New Images from Calstar 2015



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Lake San Antonio was closed this year due to drought, and Calstar was moved to a nearby location in a private campground. Unfortunately, we were clouded out for most of the time, and we only stayed for the first two nights. Sometimes there was also smoke from fires to the east, and it became difficult even to see the clouds. The few images we captured had short exposure times.





NGC 6818

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SBIG ST-4K, 600s total exposure 9/10/15 Whisper Canyon, CA


"Little Gem Nebula" in Sagittarius.





NGC 6503 / Quasar 1749+701

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SBIG ST-4K, 1200s total exposure 9/10/15 Whisper Canyon, CA


Quasar 1749+701 (circled in the first image) has been identified as one of the BL Lacertae objects, a subclass of active galactic nuclei with spectrally broad emission, weak or absent atomic lines, polarized emission, and rapid temporal variability. Its estimated redshift is z=0.77, corresponding to a light travel time of approximately 7 billion years, half the age of the universe.





IC 1318

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SBIG ST-4K, 900s total exposure 9/10/15 Whisper Canyon, CA


A portion of IC1318 (near Gamma Cygni).





NGC 6946

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SBIG ST-4K, 572s total exposure 9/11/15 Whisper Canyon, CA


Spiral galaxy in Cygnus, heavily reddened by dust in our own galaxy.