Top 10 astronomical pictures of 2008 (from Bad Astronomy)

   Society Programme
   Society History
   The Committee
   Astronomy Intro
   Star Chart
   Courses in Astronomy
   Local/National Societies
   Meeting info/Directions
   Friday Night Observing
   Moon Phases 2013
   Equipment Suppliers
   Useful Links
   Administrator

[Guest]

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register. June 18, 2013, 06:38:01 AM 1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever Login with username, password and session length Modules

SMF Default Theme - Babylon ThemeEpsilon TPPn-Pn (for 1.1 RC2)EnterpriseTP

[snavekram]

Dear all,

I thought you might like this link...

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/12/17/top-ten-astronomy-pictures-of-2008/?pid=1

Some interesting and varied stuff there .  The picture of the spiral galaxy NGC 7331 (picture in high resolution is stunning and in some ways does not appear to be real.  Wouldn't it be nice to see that in a modest scope!

Cheers,
Mark

[flamencopaul]

No excuses then...ngc 7331 is just north west of the great squareof Pegasus and easily visible at the moment. I think though, that you'll find the view to the eye a bit disappointing - if the seeing is good and the sky is dark, you'll be rewarded with a smudgy thin elongated glow - the galaxy itself is mag 9.5 with surface brightness mag 13...the only realistic way of seeing any detail is to take long exposure photos (or look at someone else's) The background galaxies (which are shown in great detail too on the bad astronomy blog image) are mag 13 +, so pretty faint and not visible to the eye unless the sky is very dark.

That said, ngc 7331 is on my list of image targets for this year so I'll see what i can do.

Paul.

[mikebrightmore]

I love looking at these photos but try not to do so before I've seen the objects visually. NGC 7331 is easy to see but, as Paul says, very much in the smudge / fuzzy category (like most galaxies). To me it looks just like a mini version of M31 (Andromeda) - similar shpe and orientation. It does need long exposure photography to capture the detail and their are some good amateur pictures using 10 x 5 minute subs, for example.....
http://stargazerslounge.com/index.php/topic,33770.msg344774.html#msg344774

Itried taking one with 30 sec AVI but that was nowhere near long enough. Looking forward to seeing some good images on here.

Mike