M45 - Pleiades

This beautiful cluster of stars is an easy object to pick out of the night sky as the summer turns to fall and into winter.  At this time of year, it hovers in the eastern sky after nightfall.  With the naked eye, it looks a bit like a question mark and is sometimes called the Seven Sisters.  Through a telescope, you can begin to see some faint nebulosity around some of the stars.  

The Pleiades have been well known since prehistoric times and figures into many cultures' mythology.  It shows up around 2500 BC in Mesopotamian mythology and Homer mentions it in the Odyssey.  It's also described in the Bible three times.  The passage from Revelations 1:16 is striking as it describes the second coming of the Messiah:

"And he had in his right hand seven stars:  and out of his mouth went a sharp two edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength."

I found this passage from Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem Locksley Hall a beautiful description:

"Many an night I saw the Pleiades, rising thro' the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid."


Photo Details
Messier 45 - The Pleiades (Seven Sisters)
October 24, 2013
Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount
Nikon D3100 Camera
30 sub frames at 15"/frame
Total Exposure Time = 7.5 minutes
Image Stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image Processing in Fitswork

Messiers 31, 32 and 110

The main event in this photo is the gorgeous Andromeda Galaxy (M31).  There are observations of this galaxy dated to 905 AD by Persian Astronomers.  In a dark sky, it is a naked-eye object, though not with this kind of detail.  It spans a whopping 160,000 light years across and contains an estimated 700,000,000,000 solar masses.  It's hard to even comprehend the number of stars and worlds we are looking at in this one picture.  Complete humbling.  It is the closest galaxy to our own Milky way and it was Edwin Hubble who first figured out a reasonably accurate distance and that it wasn't part of the Milky Way.

The other two objects in the photo are M32 (below) and M110 (above).  M32 and M110 are physical companions of Andromeda; locked in a gravity-driven cosmic dance.  Compared directly to Andromeda, they may not look like much, but both are galaxies in their own right.

Photo Details
Messiers 31, 32 and 110
October 23, 2013
Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount
Nikon D3100 Camera
58 sub frames at 30"/frame
Total Exposure Time = 29 minutes
Image Stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image Processing in Fitswork

Southern Skies

Sydney Observatory

Night Shot of Scorpius at Sydney Observatory

Australia's Oldest Working Telescope

While traveling in Australia, we had the great opportunity to visit the Sydney Observatory.  It's in the heart of Sydney, overlooking Sydney Harbor.  A gorgeous site for an observatory, except for all the sky glow.  Despite that, we had a great time, learned a lot about the southern sky, were privileged to gaze through Australia's oldest operational telescope and even try a night shot of Scorpius outside the observatory.  All around, a fantastic time!

More 1st Quarter Moon

I took some time tonight to process the rest of the images taken on Saturday.  The Registax program does a great job of stacking images, but I am so tempted to go for a higher resolution camera!  I get a little disappointed with how few pixels I have to work with!

1st Quarter Moon

We had a gorgeously clear night here.  After watching the first half of the Auburn/Mississippi State football game, I decided to head out and try for some moon shots while listening to the second half on the radio (Auburn won with a decisive drive at the end of the game!!!).  For the first time, I tried using my NexImage camera with the Orion 8" scope on the Celestron VX mount.  The results were better than I could have expected.  Each shot above is approximately 1000 frames stacked and aligned using the Registax 6 software.

Messier 16

Messier 16 is often referred to as the Eagle Nebula.  One look at the photo above and you can see how this imagery would come to mind with the head facing downward and the tail highlighted by a relatively tight grouping of stars.  Technically speaking, M16 is the dense grouping of stars in the tail of the eagle.  It was first discovered in 1745, but the telescopes of the time were not able to see the nebulous cloud we now call the eagle.

To me, the most beautiful features of the eagle are the three pillars in the middle of the eagle's body.  These are sometimes called the "elephant" trunks and are home to active star formation.  Each trunk is an astounding 6 trillion miles long.

Photo Details
Messier 16
September 8, 2013
Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount
Nikon D3100 Camera
60 sub frames at 30"/frame
Total Exposure Time = 30 minutes
Image Stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image Processing in Fitswork

Messier 27

Messier 27 is also known as the Dumbbell Nebula.  It was the first discovery of a planetary nebula and was identified by Charles Messier in 1764, though William Herschel was the first to see the curiously stunning dumbbell shape.  My favorite description was by Admiral Smyth who said, "magnificent and singular object, it is one of those splendid enigmas which are proposed by God."  

