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On Friday evening, October 21, 2006 Rob and I conducted a star party for a wonderful group of Daisys' and
Brownies' at the Observatory. We were surprised by the turnout of young people and parents, it was great!
One of the things we did was interaction at the computer/telescope and several of the girls took control
of my imaging system and got a few shots in. Well, they had little interest in going home without the images
and asked me to print them before they left. SMO isn't set up to do this and it's never come up before,
so I told them to check my website and I would post the images here the next day. Okay young ladies, here you
go... it's just before 7:00AM on Saturday morning and I've worked with your shots and am uploading them.
I expect to hear from each of you so I'll know you got them and if you still require a print I can send you one... Each of these
shots was around 3 minutes duration with a simple dark subtract.
M33 is a galaxy also known as the Pinwheel in the Constellation Triangulum. We imaged this twice and you can see the spiral
arms detail in these photographs. Remember
what we talked about ladies - galaxies are outside our solar system, so this was looking extremely far away, nearly 2.4 million
light years distant!
Connie's Pinwheel Galaxy Image
Sonia's M33 Galaxy Image
M27, The Dumbbell is a planetary nebula also known as the Hourglass and could well be the finest example of this type of object.
This nebula is around 20,000 years old and we found it in the Constellation Vulpecula (The Fox).
Eliza's M27 Image
M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy, is in the Constellation Canis Venatici (KAY-neez veh-NAT-ih-sigh - The Hunting Dogs). This was the
first galaxy where the spiral structure was observed. This three minute exposure by Elizabeth clearly indicates why this is
known as the Whirlpool.
The Whirlpool Galaxy Imaged by Elizabeth
M13, the Great Star Cluster in the Constellation Hercules. This is the finest globular cluster to be seen from our location
and is thought to contain over 500,000 stars.
The Hercules Cluster Imaged by Hannah
Thanks for visiting our observatory ladies, I hope you had as much fun as Rob and I did!
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