Private Spaceflight

To me, one of the most exciting developments in space exploration is the privatization of the industry. I believe we are rapidly approaching a time where spaceflight becomes somewhat routine. Our children will probably see this goal realized and it's awesome to live at a time when the first steps are being taken. Here is a short article about some recent launches...
Private Spaceflight
How cool that school children were invited to the launch!

Super Moon Hype

You may have heard on the radio or weather channel about this weekend's "Super Moon". As much as I love the idea of generating excitement about looking up at night, this is an annual overblown event. Really no harm in it, except that some people may go outside, see the moon and think...that's it? It's pretty hard to tell how larger or smaller the moon is, unless we had another moon to compare it against. Unfortunately, we don't live on Tatooine, so we only have a single moon to view at any given time.  Sky and Telescope has a pretty good explanation here...
Super Moon Myth

Now, having said all that, I have to admit I'm going to set up the telescope tonight and see what I can see! I don't want to miss the super moon!!!

Messier 51

Messier 51 is one of the most beautiful celestial sights, both through a telescope and on camera.  On a dark night, you can make tremendous detail.  This photo was shot with a 1st quarter moon which tends to wash out a lot of detail, but still not a bad first attempt.  You can see what astronomers call the prototype for interacting galaxies.  Though the picture is static, you can almost perceive these galaxies whirling through the cosmos.  The larger of the two galaxies is just a bit smaller than our own Milky Way, but only contains 10% of our total mass.  

Photo Details
Messier 51
June 14, 2013 (first star party night)
Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount
30 sub frames at 30"/frame
Total Exposure Time = 15 minutes
Image stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image processing in Fitswork
This image suffered from a fair degree of imprecise tracking.  Better polar alignment should improve future images.

1st Quarter Moon in June

 

First quarter moon shot on June 15th.  It's a beautiful sight when the moon is less than full, especially along the terminator, where the craters are really evident.  A common misconception is that it is the Earth's shadow that creates the phases of the moon.  However, it depends entirely on our viewing angle as a function of where we are relative to the moon.  The graphic below shows it pretty clearly...

 

 

Photo Details

1st Quarter Moon

June 15, 2013

Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount

Nikon D3100 Camera in RAW

20 frames at 1/1600"

ISO 1600

1 Dark Frame

Images converted from RAW to TIF in XnView

Images stacked in Registax 6

Final processing in Photoshop

 

 



Messier 64 - The Black Eye Galaxy

This is Messier 64, the so called "Black Eye Galaxy."  Some call it the Evil Eye.  If you zoom in, you can make out the black eye staring at us from 18.3 million light years away.  I really like the way the black eye renders some depth to the image, rather than being entirely flat.  You can get a sense of it extending away from us.  The dark band comes from light absorbing dust in one of the spiral arms of the galaxy.  Astronomers debate why this arm is there and some have speculated that this galaxy cannibalized another one.  Cosmic cannibalization.  Awesome.

Photo Details
Messier 64
May 28, 2013
Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount
Nikon D3100 Camera
6 sub frames at 1 minute per sub.
Total exposure time = 6 minutes
Image stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image processing in Fitswork

Double Rainbow

My friend Kathi shot this double rainbow with her iPhone.  I wonder what rainbows on earth look like from space?  Also, on planets and moons like Titan, where there is water, I wonder if rainbows form there as well?  The physics should work, but I guess it would depend on how much sunlight there is to refract through the water vapor.  In any case, beautiful shot, Kathi!

Messier 5

This was the other target I focused on Friday night.  Messier 5.  It was tough getting the exposure just right and I think some of the blue stars are just artifacts of the image processing, but what the heck, it's art, right?

M5 Fun Facts
This globular cluster was discovered by Gottfried Kirch in 1702 in Berlin, Germany.  However, he was not initially given credit for the discovery.  It was rediscovered in his wife's notebook some years later and Charles Messier got credit for his observation 62 years later.  It is 165 light years in diameter (1 light year = 6 trillion miles) and is about 24,500 light years from earth.  Imagine, light coming from this cluster to our eyes began its journey when Neanderthal's were walking the Earth.  At approximately 800,000 solar masses, it is no wonder this one is so bright and many people with good vision on a dark night can see it in the constellation Serpens.

Photo Details
Messier 5
May 31, 2013
Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount
Nikon D3100 Camera
13 sub frames at 25" per sub.
Total exposure time = 5 minutes, 25 seconds
Image stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image processing in Fitswork

Messier 61

I shot this image last night.  My first attempt at a galaxy.  Try clicking on the image to zoom in to see some barred structure in the galaxy.  It continues to amaze me what this system can capture.  There is absolutely nothing to see with the naked eye through the finder scope.  Yet, there is evidently so much light poring into the telescope.  Beautiful!  There are at least 2 other very faint galaxies in the image.  Can you find them?
 
M61 Fun Facts
Messier 61 is a barred spiral galaxy in the Virgo cluster.  It was first discovered in 1779.  It has an active galactic nucleus and is classified as a starburst galaxy.  Astronomers believe there may be a black hole at its center with a mass 5 million times larger than our own sun.
 
Photo Details
Messier 61
May 31, 2013
Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount
Nikon D3100 Camera
21 sub frames at 25" per sub.
Total exposure time = 8 minutes, 45 seconds
Image stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image processing in Fitswork