Comet Lovejoy - moving through Columba

Here is a 15 minute animation of the motion of Comet Lovejoy late on Christmas night taken with my EdgeHD-11 telescope. No tail visible as yet (probably because of the light polluted skies and low altitude here in Maryland.)

Comet Lovejoy brightens - visible in the S-SW Sky

Another Bright Comet Visible from the Baltimore Area

Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy is the 5th comet discovered by amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy of Brisbane, Australia. Discovered on August 17, 2014, Lovejoy is brightening nicely and should be visible in binoculars and small telescopes late December and January. The comet is currently low in the South but will be steadily climbing throughout late December and January.  Although the waxing moon will interfere some, Lovejoy is expected to reach magnitude 4.4 on January 10, 2015, bright enough to be visible even with the full moon which occurs on January 4, 2015.

Here is a chart for the Reisterstown, MD area (Mikey's Observatory) with positions at 10:00PM local time from Dec 27th through Jan 17th.

Interesting data, observation and interactive orbital charts can be found at In-The-Sky.org and more details about the comet can be found at Astronomy.com

NASA’s New Horizon’s spacecraft awakens for encounter with Pluto

The New Horizon's spacecraft will begin observing the distant dwarf planet January 15 and fly by Pluto in July. Full story at Astronomy Magazine.

Orion Blasts Off

On December 5th, NASA successfully launched the first test flight of its Orion capsule. Scheduled to carry astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit in the 2020s, the spacecraft is NASA’s first deep-space people transporter since the Apollo days. - See more at: Sky and Telescope

NASA scrubs Orion launch after multiple delays

NASA's first attempt to launch Orion, a new exploration capsule, was scrubbed Thursday after numerous delays. The ultimate goal for Orion is to take astronauts to Mars, but that won't happen until at least the 2030s.

Orion is the Apollo-like capsule NASA is developing to fly astronauts to an asteroid by the 2020s, and potentially Mars by the 2030s.

For the full story see the USAToday article.

M1 - The Crab Nebula

Although the images drifted a bit in the field (guiding error on the mount) they were apparently good enough to get a reasonable final stack. So here is M1, the Crab Nebula, the most famous example of a supernova remnant.



M1 - Crab Nebula
EdgeHD-11 Prime Focus - November 21,2014
45 Minutes (15x180sec) ISO800

M81 - Bodes Galaxy

With the new Starizona CGEM Landing Pad installed on my mount, and the guiding issues mostly resolved I took advantage of the clear skies last evening and early this morning to image a number of deep space objects (DSOs). 

M81 - taken with EdgeHD-11
16x180sec ISO 800

This is a 48 minute exposure (16x180sec subs) of M81, or Bodes Galaxy; a spiral galaxy about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major.

This is the initial set of subs. More image data will be added at a later date and a set of flats will be taken to help remove the vignette effect.

All in all the new equipment and adjustments to the some parameters in the guiding software have worked out well. In the next few days I will be processing images taken of M1 (Crab Nebula) and M110.

"Touchdown! My new address: 67P!"

The ESA spacecraft Rosetta released the Philae lander which appears to have successfully landed on comet 67P. Quite an achievement! But there were some problems.

Comet 67P has a very weak gravity, so anchoring harpoons were designed to shoot into the comet to fix the spacecraft to the surface. They failed to fire and Philae is not firmly secure, ESA says.
 

Philae lander manager Stephan Ulamec said the probe may have lifted off again and turned. "So maybe we didn't land once -- we landed twice," he told a news conference.

The complete up-to-date story can be found on the CNN web site.

Rosetta Spacecraft to land the Philea lander on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Space fans around the world are waiting excitedly for Wednesday of this week, when the ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft will attempt a first-ever soft landing of a robotic probe on a comet. The Philae (fee-LAY) lander is scheduled to touch down on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on November 12, 2014 at 10:35 a.m. EST (7:35 a.m PST/15:35 UTC).

For details on this event, visit EarthSky.

Landing Pad

No, not a rocket-related item. This is really a telescope attachment.  The Landing Pad (from Starizona) allows for precise polar alignment for my Celestron CGEM-DX mount.