This particular nebula is one of the most-studied planetary nebulae. Like all planetary nebulae, it is the remnant of a dying star.  What we are seeing is shell of ionized gas given off late in its life.  It is truly an awesome sight to behold!

Photo Details
Messier 27
August 25,2013
Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount
Nikon D3100 Camera
58 sub frames at 30"/frame
Total Exposure Time = 29 minutes
Image Stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image Processing in Fitswork

Messier 29 and Perseid Meteor Shower

While waiting for the Perseid meteor shower to kick into high gear, we decided to take advantage of the miraculously clear skies to shoot Messier 29.  M29 was discovered by Charles Messier on July 29th, 1764.  The five brightest stars of M29 are blue super giants.  Some observers say that M29 looks like a smaller version of the Pleides.  One of the amazing things about looking at this cluster is the star field it sits within.  There are something like 600 individual stars in this photo, which makes it kind of hard to make out M29 in the middle, but it is there!

The Perseid meteor shower is an annual celestial event.  It is regular in its timing and has a decent viewing window spread over a few nights.  It's named after the constellation Perseus since many of the meteors seem to originate here, but the meteors actually come from the comet Swift-Tuttle.  Each year, we pass through the debris cloud of this comet and are treated with a light show.  The kids each invited over a friend and we had a small star party. Everyone got to see a few meteors, but we failed to catch any photographically.  We made it to midnight before tiredness, incredible humidity and bugs drove us into the tents.  The incredible humidity drove everyone inside soon after that!



Photo Details
Messier 29
August 11, 2013
Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount
Nikon D3100 Camera
30 sub frames at 30"/frame
Total Exposure Time = 15 minutes
Image stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image processing in Fitswork

Messier 57

The Ring Nebula in the constellation Lyra is the second planetary nebula ever found.  Planetary nebulae are the remnants of a dying star; the gassy shell of what it once was.  It was discovered in 1779 by Antoine De Darquir.  Although it was observed and discovered in the late 1700's, it was not until the 19th century observer William Huggins observed M57 spectroscopically that it became known as a ring of gas.  Today M57 is described as an ellipisoidally-shaped nebula, which you can clearly see, if you zoom in on the image above.  It has an inner and outer halo made up of luminous gases. These halos surround a very hot and compact central star which is the remaining core of a former red giant.  You can make this star out as well, if you zoom in.  It is believed that M57 is about 2,300 light years from Earth.

Any way you slice it, if you come upon the Ring Nebula in your eyepiece, you know you are seeing something very special.  It is hauntingly beautiful and unique.  For us it is a glimpse of the heavens and if they were that amazing 2,300 years ago, we can only imagine...


Photo Details
Messier 57
August 4, 2013
Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount
29 sub frames at 30"/frame
Total Exposure Time = 14 minutes - 30 seconds
Image stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image processing in Fitswork

Wave at Saturn

At 4:27 PM today, NASA aimed one of the Cassini cameras from the opposite side of Saturn, back toward the Sun and Us!  We gathered outside to get in the photo!  Sky and Telescope has a pretty good article about it (Wave at Saturn).  We of course made signs and put on some bright clothing so we could see ourselves.  We will post images from NASA as they become available.

Night Sky

Sometimes there is really nothing better than simply gazing up at the beautiful night sky.  We had a few clear nights while visiting my hometown in Wisconsin.  My parents live away from town and though there is a little sky-glow, it is one of my favorite spots to just look up.  I took these two photos on the same night.  One of them has a hint of the Milky Way rising and the other an airplane and a shooting star.  Can you find identify each?

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

Clear night

Was able to sneak in a few hours of astrophotography this evening. My son had a friend sleep over and both had fun looking at Saturn before heading inside. I had some trouble getting the mount aligned tonight for some reason. The goto function was horribly off. I did a complete restart, and things seemed ok after that. First target, M5.  Shot 13x25" subs with corresponding dark frames.  I then swung around for M61 (spiral galaxy) and shot 21x25" subs with corresponding dark frames. Can't wait to get these into stacking and post processing.