Picture Gallery
Sun awakens
Late last year there was a sudden and very welcome burst of activity on the Sun, with the appearance
of a couple of decent sunspots. Nick Busby took this shot of our star on 26 November 2020 from his
home in Abergavenny, South Wales. He used a Lunt LS35T H-alpha telescope with a Skyris 445M
camera for this composite image; the disc was captured in two halves and merged, while the
prominences were taken at a different exposure and added in using Photoshop CS3.
Tri d of the North
NGC 1579 in Perseus is a beautiful nebula coined the Tri d of the North, owing to its more than
passing resemblance to the marvellous and often-imaged Tri d Nebula (Messier 20) in Sagittarius.
Miguel Claro used a GSO RC8, f/8 Ritchey–Chrétien Astrograph and a Nikon D810a camera to
shoot forty-one 420-second subs from the Cumeada Observatory at the Dark Sky® Alqueva Reserve,
Reguengos de Monsaraz, Portugal.
First-light planetary
is is the rst amateur image taken of Pa28, a very faint planetary nebula in Cygnus which was
discovered in 2012 by Dana Patchick. Peter Goodhew used APM TMB LZOS 152 refractors and
QSI 6120wsg8 CCD cameras on his dual rig in Spain to capture a total of 31.6 hours of
LRGB/Ha/O-III data.
Stormy Mars
In November 2020, a dust storm broke out on the red planet in the Chryse–Solis-Lacus–Valles
Marineris region. An area of over 100 degrees of longitude was affected. Harvey Scoot’s image,
taken at 21: 32 UT on 22 November 2020 (central meridian 136 degrees) and shown with north up,
shows the Solis Lacus just to the lower right of centre. Harvey used a Celestron 14 EdgeHD SCT
telescope and an ASI 462MC camera for this shot.
Topsy-Turvy Galaxy
NGC 1313 is an odd-looking but photogenic barred spiral galaxy that, unfortunately, we can never
see from mid-northern latitudes. It lies in the constellation of Reticulum in the far-southern sky. On
the nights of 10 and 11 October and 16 and 17 November 2020, Dan Crowson used an ASA 500N,
a 500mm (20-inch), f/3.6 Newtonian telescope, and a FLI PL 16803 CCD camera, based at El
Sauce Observatory, Rio Hurtado, Coquimbo Region, Chile, part of Telescope Live’s remote imaging
network.
Hungry anyone?
e bright emission nebula NGC 281 (Sh2-184) in Cassiopeia is playfully known as the Pac-Man
Nebula, named for the munching ‘ gure’ in the famous arcade video game introduced in the 1980s.
In late October and November 2020, David Davies captured forty and twenty 5-minute subs in
luminance and each of RGB, respectively, through a 200mm (eight-inch) Ritchey–Chrétien
telescope and a QSI 683 CCD camera.
Family portrait
During 2020, from his back gaden in north-east London, Jonathan Daniels managed to image all of
the planets, together with the Sun, the Moon and comet 2020 F3 (NEOWISE), that splendid
visitor to the inner Solar System. Jonathan used a TEC140 telescope and an Altair GPCAM2 290C
colour camera.
Loopy Orion
Mighty Orion provides a seemingly endless supply of fantastic astronomical vistas for imagers to
shoot. Terry Hancock has captured yet another one in this colourful shot of Orion’s Loop, the red
diagonal band of nebulosity, and Messier 78, the blue re ection nebula to the bottom-right. From
Grand Mesa Observatory in Colorado, USA, Terry used a Takahashi E-180 Astrograph and a
QHY410C full frame colour CMOS camera to capture 110 minutes of data in 120-second subs.
H-alpha Sun • Tri d in Perseus • New planetary • Storm on Mars • Far southern galaxy • Pacman
- Solar System montage • Nebula in Puppis • Orion vista • Crater Tycho • Compiled by Mark
Armstrong.
ViewPicture Gallery
January 2021
Astronomy Now