One big complaint I have with the CGEM mount is that when making azimuth adjustments to the mount during polar alignment, the adjustment screws have a lot of backlash and tend to be jerky, making precise alignment very difficult and frustrating. Add this to the fact that the mount cannot be tightened to the tripod head completely because it needs to move while making the azimuth adjustments. Then if you try to tighten it up, the whole mount shifts and you're out of alignment again.

The CGEM Landing Pad from Starizona eliminates the frustration. By using a very robust, incredibly smooth bearing system, the Landing Pad allows fine, precision adjustment of the mount for polar alignment. The mount now moves instantly and smoothly in response to turns of the adjustment knobs, with no backlash.

I received my Landing Pad today, and even though it came late (was getting dark outside) I decided to install it anyway. After all, it was nice outside, temperature in the upper 60's.

Took only about 20 minutes to complete the job. Now all I have to do is wait for the skies to clear and give her a go!

Philae gets "Green Light" for comet landing

The decision to try to land a robot on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 12 November has been confirmed.

Last month, planners on Europe's Rosetta mission announced a preference for a touch-down location on the head of the icy, rubber-duck-shaped object.

A detailed follow-up analysis, informed by new high-resolution pictures, has found no reason to rescind the choice.

Details of this exciting encounter can be found HERE.

Hypertune Success

The tune-up of my telescope mount was a success.  Both axes now operate "silky" smooth and the backlash is gone!  Now all I have to do is wait for the skies to clear.  Prospects for the total eclipse of the moon is about 20% chance of clear skies.

Total Lunar Eclipse - Wednesday Oct 8, 2014

If you are up early on Wednesday morning and have a clear sky to the western horizon you might want to take a glimpse of the 2nd total eclipse of the moon of four due in 2014/2015.

Astronomy magazine has the details.

Hypertune of mount

After a number of attempts to resolve a problem with guiding, I determined that some severe backlash in the DEC axis and some moderate backlash in the RA axis is probably the cause. Although gear mesh adjustment would help resolve the issue I decided to do a complete overhaul of the mount by performing the HyperTune procedure from Deep Space Products.

This service is provided by DSP but they also provide a DIY kit, and I didn't want to wait the 4 weeks for the turnaround. So I ordered the kit earlier this week and spent all day yesterday doing the tune up. Here is a before image and the disassembled mount.

After the rebuild was complete I set up the mount on the pad and made some final mechanical adjustments. The axes are now silky smooth and the backlash in both axes seems almost non-existent. However, the proof is yet to come when I test the mount later this evening with the OTA attached. Now I just need the skies to cooperate.

Where Will Philae Land on Comet 67P?

On November 11th, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft will dispatch the heavily instrumented Philae lander to an area called "Site J" on one end of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

For details see the article in Sky and Telescope.

Comet Jacques - Coma

It turns out that there was just a bit too much noise in the high ISO images I took of comet Jacques back on August 26th. Stacking and processing them in PixInsight revealed a slightly better view of the nucleus/coma of the comet, but the improvement was marginal at best. If there is a tail in there I didn't capture it.

Comet Jacques - Part 2

While I'm still processing the closeup images of comet Jacques from August 26, I couldn't resist the clear skies we got in Maryland this past Thursday and Friday evenings. Although I'm still calibrating the new motor control unit on my telescope mount I was able to image Jacques as well as M103 (Star cluster) and M15 (Globular Cluster).

For the comet I decided to image sixty 30 second images and put them together into an animated gif so you can see the rate at which the comet is traversing the sky. I actually only imaged 41 photos since I was fighting off dew and other issues but the animation is still kinda cool.



Comet Jacques August 29, 1:25-1:47 AM
Celestron EdgeHD-11

Comet Jacques

Initial image of comet C/2014 E2 Jacques

Here is the initial (no post processing to remove noise and bad pixel artifacts) image of the nucleus of comet Jacques taken on August 26, 2014. This is the result of 60 individual 30 second images of the comet taken through a Celestron EdgeHD-11" telescope at prime focus (108x magnification).

The dimmer dotted lines are bad pixels. The brighter dotted line is the result of a star image drifting in the field of view since the stacked images were centered on the comet and the comet was moving pretty rapidly during the 30 minutes of total imaging time.

I will be removing noise and bad pixels later and will repost the hopefully improved image.

Comet C/2014 E2 (Jacques)
Celestron EdgeHD-11" (prime focus)/Canon 50D
60x30sec ISO-1600 (30min total)

Where's the Lithium?

