurus): Prime focus image through a Vixen VC200L at f/9 using a Starlight Xpress MX516 CCD camera and STAR2000. Sum of three 3-min exposures and three 5-min exposures. No dark frames or flat fielding applied.
	Moon, Dec.13, 2000, 01:15 UT Moon (17days 1hour old - just past full): The terminator cuts through Mare Crisium with the edges of craters Picard and Pierce A/B just being visible. Crater Taruntius lies just below and Macrobius just to the left. To the East is Mare Serenatatis with Posidonius A at its northwest end. The single prominent crater in Mare Serenitatis is Bessel which is only 19km in diameter. The small crator to the right of Bessel is Deseilligny, 9 km in diameter, about the smallest feature visible in this image. The two prominent craters in from the edge at the top of the image are Hercules and Atlas. To the east lies Burg and Eudoxus and Aristoteles. To see an image with feature names, click here. Prime focus images through a Vixen VC200L at f/9 using a Starlight Xpress MX516 CCD camera. Mosaic of nine 0.1 second images. Scope was stopped down (two holes in a 3-hole Hartmann mask were closed off). No dark frames or flat fielding applied. Final mosaic processed using the Unsharp Mask and High Pass FFT filters in Astroart 2.0. Final tweaking with adjustments to brightness/contrast.
	M1, Dec.13, 2000, 00:20 UT M1 (Crab Nebula in Taurus): Prime focus image through a Vixen VC200L at f/9 using a Starlight Xpress MX516 CCD camera and STAR2000. Sum of three 1-min exposures and two 2-min exposures. No dark frames or flat fielding applied. Summed image processed using the Unsharp Mask and High Pass FFT filters in Astroart 2.0. Final tweaking with adjustments to brightness/contrast.
	M43, Dec.12, 2000, 23:30 UT M43 (Bright nebula detached from M42): Prime focus image through a Vixen VC200L at f/9 using a Starlight Xpress MX516 CCD camera and STAR2000. Sum of three 2-min exposures and three 3-min exposures. No dark frames or flat fielding applied. Summed image processed using the Unsharp Mask and High Pass FFT filters in Astroart 2.0. Final tweaking with adjustments to brightness/contrast.
	M82, Dec.07, 2000, 00:30 UT M82 (irregular galaxy in Ursa Major): Prime focus image through a Vixen VC200L at f/9 using a Starlight Xpress MX516 CCD camera and STAR2000. Sum of three 1-min, one 2-min, two 3-min and one 5-min exposures (equivalent of 16-min exposure). Dark frames subtracted from each image. No flat fielding. Summed image processed using the DDP and High Pass FFT filters in Astroart 2.0. Final tweaking with adjustments to brightness/contrast.
	M42, Dec.06, 2000, 22:30 UT M42 (Trapezium area of the Orion Nebula): Prime focus image through a Vixen VC200L at f/9 using a Starlight Xpress MX516 CCD camera and STAR2000. Average of three 3-min exposures. No dark frames or flat fields subtracted. Averaged image processed using the DDP, Unsharp Masking and High Pass FFT filters in Astroart 2.0.
	Saturn, Nov.20, 2000, 23:00 UT Prime focus image through a Vixen VC200L at f/9 using a Starlight Xpress MX516 CCD camera and a 2x barlow. Average of seven 5-sec exposures. Taken through fast moving high thin cloud. Averaged image processed using the Unsharp Mask and High Pass FFT filters in Astroart 2.0. Final tweaking with adjustments to brightness/contrast.
	Jupiter, Nov.20, 2000, 20:40 UT Prime focus image through a Vixen VC200L at f/9 using a Starlight Xpress MX516 CCD camera and a 2x barlow. Average of five 1-sec exposures. Taken through fast moving high thin cloud. Averaged image processed using the Unsharp Mask and High Pass FFT filters in Astroart 2.0. Final tweaking with adjustments to brightness/contrast.
	M57, Nov.19, 2000, 20:30 UT Prime focus image through a Vixen VC200L at f/9 using a Starlight Xpress MX516 CCD camera. Average of a 30 sec exposure and a 120 sec exposure. Minor tracking errors occurred during 120 sec exposure and camera wasn't quite focussed. Averaged image processed using the Maximum Entropy filter in AstroArt 2.0. Final tweaking with an unsharp mask and adjustments to brightness/contrast. Granular background is a result of Maximum Entropy filter.
	Jupiter and Satellites, Nov.19, 2000, 21:00 UT Prime focus image through a Vixen VC200L at f/9 using a Starlight Xpress MX516 CCD camera. Average of 8 0.01 sec exposures. Image was then processed using a High Pass FFT filter to bring out detail. An unsharp mask was then applied to sharpen the image and contrast/brightness tweaked to improve final image. The satellites came out from the background during processing.
	Jupiter, Saturn, Pleiades and Taurus. Early October, 2000. 50mm lens at f/2.8. 4min exposure on Ektachrome Elite 200 slide film through a Skyglow filter to cut background light pollution. Colour corrected in AstroArt 2.0.
	Auroral display April 6, 2000 28mm wideangle lens (lens hood caused vignetting at corners). Taken on Fujichrome Sensia II ISO 400 slide film.
	Auroral display through Ursa Major on April 6, 2000 28mm wideangle lens (lens hood caused vignetting at corners). Taken on Fujichrome Sensia II ISO 400 slide film.
	Auroral Coronal display April 6, 2000 28mm wideangle lens (lens hood caused vignetting at corners). Taken on Fujichrome Sensia II ISO 400 slide film.
	Auroral Coronal display April 6, 2000 28mm wideangle lens (lens hood caused vignetting at corners). Taken on Fujichrome Sensia II ISO 400 slide film.
	The Moon on March 14, 22:31 Taken at prime focus of a Vixen VC200L on Agfa 200 colour print film (1/125 second exposure).