Yet another clear night in Southend last night. Hurrah!
Unfortunately it was also a full moon. Boohoo.
Fortunately, it’s nearly summer and the moon was low in the sky.
To see why the full moon is low in the sky in summer, have a look here.
So I set to work taking snaps of the Whirlpool galaxy. 5s exposures are distinctly unimpressive of this 30m ly distant object.
However, if you take over 300 of them, and get a computer to stack the images, it looks a bit better.
That’s probably close to the limit of what I can achieve with my current equipment. Others have really gone to town. This is what 10 DAYS of imaging can get you.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230811.html
Or if you happen to have a telescope in space.
Platitude of the Day 