Measurement at Big Bang Conditions Confirms Lithium Problem

Lithium, aside from hydrogen and helium, is one of the three elements that are created before the first stars form. These three elements were – according to the theory – already created early on, through what is known as “primordial nucleosynthesis.”

But, many observations of astronomers show that the oldest stars in our Milky Way contain only half as much lithium-7 as predicted. So where is all the missing Lithium?

See the complete article at:  HZDR

Back in Action!

Well the new motor board arrived on Saturday - but I was at the dump taking care of household chores. Of course, the shipment required a signature and so it went back to the Post Office. No worry, the sky was cloudy and rainy all weekend anyhow.

Wifey picked up the package at the PO on Monday (they didn't ask for a signature!) and I installed it that evening. Checked out the mount for the basic operations and all seemed OK. Didn't have the time to test the guiding system yet - hope to do that this Friday when skies are supposed to be clear and the humidity low.

Disaster - sorta!

Well, it had to happen. As anyone who knows about the "Mangieri Cloud", technology and the local Mangieri household don't get along. It seems that whatever I buy, build, assemble, or otherwise acquire will very soon develop a problem. This is how the cloud works. I even told a salesclerk in a local store that I wanted to exchange a product while I was still in the checkout line. When asked why I told her: "to save me the trouble of getting home, finding the item to be defective, and then having to drive back to the store to get a replacement!"

So, last weekend, out of the blue, after I had setup the complete telescope system with full imaging capability, the telescope mount motor control board failed. Had to cancel the session, pack everything back up and find a vendor to replace the unit. Why, isn't the board under warranty, after all it has only been 10 months since I got the mount? Well, it would have been if I hadn't jury-rigged a power coupler on it the very day I got the telescope (see post October 26, 2013). New part costs $350 (not in the budget!). Yikes. I guess high-end, expensive equipment comes with pricey replacement parts. Funny thing (OK, not so funny) is that its probably a $1.50 component on the board that went bad, but nobody fixes circuit boards anymore, and without a schematic I don't know what type of component to get. Maybe some day I'll experiment and see if I can fix it - then I would have a spare.

New board should arrive this weekend, just in time for the cloudy skies and rain :)

A day before the board failure I was able to get some good subs of the Ring Nebula. Haven't processed them yet, but should be posting them within the next few days.

Apollo 11 - 45 Years Ago Today

“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

Where were you 45 years ago when that message was beamed to earth from the Moon?  Hard to believe it was almost half a century ago.

Read the complete story at NasaSpaceflight.com

M27 - The Dumbbell Nebula

Last Friday evening was an unbelievable evening for July in Maryland. The temperature was in the low 60's, dew point way low, no wind, clear skies. Yeah, a bit of turbulence in the atmosphere which would have made planetary imaging a bit difficult, but the clarity of the sky was awesome. About the only problem was the waxing moon - but once it set, everything was a go.

So here is the result. The Dumbbell nebula in all its glory.

Dumbbell Nebula (M27) - July 5, 2014
Celestron EdgeHD-11 Prime Focus
20x180 sec ISO800

Moon; Oh Yeah - the Moon!

So what do you do when the skies are clear and the moonlight interferes with your imaging of deep space objects?  Why, photograph the Moon, of course :)

Ptolemaeus, Alphonsus, and Arzachel
EdgeHD-11

Vallis Alpes region
EdgeHD-11

Hubble: Timelapse of V838 Monocerotis (2002-2006)

Many of us have seen images of supernovae remnants, rings of gas from exploding stars and various other astro-photos of similar star explosions. But because the objects are so far away, all we see is a static single image in time. But the Hubble telescope team captured the explosion of v838 monocerotis (20,000 light-years from earth) in a time-lapse video that spanned 4 years; 2002-2006. The video is absolutely fantastic - gives you a new perspective on the awesomeness of these stellar explosions.

The Eagle Nebula

This past Friday evening the sky conditions were the best they've been in months. Couldn't pass up the chance to try imaging some of the nebulae in the Sagittarius/Scutum area of the Milky Way. This region is low in the southern sky, and from my location just NW of Baltimore, there is a lot of light pollution to deal with. However, the moon had set, the sky was very transparent, and I had to go for it. So, here is the Eagle Nebula, a loose star cluster with associated nebulosity throughout.

