This is Messier 51a, M51a, NGC5194 or more commonly known as The Whirlpool Galaxy. This Photograph was taken the same as the rest of them with my 8" Meade Telescope and Canon T3 DSLR Camera. This is 26 photos stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and Processed with GIMP.
   This Galaxy is estimated to be around 23 Million Light years from the Milky Way Galaxy located in the Constellation Canes Venatici. You can see off to the left is it's companion Galaxy NGC5195. It was first discovered by Charles Messier in 1773, it's companion wasn't discovered until 1781. This Galaxy is said to have a radius of  43,000 Light Years. This Galaxies location which is located just below the last star in the Handle of Ursa Major ( The Big Dipper ). Means it is circumpolar, in the Norther hemisphere it can almost always be seen just like the Big Dipper. This Galaxy has what we call a Spiral Structure which is what the Milky Way was thought to be until they discovered the Milky Way may in fact be a barred Spiral.

 This is my first photograph of the Sun. This image was taken through my Meade LX90 8" SCT ACF. I used my Canon T3 DSLR at ISO400 @ 1/320". This is a single image no stacking involved. I received my Solar Filter and had to home make a mount for it. If you look you will see Dark spots, these are called Sunspots. Sunspots are in essence Solar Storms. I explained alot of this in my last post about the Sun. I cannot view Solar Flares with this equipment but it can be done ( look below for an example ).

 

   The pictures above are of my Solar Filter. I purchased the filter which is called Solar Filter Film. Then made the mount with Poster Board, Duct Tape, Clear Box Tape, and Scotch Tape. I think it took me about an hour or so to make. I then made another for my Finder Scope, so when I try to locate the sun I can do so safely. The total cost for my Solar Filter is about $20, that is including Filter, Materials to make adapter and shipping for filter. This is the cheapest way to view the sun, Safely. I believe this material is Mylar with 99.9% light blocking. It also gives the image an Orange tint. There are other films out there that give the Sun a white appearance. All of these filters including mine are called White Light Filters. The others however look kind of like aluminum foil. Of course, they are not these are specialty made products. I will state it again and cannot stress it enough. Never, Never look directly at the Sun with the unaided eye and an Experienced Astronomer at your side assisting you. It can cause damage to your eyes called Solar Retinopathy. Even during a Solar Eclipse it is still not safe. This is a common misconception, people think since half of the Sun's light is being blocked it is only half as bright and half as dangerous. Again, this is not true. Now at a Solar eclipse Totality there is no harm but full Solar Eclipses happen very rarely, and only in certain places at certain times can you view the total Eclipse.

 
   Now this only one of a few ways to safely view the Sun. Another way which you can make yourself ( at least something similar ) is called a Sunspotter. This way simply reflects the image onto a piece of paper. This is how it was done before the advent of Filters and specialty telescopes. I have made something similar with a box and just punched a hole in one end and put a piece of paper inside and projected the light onto the paper.

   Another way is with a specialty Telescope like this one. These are quite expensive but, unlike the image you see from my filter this shows far more detail. With this scope it will show more graininess on the surface with Sunspots as well as Flares or as we call them Prominences. To view the Sun like this it will cost you far more. These scopes usually start at around $600 and go up well over $2,500.

   The image above is what the specialty scopes produce. These images and the scopes are called H-Alpha. Which is Hydrogen-Alpha. This is a specific band of light the Sun and other stars produce as well as many other bands of light throughout the spectrum. I did not take this image by the way. If you look at it though you should see the graininess as well as the Sunspots and Prominences.

   This is another Reason why I purchased my filter. On June 5, 2012 there will be a transit of Venus across the Sun. There was a Transit of Venus in 2008 but, there will not be another after this until the year 2117. So none of us will ever see this again. So I wanted to witness a part of history and document it. I hope you enjoyed the post let me know if there are any questions that you have. Like always all comments are welcomed.
Keep Looking Up,
Chris

   So hello everyone I will be posting some more images here soon. I have my Solar gear and ready to get some photos of the Sun. In the meantime here is a video of a Virtual Star Party I am part of. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4X6cxKzZao&feature=g-all-u&context=G2d3a3ebFAAAAAAAAAAA
This is getting bigger every week. The hosts, Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela Gay have started this as an outreach of sorts. Every Sunday we get together on Google+ to live stream our telescopes on here. Pamela is our info provider as she is a Professor of Astronomy at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Fraser is the Publisher at Universe Today which you can see at www.universetoday.com. Check their site out it has a wealth of GOOD information. So I hope you like the video let me know what you think. Also join Google+ and you can watch these live with us and comment as the video is streaming. Or you can also watch on www.cosmoquest.org.

