Category: Messier

A super image of Messier 52 or M52, also known as NGC 7654 taken by member Diane Clarke on the 6th March 2024 during a brief clear spell in the weather. 

Messier 52 is also known as the Scorpion Cluster or the Salt & Pepper Cluster and it is an open cluster of stars in the constellation of Cassiopeia. The cluster has an apparent magnitude of 6.9 and lies at an approximate distance of 4,600 light years from Earth.

Diane acquired the image using a Seestar S50 smart scope, 270 x 10s subs, stacked & processed using Affinity Photo.

A lovely image of the Orion Nebula (Messier 42/M42) taken by Jim Burchell on the 23rd February 2024 using a ZWO SeeStar S50 smart scope. The image is a stacked image containing 12 minutes of 10 second images.  Jim said ''Considering the Moon phase was 97% illuminated I was quite impressed with the image.''

A superb image of the Orion Nebula (Messier 42/M42) taken by Dr Mike Rushton on the 3rd March 2024.

Mike acquired the image using a Dwarf2 telescope from DWARFLAB and took 400 subframes of 10 secs which was then processed in SIRIL. 

Check this out - our member Kevin Langford's brilliant Pleiades (M45) image - see above; being used on the BBC Sky at Night website.  Plus Kevin's image was shown in the programme aired on the 16th May 2023 too!.........Well Done Kevin :-)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fmnyt0/p0fmp6yx

On the night of the 26th/27th March 2023 Ceres appeared to 'meet' and pass directly in front of the beautiful spiral galaxy Messier 100 (M100) and for a few hours Ceres looked like a brilliant supernova beaming from one of the M100 galaxy's arms.

At the time of the line-of-sight view, Ceres was shining from a piddling distance of 150 million miles (240 million kilometers) from Earth whilst the galaxy at 56 million light-years away; so actually trillions of miles apart!  The 'meeting' took place in the constellation Coma Berenices just a few days after Ceres' opposition, which is when Earth passes between it and the Sun.

Despite the poor weather CMHASD Trustee & member Simon Dawes managed to capture the event - see his image below :-) Ceres is identified with 2 red lines and M100 is at the 4 O'clock position from Ceres.

Ceres is a dwarf planet and the largest asteroid in the main asteroid belt that is between Mars & Jupiter.  It was the first asteroid to be discovered on the 1st January 1801 and was classified as 1 Ceres in 1851. Ceres was designated a dwarf planet, a new category of solar system objects defined in August 2006 by the International Astronomical Union.

Ceres's small size; about 14 times smaller than Pluto means that even at its brightest, it is too dim to be seen by the naked eye, except under extremely dark skies.  Its apparent magnitude ranges from 6.7 to 9.3, peaking at opposition. 

Messier 100 (also known as NGC 4321) is a face-on, spiral galaxy with an apparent magnitude of 9.3.  It is one of the brightest and largest galaxies with a diameter of 160,000 light years. It was discovered in 1781.

Information of how Simon acquired his image is on his photo and for more information about this event see https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/observing-news/tell-time-with-the-big-dipper-see-ceres-transit-m100/#:~:text=By%20good%20fortune%20Ceres%20will%20pass%20directly%20in,northern%20portion%20of%20the%20Virgo%20Cluster%20this%20spring.