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.