The Draco Triplet

[Graeme]

Here's the Draco Triplet from a couple of nights this week.

I captured almost 6 hours of LRGB but blinked it down to 2 hours 36 minutes by the time I got rid of the clouds, the condensation and the satellites.

Draco_Triplet_02_EL.jpg

There's 10 to12 galaxies in the image so possibly 5 to 10 trillion stars! Blows my mind!

Graeme

[HansV]

Wow, that's spectacular!

[Graeme]

Cheers Hans

It was a bit of a practice run. In May I'm going camping for a couple of nights in the middle of nowhere, central East Sussex, where the night time skies are a dark Bortle 3.

The plan there is to capture a similar but more so cluster of galaxies known as Coma B, or the Coma Cluster in the constellation Coma Berenices. An event I'm quite looking forward to.

Graeme

[HansV]

I hope you'll get clear nights!

[Graeme]

🫰

[ChrisGreaves]

Here's the Draco Triplet from a couple of nights this week. There's 10 to12 galaxies in the image so possibly 5 to 10 trillion stars! Blows my mind!

Great images, Graeme. The more I learn, the more I learn that I need to learn more.
Including Not all your atoms are stardust.
Also that every Hydrogen atom was created at the Big Bang. I find it most unexpected that significant parts of my body are some 15 billion years old.

Also (15m 24s) that Neutron stars contain 10⁵⁷ Neutrons, and that anyway, neutron stars aren't really stars at all, at all.
Cheers, Chris

[Graeme]

........ and that anyway, neutron stars aren't really stars at all, at all.
Cheers, Chris

Neutron Stars and White Dwarfs are stars that have run out of hydrogen to burn at their core and fusion energy is no longer being produced, so they collapse under their own gravity and explode. Remanent is probably a good word but I still tend to think of them as stars, but dead stars.

Graeme

[ChrisGreaves]

Remanent is probably a good word but...

yes; "remnant" was a term used in the video, with a caution that "star" means different things to different levels of knowledge.
Cheers, Chris

[PJ_in_FL]

Beautiful, stunning and well done, sir!

I only wish I could blink out the clouds forecast for next Monday in Texas. Although I have used long exposure to make clouds disappear during a lunar eclipse, but I don't believe the same technique will work for the eclipse....

[Graeme]

Beautiful, stunning and well done, sir!

I only wish I could blink out the clouds forecast for next Monday in Texas. Although I have used long exposure to make clouds disappear during a lunar eclipse, but I don't believe the same technique will work for the eclipse....

Cheers PJ

Good luck for the 8th. Are you heading West for totality?

Graeme

[BobH]

Superb image, Graeme! Thank you.

Here's wishing you clear skies on your trip.

[ChrisGreaves]

Superb image, Graeme! Thank you.
Here's wishing you clear skies on your trip.

Wot!??!!! Is Graeme house-sitting in Florida?
Cheers, Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

Wot!??!!! Is Graeme house-sitting in Florida?

My apologies to BobH:

Untitled.png

I had not realised that we were lending part of the eclipse to the south-west corner of The British Isles. "The partial eclipse will last from 19:52 BST to sunset. About 47% of the Sun is expected to be blocked by the Moon but to see it requires clear skies to the west."

Meanwhile, back at the ranch ...

Untitled2.png

It looks like even money on a cloudless sky late afternoon here at The Centre Of The Known Universe.
Cheers, Chris