   This is my closeup photograph of the Moon. I realize I already had this image posted but, I decided to write a little more about our Moon. This photo was taken with a different technique than most of my other photos. I took this with my Meade 8" Telescope but, rather than using my Canon DSLR I used a normal computer webcam. If you have seen my photo of Saturn on my blog here it was taken with the same technique. I used something called a Barlow lens which in essence doubles the image size. Then I inserted the webcam into the Barlow lens and began taking an actual video of the Moon. Then with a program called Registax it destructed the video into single frames and stacked them one on top of another to make a better looking photo. I then sharpened the photo with a program called GIMP.
   Now in this photo is the Crater Theophilus, which is located in sector E-6 on the Moon. This Crater is the one at right with a spot in the center. If you notice the left side of the image along the dark line is very rough. Then to the right it is smooth with very few craters. The area to the left has been beaten over time with alot of Meteors and possibly Comets. However the smooth area to the right is called Mare Nectaris which is Latin for Sea of Nectar. The Mare when seen by Galileo was thought to be a Sea hence the name and Galileo believed it was a sea of water. He was not far off it is a Sea, of frozen Lava. In the Moons early years like all of the other solid "Terrestrial Planets" the Moon was molten like lava from it's formation and had volcanoes. Then over time the Lava basically ran out and it froze on the surface because of the intense cold in space. What alot of people do not know is the Temperature on the Moon in the sunlight can be 224 degrees Fahrenheit, and on the side where it is shaded or inside the deeper craters on the poles can get as cold as -307 degrees Fahrenheit.

   In the photo above there is an arrow pointing right to the landing site of Apollo 16. The arrow pointing down is the landing site of Apollo 11. Just above this photo is a area called the Mare Tranquillitatis or Sea of Tranquility. Which is where the final Apollo mission landed also where the Lunar Rover was left to film them leaving the surface. To back up a little the Moon has no atmosphere and has only 17% the gravity that we have here on Earth. So if you weighed 100kg (220 lbs.)on the Earth, on the Moon you would only weigh 17kg (37.5lbs.). If on Earth you could jump 30cm (about 1 ft.) you could jump 2 meters (6.5 ft.) on the Moon. The Moon is what we call Tidally Locked which as most people can see means the Moon only shows one face to the Earth. The Moon is about 240,000 miles from Earth. This all added together with the size of the Moon, is what gives us our tides. Another note that people don't know or realize is, we not only have tides in our oceans but, the land has tidal effects as well. It is not as much for us to realize it because we are standing on the solid ground, but it actually pulls solid Earth up by almost a foot twice a day!

 

   The photograph above shows the "Far Side" of the moon. A common myth that alot of people hear about the Moon is the "Dark Side". That's like I said a myth, the Moon does rotate (spins) about it's axis. The Rotation period of the Moon equals it's Revolution around the Earth. So to put it a little easier to understand, the Moon's Far Side is actually illuminated. When we see the moon half lit here the other half of the far side is lit as well. The reason you see so many craters on this side more than the other is because it is tidally locked. So any Meteors that come in will hit the far side because it's facing away from earth and toward space. This side of the Moon was not seen until 1959 by the Soviets with the Luna 3 spacecraft. It was seen with human eyes first by the Apollo 8 astronauts. We currently have two satellites orbiting the Moon and are still studying it today.

   This is a Star! Not just any star this is our Star, The Sun. Where do I start about this beautiful, glowing orb of light and heat? Let's start with it's distance from us. The Sun is approximately 93 Million miles away from earth, we give that the designation of 1 AU ( Astronomical Unit ). So the Earth is 1 AU from the Sun, Jupiter is 5.2 AU. It's size. The sun is about 865,000 miles in diameter that is about 109 times that of the Earth. In Fact you could fit about 1.3 Million Earths inside the Sun. What is it made of? Is it a big ball on fire? The Sun is a big ball of Gas. It is Primarily Hydrogen and Helium. That's right Helium, just like the stuff we put in balloons. There are trace amounts of other elements as well. The sun "Burns" by a process called Nuclear Fusion. This is where it smashes two Hydrogen atoms together and creates Helium. We know about Nuclear forces here on Earth, in 1945 we dropped bomb on Japan in Hiroshima was a Nuclear Fission bomb. That is the opposite of the suns type of Nuclear event. The Fusion process is more energetic and creates vasts more amounts of Energy. What is the Temperature of the Sun? The "apparent surface" of the Sun is 5,800 Kelvin while the inside core is 15,600,000 Kelvin. Converted into degrees Fahrenheit is 9,980 degrees Fahrenheit and 28,000,000 Million degrees at the Core.

