North East London Astronomical Society - NELAS

A lovely celebration was had in our April meeting to celebrate NELAS's 70th anniversary! 🎉🎉

🌌 Christmas Tree Cluster & Cone Nebula (NGC 2264)

A compact star-forming region in Monoceros, where young stars are still embedded in gas and dust. The bright central cluster shapes the surrounding nebula, while the Cone Nebula appears as a dense column silhouetted against the emission glow.

📍 Kelling Heath (Astrocamp), Norfolk 19th March 2026
🧭 Coordinates (J2000): RA 06h 41m | Dec +09° 53′

🔭 Captured with the DWARF 3 smart telescope

🛠️ Processing
Dual-band (60s, gain 120) combined with broadband (15s, gain 60), ~single-session capture.
Stars corrected in Stellar Studio (), with further processing and blending completed in PixInsight.
Time 1hr and 30 min approx.

🌌 California Nebula (NGC 1499)
A wide, faint emission nebula in Perseus, glowing mainly in hydrogen-alpha and illuminated by the bright star Xi Persei (Menkib). Because it stretches across a huge area of sky, it works far better as a mosaic target than as a single frame.
📍 Taken at Kelling Heath Star Party (Astrocamp), Norfolk, UK on the 20th of March 2026 — a great chance to work under some of the darkest skies in the UK.
🧭 Coordinates (J2000)
RA 04h 03m | Dec +36° 25′
🔭 Captured with DWARF 3, using a 4-panel mosaic to cover the full length of the nebula.
🛠️ Processing: 4-panel mosaic with two datasets combined.
Dual-band (Hα/OIII): 60s, gain 120 → nebula signal
Broadband (RGB): 15s, gain 60 → stars + banding control
~5h total integration.
Stacked/assembled in Stellar Studio, then blended in Pixinsight to smooth gradients, reduce dual-band colour banding, and restore natural star colour.
Workshop will be available shortly.
✨ It is not a nebula that shouts at you straight away. Most of its beauty is in the subtle structure — long soft clouds of hydrogen spread across the field — and that makes it a really satisfying one to build carefully.

🌞 Same Sun — 3 different looks

Captured with a mobile phone through a solar telescope at Astrocamp.

With just small adjustments in contrast and tone, the same single image can reveal very different aspects of the Sun’s photosphere — from a natural view to a more enhanced look, and finally a monochrome version where the subtle granulation becomes easier to see.

No stacking, no complex processing — just a single frame and a few tweaks.

Which one do you prefer: 1, 2 or 3?

Astronomy MobileAstrophotography

🌞 Our restless Sun — captured with a mobile phone

Taken through a dedicated solar telescope at Kelling Heath Star Party (Astrocamp), March 2026 — Norfolk skies giving us both stunning nights and a chance to turn our attention to the Sun by day.

This is the photosphere (~5,500 °C), where convection creates the fine granulation pattern — countless cells of hot plasma rising and cooling across the surface. Subtle structures and magnetic activity are visible across the disk, even on a relatively quiet day.

The darker edge (limb darkening) appears because we’re looking through cooler, shallower layers of the Sun’s atmosphere at an angle.

Captured simply with a smartphone through the eyepiece, with only light adjustments to enhance contrast and detail — a reminder that solar imaging can be accessible, even without complex setups.

Even when it looks calm, our star is anything but still.

Astrocamp SolarImaging Astronomy MobileAstrophotography

Flower Moonrise Tower Bridge by Nelas member Ikram Haq 02/04/26

Flower Moonrise Tower Bridge London 02/04/2026 #towerbridgelondon #flowermoon #fullmoon Flower Moonrise Tower Bridge London 02/04/2026

NELAS visitors at Januarys lecture about black holes, exploding stars and cosmic cycle with Chris Crowe.

🌌 NGC 2174 | The Monkey Head Nebula

NGC 2174, commonly known as the Monkey Head Nebula, is an emission nebula located in the constellation Gemini. It is part of an active star-forming region associated with the open cluster NGC 2175, at an estimated distance of around 6,400 light-years.

The nebula is dominated by hydrogen-alpha emission, produced as ultraviolet radiation from young, massive stars ionises the surrounding gas. The interaction between stellar radiation, gas, and dust gives rise to the nebula’s complex, sculpted appearance.

NGC 2174 was catalogued in the 19th century and lies close to the Galactic plane, within a rich region of the Milky Way containing multiple emission and reflection nebulae. Its distinctive shape has earned it the popular nickname “Monkey Head Nebula”.

🔭 Image capture
Captured with the DWARF 3 using a dual-band Ha/OIII filter.
54 x 60-second exposures at gain 60, with a total integration time of 54 minutes.
Processing was carried out in PixInsight.

📍 Coordinates (J2000)
NGC 2174 (Monkey Head Nebula): RA 06h 09m, Dec +20° 30′

📚 References
NGC Catalogue — J. L. E. Dreyer
NASA / ESA — Star-forming regions in Gemini
SIMBAD Astronomical Database (NGC 2174)