Eagle Nebula (M16)
June 7, 2014 2:00AM - 30 minutes @ ISO800 f/10
EdgeHD-11 Prime Focus

The Ring Nebula (M57)

Here is an image of the Ring Nebula (M57) a small planetary nebula in Lyra. When a star of average size dies, its core abruptly collapses while the outer layers are shed as an expanding shell of gases. This gas bubble can remain visible for centuries as a planetary nebula. The Ring Nebula, M57, is one of the finest examples.

Ring Nebula (M57)
May 25, 2014 - 5x120sec ISO800
EdgeHD-11 Prime Focus

A Comet and a Cluster - all in the same night

This Sunday evening and Monday morning offered some of the best sky conditions I've seen in the past weeks.  I wanted to capture comet PANSTARRS while it is brightening and high in the northern sky. On its way for a perihelion (closest to the sun) on August 27, and closest to earth on October 31, PANSTARRS is currently about magnitude 9.0 - well below naked-eye visibility, but might be viewed in a dark sky with good binoculars.

C/2012 K1 (PANSTARRS)
20 minutes, ISO 1600 EdgeHD-11

Early on Memorial Day I was able to capture the globular cluster, M22, in the constellation Sagittarius (see location graphic). Low in the southern sky, objects like M22 are hard to image in light polluted skies, and although conditions weren't the best, this 16 minute image does show the cluster fairly well.

M22 is just to the left of the teapot in Sagittarius

M22 - 16 minutes, ISO 800 EdgeHD-11

Update to Supernova 2014J

I've been spending some time checking out my new remote focuser and decided to image M82 to see how much the supernova has faded since March.  Here is the comparison graphic showing the fade out.

SN 2014J

Update - M51

After the clouds rolled away late Saturday evening, and it was obvious that Sunday evening would be clear, I rushed home from church services to get the scope set up again and add some additional subs to the image of M51 (Whirlpool Galaxy) I captured last Sunday.

After a successful evening of imaging (got to bed way too late!) I was able to add another 19 subs (38 minutes). The detail in the inner dust lanes and the outer nebulosity is now starting to come out. The colors too are becoming more pronounced. This will be a continuing effort with plans to add at least another 2 hours of imaging before I'm done with this Deep Space Object (DSO).



M51, Whirlpool Galaxy
76 minutes ISO 800
Celestron EdgeHD-11 at prime focus

Finally, a clear sky!

With the skies not cooperating very much this year, getting a nice clear night with fairly steady atmosphere is rare, and you have to grab the opportunity when you can. Easter Sunday evening was one of those nights.

I had spent most of the good evenings, up to Sunday, adjusting my equipment and software and now I am ready for some serious astrophotography. This image of the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) is a 34 minute exposure taken as 17 x 120sec sub-frames (details can be found on my Astrobin page). In the next few weeks I plan on adding additional subs to bring out more detail.


Whirlpool Galaxy

Mars orbiter spies rover near martian butte

Scientists using NASA's Curiosity Mars rover are eyeing a rock layer surrounding the base of a small butte, called "Mount Remarkable," as a target for investigating with tools on the rover's robotic arm. You can see NASA's Curiosity Mars rover and tracks from its driving in this view from orbit. More details in the article on Astronomy Magazine.

Total Lunar Eclipse Coming Up

It's been awhile since the last time the earth's shadow crossed the full moon; back in 2011 to be exact. Well the wait is over and the first of four consecutive total lunar eclipses in 2014-2015 (an eclipse tetrad) occurs on tax-day, April 15th. Such eclipse tetrads are not common — the last one occurred a decade ago, but the next won't begin until 2032.

Lunar eclipses require no special equipment, and are safe to watch, although a pair of binoculars would really make the experience all that much better. Sky and Telescope has the details on this month's event. But you'll need to get up early, or plan to stay out all night - mid eclipse doesn't occur until 3:46 AM EDT.

Next time you think "bird brain!", think again.

Check out how this crow 'thinks' his way through an elaborate eight-stage puzzle to get to the food. You won't believe it.

 

 

Can't see video (Flash not installed)? Click here to go directly to the video..

Astronomers discover first asteroid with rings

Yep, that's right, an asteroid with rings. Read all about it on EarthSky.