   The following Photograph shows the layers of the Sun. The part of the sun that we see is the Photosphere. The only time we can see the fainter Corona or the Chromosphere is either during a full Solar Eclipse or with the proper Satellite or Telescope. The Chromosphere is where we see the Solar Storms or Flares. A sunspot is an area of the surface that is cooler than the rest of the surface. Now if you were to block out everything around the sunspot it would be far brighter than an Electrical Arc. This is considered to be an area of intense magnetic field activity.

 

   The photo above shows the Sun's Magnetic Field. Look at it this way, imagine the magnetic field lines are rubber bands running throughout the sun and being twisted. This is where we see a Sunspot. Now what is going to happen to that rubber band after it is twisted so much? It will pop! This is a Solar Flare. Now most solar flares will release something called a Coronal Mass Ejection or CME. In the top photograph you can see a Solar Flare. That large flare when released from the surface is a CME. It the gets blasted into space. Now every 11 years the sun goes through cycles the Solar Minimum or the Solar Maximum. We have now entered into the Solar Maximum. This is the reason you are hearing about Solar Flares in the news. They are saying the Solar Maximum will peak in around 2013-2014. They are also saying it could be one of the most active times we will observe. Now that is not guaranteed it is just a guess. Now if these CME's are directed at Earth it will hit our Magnetic Field then be redirected toward our poles and cause what we know as the Auroras. In the North Pole these are called Aurora Borealis, in the South pole we call them Aurora Australis. When the CME's hit our atmosphere they interact with our Ionosphere hence causing the Aurora.

  The image above is a illustration of a CME hitting the Earths Magnetic Field. Today we have satellites looking at the nothing but, the Sun. The government agency NOAA ( National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ) with these satellites are able to predict " Space Weather ". If you hear of a solar Flare you can go to their website and find out if you will be able to see the Aurora in your area. Yes we can see Aurora in Indiana as well as other states in North America. It has been seen in Kentucky not sure how far south but you can find out at www.NOAA.gov. If you are going to be able to see an Aurora take a camera. Your pictures can help scientists figure out how far south they can be seen in relation to the strength of the CME. Plus believe me if you see them you will want to take a picture they are just beautiful. Are the Auroras dangerous? Well the short answer is, No. I say no because, they will not harm you as a human. They can affect our power grids and satellites. Those satellites control Internet, T.V. and Cellular communications, as well as GPS for what you have in your car as well as those in airplanes. So they can be debilitating, to our infrastructure. If we see CME's headed for Earth I will now be posting links on Facebook and Google+. If I missed something you was hoping to read about leave me a comment I will address it as soon as I can. I will end this post with a picture of an Aurora. Have a good night hope you enjoyed this post.

   This is Messier 101 or M101 also The Pinwheel Galaxy. This galaxy is located in the constellation of Ursa Major ( The Big Dipper ). This photo is a total of 25x 25 second photos stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and processed with GIMP/Photoshop Elements 10.
   This Galaxy is located about 27 Million Light Years away and is over 170,000 Light Years across. Remember a Light Year is how far light travels in one year. In our fastest Spacecraft it would take approximately 3,600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years. I believe that is 3.6 Octillion years. That's just to get across from one side to another! That is traveling at 35,000 MPH as well, so that gives you an idea the scale here. Another scale here the light in this photo took 27 Million years to get here that is 20 Million years after Modern Mammals appeared on Earth, this was when the first Elephants with Trunks appeared as well. It is known as the Tertiary period.
   I hope you all like the images and the science and sometimes history behind them. I have a tab toward the bottom right side of this page where you can join. Feel free and please do leave me some comments so I can tailor it better to my readers. Oh one more thing I have a Solar Filter coming in so be on the lookout for pictures of the Sun and it's Spots.
    Just though I would post an updated photo of M101. This is 85 photos stacked and processed.