Three observations from last night

[RobertI]

Some captures from last night's observations, whilst battling with strong winds, fireworks, a nearly gibbous moon and the usual street lighting.

NGC1501, a planetary nebula in Camelopardalis, slightly smaller than the ring nebula and fainter with a mag 14.5 central star.

IC342, a mag 9 spiral galaxy in Camelopardalis lying in the IC342 Group of Galaxies; the nearest group to the Local Group. This was really hard to see and I think needed a faster scope but you can make out the spiral structure.

Finally a portion of the Perseus Cluster of Galaxies. NGC1275 (aka Perseus A) lies at the centre of the cluster and can be seen as the brightest galaxy lying to the left of centre. I counted 25 galaxies in this shot and I’m sure there are more.

Hope you enjoyed.

[Martin Meredith]

Great shots. I can attest to IC342 being very low surface brightness. You've done well to bring out the spiral arms without blowing up the background especially  given the moon and streetlights. Similarly with the planetary, which looks like a slice of lemon to me. And I can never tire of seeing galaxy clusters   .

Martin