A few more images.

It has been a couple of months since my last batch of images, so here are the latest of my back yard astronomy pics. I think I am making progress with some of these. These were all taken with the 10inch LX200 telescope. Click on the Thumbnails for the full size images.

This is NGC7662 known as the Blue Snowball. It is a ‘Planetary Nebula’. Planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets though. They are caused by dying stars violenty shedding gasses. You can see the star responsible right in the centre of the Nebula.

This is M16 The Eagle Nebula. This cloud of gas and dust is about 7000 Light years away. It is a ‘stellar nursery’ where stars are formed in the gas clouds. The centre column in this image is about 9 light years long. To put that in context, that is twice the distance from the Sun to our nearest neighboring star.

Mars. You can clearly see the Southern polar ice cap and some surface shading. Mars will be getting closer as the summer progresses into Autumn, so images should get much more detailed as the year goes on.

This is M27 The Dumbell Nebula. It is another planetary nebula. You can see the dying star at the centre. This is fairly close to us Astronomically speaking at about 1000 light years.

M51 The Whirlpool Galaxy. This is found close to the last star in the tail of Ursa Major (The Plough or Big Dipper). It is approximately 38 Million Light Years way.. Recently a Super Nova was detected in this galaxy. I am hoping to get a chance to image it. The Super Nova will show up as a very bright star near the centre of the Galaxy.

Jupiter on June the 18th showing a moon transit. You can see the shadow of the moon as it crosses the planet.

I took several images of the transit and strung them together to make a crude animation…

Finally, this is M57 the Ring Nebula. Another planetary nebula. You can see the dying star right at the centre.

Thanks for looking :).

Thanks Guys! That means a lot. I am glad that the show went off without any accidents again this year. Long may that continue.

Actually, he was pretty good in it I think. Not even really heroic. SFX are of course great. I enjoyed it generally. I would have prefered the Aliens (not Martians this time evidently) to have arrived in “Cylinders”, but I guess that is a small point.

Legends was without a doubt my favourite airshow. I attended two (2001 and 2002) both with Neil (who was also very excited about Legends every year). I doubt I could ever attend Legends again or enjoy any other airshow. Having said that, Flying Legends is a bit special when compared to other airshows, so I can understand the build up of excitement here.

Here’s hoping for a safe, accident free, Legends 2005. Have fun and maybe raise a plastic glass of beer for my brother Neil.

Whizwhat? 😉 Flying here in the States, the company I work for uses http://www.fltplan.com . Amazing what that website can do. I still have my old whizwheel, but it rarely gets used.

Harvards can bite hard. My deepest sympathy to the families involved; however why were there two on board in an airshow practice? Totally unnecessary. Such flying carries additional risk, why double it in terms of risk to people. I have little doubt that both occupants were enjoying themselves hugely and doing something they loved; but one family too many is grieving today.
When will we ever learn……………..???????????????
A sad Trapper 69

I was thinking the same thing. You are right though in saying that they were probably both enjoying themselves greatly up until it all went wrong. I know for a fact that if Neil had been told he couldn’t fly in the back of the Firefly he would have been most upset (and knowing Neil he would have told you so in no uncertain terms). Of course, the fact that Neil, and the passenger in this Harvard, were both right where they wanted to be, will not bring them back to us. The sad thing is that this is not a new lesson to be learned. More like History repeating itself. once again, my deepest sympathy for the families and friends of both of those lost in this accident.

And, don’t forget the electrical failure transponder code…

Now that is just plain cruel :diablo: .