Messier 39 (Pyramid cluster) and NGC 7243 (Caldwell 16)

[geeklee]

Wednesday's clear skies didn't really materialise here but I salvaged around 90 minutes on Messier 39.

Sky-Watcher 150P-DS + 533MC Pro - 92 x 60s

There's a couple of nice PGC galaxies just coming through to the lower right of the cluster:

Last night wasn't clear with constant high cloud but I got the scope out there and took a risk, eventually integrating 100 minutes on NGC 7243 (it looked interesting to frame like this).

Sky-Watcher 150P-DS + 533MC Pro - 100 x 60s (NGC 7243 top left)

Both captured with ASIAir, pre-processed in APP and processed in PixInsight.

Thanks for looking and hope you had some clearer spells this past new moon! 🥴

[Vroobel]

Both images look 'juicy', real gems! 

Regarding the Pyramid cluster, I didn't know the name. It's not first time if you look at the object in a different way if someone calls it specifically. 🙂

Edited October 6 by Vroobel

[Adreneline]

Very nice Lee. Excellent star colours and very even background.

Have you found the shroud has made a discernible difference to your 150P-DS?

Adrian

[CraigT82]

Both very nice captures, caught M39 myself couple of weeks ago and it’s an attractive cluster 

[WolfieGlos]

Really nice images Lee, plenty of colour. The spikes just lift it a bit too.

I didn't realise M39 was referred to as "The Pyramid", but it's quite obvious! You look to have caught some dark nebula in the bottom left too.

[geeklee]

5 hours ago, Vroobel said:

'juicy',

Thanks @Vroobel I like that description - possibly code for a bit saturated and over the top stars - but I'm good with that 🤣  

5 hours ago, Adreneline said:

Excellent star colours and very even background.

Thanks Adrian - they're both pretty conservative processing given the data so the background isn't worked that hard.

5 hours ago, Adreneline said:

Have you found the shroud has made a discernible difference to your 150P-DS?

Hard to tell at the moment as its just general and localised light pollution - no bright moon stuff to properly test.  But in general, even this data looked OK doing background extraction - nothing weird.  We'll see for longer, deeper integrations!

Crude, but functional... so far:

4 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

caught M39 myself couple of weeks ago and it’s an attractive cluster

Thanks Craig - it's very possible this could have been in the back of my mind when cruising round !

1 hour ago, WolfieGlos said:

You look to have caught some dark nebula in the bottom left too.

Thanks Chris.  Good spot - more integration and I'd have tried to work this harder but it wasn't worth it here - except to ruin a decent image with OTT stretching!