M57 widefield

I like to pick big and bright objects to image, partly due to short focal length of my scope. But Lyra was so tempting that Saturday night, and since I got no more planned targets, I tried to snap just one frame of the Ring Nebula to see how small it is on my 558mm FL scope. Sure enough it was so tiny. I decided not to shoot additional frames as I though it was just a waste of time. Now I realized that I wasted my time NOT shooting it. How ironic! This is just one 3-minute frame of the famous Ring.

Centaurus A (NGC5128)

Uniqueness and peculiarities always trigger my curiosity. That's why I could not resist of slewing my scope to the peculiar galaxy Centaurus A. After doing some shots of the Omega Centauri, I reckoned that Centaurus A was about the same R.A. as the Omega. I just needed to swing a little bit on the Declination. And there was I, pushing the camera shutter button several times to capture a beautiful galaxy. Yet, that beauty was not in my shots! My scope was not tracking well. Well, got to fire away before the Moon rises, I said to myself. I will re-visit this Galaxy definitely next time and will attempt to capture its elusive beauty!

Omega Centauri (NGC5139)

Globular clusters are not my favorites deep sky objects. They all look the same to me. In fact, I haven't spent considerable time scrutinizing globulars ever since. But, I guess some things can change. Last Saturday, I and Irving made a stubborn attempt to do stargazing at Buso-buso. I was so excited to bring out my gears again after a long time of accumulating dust. So excited indeed that I foolishly forgot to do proper polar alignment. I used the polar alignment scope without reference to the date & time. Result-I was offset by considerable amount. This I learned when I got home when processing the images. Anyway, my attention was called by Irving by pointing out Omega Centauri low in the southern horizon. I looked at it through my Megrez and from that time on, I knew that my old impression with globulars will change. I found myself looking at a cluster of enormous number of stars resembling a heap of sugar! This image is a pale representation of what was stuck in my memory. I do like globulars after all!