Jason Nishiyama @evilscientistca@octodon.social

More @RAOastronomy Baker-Nunn colour tests from 2017. This time M31 imaged with a half-metre telescope using red, green, and blue theatrical gels over the full aperture to capture colour.

This is the first ever experimental colour image from the Rothney Astrophysical Observatory Baker-Nunn telescope. It is of the planetary nebula M27. The BN was never designed to do colour images so we've been experimentally using theatrical gels over the full aperture to do the three RGB filters.

Taken on 21 July 2017, the second image is the full frame. There is some vignetting in the full frame.

More images from the Rothney Astrophysical Observatory Baker-Nunn telescope. This time the Leo Triplet (M65, M66 and NGC 3628). The crop shows the triplet. The second image shows the full BN field and other galaxies in the area.

The Virgo cluster is a large nearby cluster of galaxies located in the constellation Virgo. This image, roughly 7°x7° in size shows many members of the cluster including M87 and M99. Mosaic captured by the Rothney Astrophysical Observatory half-metre Baker-Nunn telescope.

M78 is a reflection nebula located about 1340ly from Earth in the constellation Orion.
The blue colour of reflection nebulae comes from the fact that the dust particles, due to their size, preferentially scatter blue light, letting the redder light pass through. We only see the scattered blue light that has been reflected towards us.

Uranus, the 7th planet in our solar system, was originally called Georgium Sidus (George's Star) by its discoverer, William Herschel after the King of England at the time. This didn't go over well outside of England and so it was named after the Greek god of the sky.

M16 is a star formation region about 5700ly away in the constellation of Serpens. Centre in this image you can see the "Pillars of creation" made famous by a Hubble image of that region.

M8-The Lagoon Nebula, is an emission nebula and star formation region located about 4100ly away in the constellation Sagittarius. The small dark globs you see are known as Bok Globules. Inside these the gas and dust are collapsing under gravity to form stars.

M20, the Trifid Nebula, is located about 4100 ly away from us in the constellation of Sagittarius. It is an active star formation region. It also shows all three nebula types, the red region is an emission nebula, the blue region a reflection nebula, and dark nebula patches.

From Saturday night: NGC5492, a spiral galaxy located about 115 Mly away in Bootes. In the field are also about 10 more galaxies, most farther away. One that I was able to identify is (by redshift) 1.1 Gly away (that's giga- billion).

Discovering last night that my line filters were still in the imager's filter magazine explains why I had such a hard time balancing the colour of the lunar photos last week...

When you go out to the observatory to do some work on the radio telescope then find out you've forgotten the power supply for the Raspberry Pi...

M21 is an open star cluster located about 4000 ly away in the constellation Sagittarius. At 6.6 million years old, it is a young cluster and contains many larger hotter stars.

Still need more? Here is an animated GIF of the two images being "blinked"

Need a hint? Here is the same field taken 2 days earlier.

In this image is Pluto. Can you find it?

In this close in image of M24 - the Sagittarius star cloud, an open cluster is just visible amongst the myriad of stars. NGC 6603 is that open cluster. Look for the three bright stars at the bottom of the image. Just above the reddish middle star you'll find the cluster.

A couple of images from last night. First from the northern part of the Moon, the region around the crater Plato.

The second from the southern part of the Moon, the region around the crater Tycho.

The more heavily cratered south suggests lunar crust older than the North.