Messier 87

Spring is the time for galaxies in the constellation Virgo.  Last night, I targeted Messier 87 for the first time.  The conditions weren't great, but M87 is very large and bright which made up for the marginal seeing conditions.  This galaxy is the most massive one we know of, with estimates of 2,700 thousand million Suns within it.  It's also famous for its central jet (not seen in the photos above) which extends out 65,000 light years and emits synchrotron radiation (light accelerating perpendicular to its velocity).  At its center is a supermassive black hole which famously became the first black hole ever imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope in April 2019, an astounding feat for humanity.  Aside from the astounding attributes of M87, it is surrounded by many other much fainter galaxies.  Can you spot them all in the top photo?  I circled the ones I could see in the lower photo.

Photo Details

April 24 and 30, 2020

Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount

SBIG STF-8300C Camera

Baader MPC Mark III Multi-Purpose Coma Corrector

Skyglow filter

58 subframes at 3 minutes/frame

Total Exposure Time = 2 hours 54 minutes
Image Acquisition in CCDOps
Image Stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image Processing in PhotoShop

Messier 99

Messier 99 is a classified as a grand spiral galaxy, but has the unusual feature of one dominant arm.  This galaxy spans about 83,000 light years across and contains a little less mass than our own galaxy weighing in at only 100 thousand million solar masses.  Such a lightweight!  M99 is also part of the Virgo cluster of galaxies which becomes visible each spring.  A notable feature of the Virgo cluster is they're all about 65 million light years away.  In other words, if you were on a planet in M99 looking at Earth with a very powerful telescope right now, you would see dinosaurs walking the Earth.

Photo Details

April 24 and 30, 2020

Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount

SBIG STF-8300C Camera

Baader MPC Mark III Multi-Purpose Coma Corrector

Skyglow filter

58 subframes at 3 minutes/frame

Total Exposure Time = 2 hours 54 minutes
Image Acquisition in CCDOps
Image Stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image Processing in PhotoShop

Lunar Craters

Mare Imbrium with Archimedes Crater in Center.

String of craters near Mare Nubium

Close up of Arzachel, Alphonses & Ptolemaeus Craters

Close up of Arzachel, Alphonses & Ptolemaeus Craters

Largest to Smallest:  Archimedes, Aristillus & Autolycus.

We've had a pretty good run of cool clear nights as the moon is approaching 1st quarter.  It was a perfect time to capture some close-ups of the incredibly varied Moonscapes.  A close inspection of the shadows cast into the crater bottoms shows just how jagged the peaks can be rimming the craters.  The largest, very round and flat-bottomed crater in the bottom picture is the best example.  This crater, named after Archimedes, is about 50 miles in diameter and 1.3 miles deep.  For reference, the Grand Canyon is about 1 mile deep, on average.

Photo Details

April 30, 2020

Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount

NexImage10 Camera

Image Acquisition iCap2.4

Y800 Codec
Image Stacking in AutoStakkert
Wavelet Filtering in Registax
Final Adjustments in Photoshop

Sun's Surface and Prominence

Today was my first real attempt to image the Sun's surface and a pretty large solar prominence.  A huge thank you goes out to Marty for posting a really helpful YouTube tutorial on his Wise Imaging channel.  I still have a ton to learn and practice at this form of imaging, but overall I think it was a decent first attempt.  

The prominence is made up of plasma which is a hot blend of hydrogen and helium that's electrically charged.  There's magnetic fields involved and when they become unstable they erupt outward to release the plasma.

Photo Details

May 2, 2020

Coronado PST Telescope

NexImage10 Camera

Image Acquisition iCap2.4

Y800 Codec
Image Stacking in AutoStakkert
Wavelet Filtering in Registax
Final Adjustments in Photoshop