Naked-eye Deep Sky Objects

Been browsing old pictures during Lockdown, and visited a favourite from September last year, from the wonderful dark-sky site that is the Elan Valley.
I’ve labelled a few deep sky objects, and very much enjoyed doing it!

Venus and The Pleiades

I don’t really know why I’ve not been writing up stuff in my blog. I’ve still been as active in my hobby, I just seem to have lost the impulse to enter up observations here. I’ll try and make some entries while we’re on the virus lockdown, and post-date them.
But the big show this week has been Venus and the open cluster ‘meeting’ in the west. We’ve had three clear nights, so I’ve got three photos to show its apparent journey.
First up is its ‘closest approach’, which was Friday 3th. It was a superb sight through my 10×50 Opticroms. Quite a few people I know also got to see it. The following two nights saw the planet move to the north-west of the cluster. Obviously these directions are just line-of sight effects seen from Earth.
Here’s a couple of photos from Sunday and Monday, (which was last might). If I get another photo tonight I may try and make a composite image. We’re looking at a couple of seconds exposure, 5.6f stop and 400 or 800 ASA on these babies.
So the following shots are Saturday 4th April and Sunday 5th April.

Back with the 4″ Skywatcher

I feel compelled to write once again in praise of the delightful 4″ Heritage reflector I bought some time ago and oft-referenced in this journal. I received correspondence today from a friend today who expressed a desire to purchase a similar telescope, and hopefully these three photos might encourage her to further commit to such a purchase.
And now I’m going to stop writing like it’s 1890.
Check out these from Chapel Ash!
First, Venus. not the easiest object to photograph, but you can clearly see its half-lit phase.

Next, a couple of obligatory Moon shots.  Very pleased with the detail on the close up. The Moon was almost right overhead, this helps so much.

And here’s the scope with the camera attached, almost at darkness, hence the noisy phone shot.

The Crab Nebula from Wolverhampton!

In fact, from my lounge window!
As I was looking at my Venus and M45 shots, I zoomed into Zeta Tauri to see if there was any evidence of the supernova remnant, and there it was! I’ve been looking at this irregular patch of nebulosity on recent visits and never dreamed it could be imaged from a class 3 Bortle site like my flat.
Okay, imaged is a bit of a stretch, it’s hardly there. But it’s there!