The dense star regions of the Milky Way

Finally! --- The sky conditions improved this weekend and I was blessed with two clear nights of astrophotography.

Got the scope setup on Friday afternoon and it was left up through Saturday evening/early Sunday.  Using the Hyperstar wide field camera I was able to image a few interesting areas in the dense galactic arm in Sagittarius.  Most of us have probably never seen the Milky Way because of light pollution.

First up is the star cluster M11 (NGC 6705), which is right in the midst of a dense star cloud. Known as the Wild Duck Cluster it is an open cluster in the constellation Scutum. It was discovered by Gottfried Kirch in 1681. Charles Messier included it in his catalogue in 1764.  The dark areas scattered about in the image are regions of gas and dust that are between  us and the background stars obscuring the vision.

M11 - EdgeHD11/Hyperstar  10x300sec subs
August 26, 2016

Next is the Sagittarius Star Cloud, M24.  Approximately 600 light years wide, it was discovered by Charles Messier in 1764. The stars, clusters and other objects comprising M24 are part of the Sagittarius or Sagittarius-Carina arms of the Milky Way galaxy. Messier described M24 as a "large nebulosity containing many stars" and gave its dimensions as being some 1.5° across.

M24 - Sagittarius Star Cloud
EdgHD11 w/Hyperstar  13x180sec subs
August 26, 2016

Saturn

It's been over 6 weeks since the night skies here in Maryland have been clear enough to image anything at all.  Finally, tonight I was able to get the scope out for just a little while to capture the planet Saturn before it moves too close to the sun and low in the west.

I acquired a new Barlow lens which is of much better quality than the one I had and magnifies by 2.5x vs. 2x.  The atmosphere was rather turbulent and I had only a little bit of time to capture the image before the planet goes behind my treeline. Not thinking, I decided not to attach the dew heaters and shield, and of course, I ended up with dew on the front corrector plate while imaging the planet.  But by the time I set up for a retake Saturn was already in the trees.  Yet, even with the dew I was able to get a fairly decent image.

Saturn - August 19, 2016
EdgeHD 11 w/2.5x Barlow
ASI120MC Camera - 1000 frames stacked in AutoStakkert and processed in Registax

Next week promises some nice clear nights, so I plan on doing some wide field imaging.

Bottom quarks misbehave in LHC experiment

Data suggest need to revise calculations or reexamine understanding of protons

QUARK QUIRK  New data from the Large Hadron Collider’s higher-energy proton collisions show that particles made of b quarks flew off at angles more often than expected. Scientists from the LHCb experiment, which observes the aftermath of proton collisions in its detector (visualization shown), reported the result August 4.          CERN

Theoretical physicists are scratching their heads after scientists presented surprising new studies of a particle known as the bottom quark.  At the new, higher energies recently reached at the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator, particles containing bottom quarks flew off at an angle more often than expected. Scientists reported the result August 4 at the International Conference on High Energy Physics.

For the full story see Science News.