ESO 137-001 - Galaxy Attack!!

Check out this picture from Hubble and this article about a galaxy that is being tugged at and torn apart. Really cool!!

Meteorite Crash on Moon - Largest Ever Recorded

Video footage of a record-breaking meteorite strike on the moon, which occurred on Sept. 11, 2013 and was unveiled today (Feb. 24), shows a long flash that was almost as bright as the North Star Polaris. Details can be found at Space.com.

Jupiter, again

With a little more fiddling with the software, here is the same image as earlier but I was able to bring out more of the detail.

Jupiter - imaged with new camera

Got my new planetary imaging camera for the telescope on Friday, and since the skies cleared out a bunch on Saturday, I decided to bear with the muddy ground and test it out on the planet Jupiter. Now mind you, this is a new camera (got to learn how to use it) a muddy backyard and the atmosphere, although clear, was extremely unsteady.

Jupiter - February 22, 2014 9:00 PM
400 frames processed in RegiStax -- 25ms/frame  - total Exposure 10sec
ASI120MC on EdgeHD-11 f/10

Update on Supernova 2014J

Since it's been cloudy, snowy, rainy, and just downright not conducive to astrophotography these past few days (actually, weeks!) I decided to improve on the processing of the images I took of M82 and 2014J on Feb 7, 2014. Here is the updated photo. The lower ISO (1600 vs. 3200) reduced the overall noise and the longer exposure allowed more of the actual color of the galaxy to come out.



M82 and SN2014J
11.25 minutes (15x45sec subs), ISO1600, EdgeHD-11 Prime Focus 

Recent observations have determined that the supernova is now starting to dim and is currently only half as bright as when this image was taken. When the skies clear I'll re-image and see how much SN2014J as dimmed.

Galileo's Optical Illusion

Why does a light-colored object on a dark background appear larger than a dark object on a light background?  It's true, and you might have had this experience yourself. In the photo above, the brighter Venus (lower dot) appears larger than the dimmer Jupiter (upper dot).
Well until recently, no one knew why. Now it seems that a neuroscientist at the State University of New York's College of Optometry may have the answer. Check out the article in LiveScience.

Venus in December

Just got around to checking out my first attempt at planetary photography. Since my DSLR couldn't be easily mounted to my eyepieces/scope, I tried my old Casio Exilim EX-Z700 mounted to a 30mm eyepiece with a Celestron camera mount. Here's the result of that effort, after throwing out about 30 images, I found one that was fairly reasonable.

Venus, 2:13 PM Dec 11, 2013

Supernova in M82 imaged

Well the skies finally cleared for me to attempt to photograph the new supernova in the Cigar Galaxy, M82. My equipment was acting a bit finicky - I had some trouble getting the new power cords and dew prevention heaters set-up and I couldn't get the balance on the scope correct to prevent image drifting. So with clouds starting to form just north and west I had to settle for short exposures. Here is the result. The greenish cast and the horizontal bands are artifacts of the noise in the image since I really stretched the light curves quite a bit to get the galaxy to come through with only 10 second subs.

M82 with Supernova 2014J marked
120 seconds (12x10sec subs), ISO3200, EdgeHD-11 Prime Focus 

It appears that the nova is about Mag 10.5 or 10.6 based on the examination of stars in the local vicinity. Not an accurate comparison since the camera sensor will make some stars appear brighter based on their color, but as a rough estimate, I'm probably in the ball park. 

Like the Energizer Bunny ... Opportunity keeps on going!

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the Opportunity rover's exploration of Mars. With a planned mission of only 3 months, NASA, and the public, really got their money's worth. Full story here.

Oh How 'Sweet' These New Batteries Are!

Check out the gizmag report on the potential for a new type of battery. Sounds too good to be true.

Spacecraft Phones Home ... ready for the final chapter of its mission

Comet-chasing probe wakes up, calls home

The European Space Agency's comet-chasing Rosetta spacecraft woke up, warmed up and called home Monday before setting off on the final leg of its journey. Launched way back in 2004, it has been on a 10 year mission to ultimately rendezvous with the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, follow it around the sun, and even land a small craft on the comet itself - really cool stuff. For the past 31 months it was in hibernation, saving energy, but was told to "call home" when it's ready to complete it's mission. That call came today! Complete story can be found on Space.com and CNN.