Reprocessed Images

What do amateur astronomers do when the weather is lousy and they can't get out with their scopes? Well, sometimes they reprocess old data. I have learned a lot about image processing over the few years that I've been in this hobby. Sometimes it is fun to see if I can do a better job using my new skills and tools. Some of these were very challenging as I did not have all of the components necessary for producing clean images (darks, flats, and bias frames).

These are some of the images that I selected as candidates for a slide show that a friend of mine is working on for the Sam Houston State University Planetarium.

Messier 8, the Lagoon Nebula, in the constellation Sagittarius.

Messier 8, the Lagoon Nebula, on the right. Messier 20, the Trifid nebula, in the upper-left. Both nebulae are in Sagittarius. This is a composite of two images taken with my Orion ShortTube 80.

Messier 35, in the upper-left half of the image, and NGC 2158 in the lower-right. Both clusters are in Gemini.

Messier 38, in the right half of the image, and NGC 1907 on the left, in Auriga.

Messier 45, the Pleiades, located in Taurus. This is only a portion of the cluster.

Messier 83, the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, in the constellation Hydra. It is the southernmost galaxy in the Messier catalog.

Leo Triplet. Also called the M66 group. Messier 65 is on the lower left, Messier 66 is on the middle left. NGC 3628 is located on the right. It is sometimes called the "Hamburger Galaxy."

Messier 37, in the constellation Auriga.