Is there anybody out there?

The Andromeda Galaxy M31 photographed from our
backyard in the early hours of the morning August 2nd 2013
One trillion stars 2.5 million light years from Earth.

Due to an unusual outbreak of good weather, 'The Cabine' has seen an outburst of  astronomy focussed action.  Clear Skies everyone!

When its late and quiet in our garden and as I look out into the the depths of space, I often wonder if; there is an alien version of me, in a garden, on a planet orbiting a star, long ago or in the future and very far away, looking through; his, her or its telescope and wondering at my improbable existence?

Between midnight and three in the morning on the 2nd August, the weather was absolutely beautiful and the sky transparent.  I watched the International Space Station pass serenely over our garden, it's quite something to see  and far brighter than you would expect.

My first imaging target was Messier 92, a globular star cluster in the constellation Hercules.  M92 tends to get passed over because it is the same part of the sky as M13 The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules and because it is slightly more difficult to image.

My second target was M31 the Andromeda Galaxy.  In the past I have been able to image its core but not its more nebulous spiral arms.  I'm quite pleased with the above image but I'm sure I can do better with a guided series of exposures, watch this space!

At three o'clock in the morning, the crescent Moon climbed above my garden hedge and I tripped off to bed a happy man!

M92 Globular star cluster 26,700 light years from
 our solar system and some 14 billion years old.
(enlargement below)

The photographs were taken with a Canon 400D DSLR camera attached to my Meade 127mm APO refractor operating at F7.5, mounted on a NEQ6 Pro mount.  Multi - light, flat and dark frames were stacked using DeepSkyStacker and final processing applied using APS.

Credits: Wikipedia