Matterhorn at night

I've been traveling a lot lately to Switzerland, twice getting really close to the Matterhorn after our dear star was hidden from sight by the edge of the Earth. Enjoying the cold, I took a few pictures, out of which I like this one best. 

M33 revisited

About one year ago we discovered that our 0.5m Cassegrain rooftop telescope can be used in prime focus mode, but until now I had little time to revisit a wonderful galaxy, M33. 

   There are many star forming regions visible in the Hydrogen alpha image (red in the image below), king of all being NGC 604, a nebula far larger than our familiar Orion Nebula. 

Prime focus, 4 nights of imaging, RVBHa, about 2.5h per filter.

And the old, Cassegrain focus version, about 12h of exposure time in total, LRVBHa:

Winter cone

  The famous Cone Nebula can be found in the constellation of Monoceros and it's one of those star forming factories in our galaxy which already created a very young star cluster (the Christmas tree, NGC 2264 :) ). S Monocerotis is responsible lighting up the last remains of the "mother - gas cloud". 7 light years across (10 arcminutes) and 2700 light years distant, the Cone Nebula is part of a huge star forming complex in the winter skies, a blend of dark and excited gas and dust clouds.

 

 I have always wished for a Christmas Tree like this.