New Gear for Christmas - let the clouds Roll in!

It never fails.  You get new astro gear and the clouds will roll in, or in this case, never leave!  Most astrophotographers believe that the bubble wrap used in the protective packaging contains cloud seeds and so breaking them causes the issue.

Oh well, so it goes.  Looks like no clear skies until maybe Monday.

New equipment includes a wide field telescope, the William Optics ZenithStar 61, with field flattener/focal reducer and remote auto focuser.  So far I have not had the time to assemble the complete setup, but plan to do so soon.  Although not a Christmas present per se I had ordered a new ZWO Camera, the ASI533MC, to pair up with this scope (as well as my other scopes) but it was backordered for weeks.  It was delivered a few days before Christmas!

So what do you do when the skies won't cooperate?  Well, you process your backlog of images. I posted some of that backlog recently and so am currently working off the remainder of the list. A surprise to me, the list is larger than I thought - currently, six more objects are awaiting processing.

First up is the nebulosity around the star Sadr. The Sadr Region (also known as IC 1318 or the Gamma Cygni Nebula) is a diffuse emission nebula surrounding the bright star Sadr in the constellation Cygnus. Sadr is the central star of Cygnus's cross. The Sadr Region is one of the surrounding nebulous regions which contains many dark nebulae in addition to the emission diffuse nebulae.

Sadr Region - Oct 18 to Nov 4, 2021
WO GT102 and ASI2600mm Pro
73x600sec Ha; 30x30sec RGB Stars

Next is Sh2-155, commonly called the Cave Nebula. The Cave Nebula is an emission nebula with reflection and dark nebula surrounding. It lies in the constellation of Cepheus and is reported to be about 2,400 light years from Earth. Sh2-155 (it's official designation from the Sharpless catalog in 1959) was first noted as a “galactic emission nebula” in the Cepheus molecular cloud. Patrick Moore popularized the common name we give this nebula, “Cave Nebula”, and likely due to photographic images that show this nebula’s curved arc of emission nebulosity resembling the mouth of a cave.

Although not one of my better images, this was taken during a period when I was testing some equipment and decided to take some Ha data along the way.

Cave Nebula - Sep 19-24, 2021
WO GT102 and ASI2600mm Pro
69x300sec Ha; 20x30 RGB stars

Abell 85 in SHO-RGB

I've been working to get my backlog of images processed since comet Leonard has moved into the evening sky and is too low to capture from home. The comet has actually brightened quite a bit since passing around the sun. Our neighbors in the southern hemisphere are now getting some really fantastic views and images of Leonard.

This image is Abell 85/CTB 1, which is a nearby supernova remnant with an apparent diameter of about a half a degree. For perspective that is the same size as a Full Moon. Originally CTB1 was thought to be a planetary nebula, so Abell included it in his catalog of planetary nebulae as Abell 85. This is a full SHO (Hubble Palette), hence the golden color throughout. 

William Optics GT102 and ZWO ASI2600mm Pro
Imaged Sept. 27, 2021 through Oct 2, 2021
HaOiiiSii (600sec exposures) and RGB stars (30sec exposures)
Total time 22.5 hours

Christmas and Science Fiction Geeks

What happens when you mix a diehard Star Trek fan with the Christmas season?  Well for one, you end up with a Star Trek Tree!   

This small tree is decked out (get it?) with a few lights (a single string of 100 - I should have added at least one more string) and the new Hallmark Star Trek ornaments based on the 'Mirror Mirror' episode. 

• Enterprise Tree Topper
• Spock

Here are a couple of videos of how the ornaments work.  With the complete set of five characters you can set it to play the soundtrack of a section of the 'Mirror Mirror' episode.  Only a few seconds are provided in the second video but the full session lasts for a number of minutes.

Of course we have a regular tree as well.  This year we bought a 6.5 foot artificial tree already fitted with 800 lights which have multiple display modes.  We keep it set to slowly alternate between all white and colored. Takes 5 minutes to set up (a bit longer to add the ornaments :) )

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

The "37"

Been spending some time processing some of my images taken over the past couple of months.  I had imaged this particular star cluster early in November, but something went awry and the result was terrible.  I then re-imaged this on the 30th of November. After looking for a good while in my file directories for the flats that go with this image I was unable to locate them. I guess I had thought I had taken the flats, but seems like I did not. So, since this was just a bright star cluster I decided to process it without any calibration (no darks; no flats) and see what comes out. So here it is. And I guess you have figured out where the nickname for the object came from?

This is NGC 2169, an open cluster in the Orion constellation. It was possibly discovered by Giovanni Batista Hodierna before 1654 and discovered by William Herschel on October 15, 1784. NGC 2169 is at a distance of about 3,600 light years away from Earth. It is nicknamed "The '37' Cluster" due to its striking resemblance to the numerals "37". (Wiki)

NGC 2169 (The "37") - November 30, 2021
EdgeHD11; ASI2600mm Pro RGB
20x60sec each filter

Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard)

After many nights planning my attempt to capture Comet Leonard, I ended up with two sets of images that turned out really bad - comet head at edge of image frame in both cases. Turns out that Stellarium, my planetarium and telescope pointing application, doesn't precisely calculate comet positions. So, I decided to set up Horizons (part of Astro-Physics APCC-Pro software) to use JPL coordinates in realtime to track the comet. I created a sequence in NINA software to turn on my equipment, slew to the comet and take 20x60sec subs in each filter, R, G and B. Since the image run would start at 5:00AM, I went to bed - the scope was on full automatic. The next morning I checked the images and was pleased to find I got all the images with the comet centered in the frames. Success! But, later, when I started to process the images I found out that there was a problem.

Although the mount tracked on the comet fairly well, it wasn't good enough - there was some drifting in DEC. The result made it impossible to properly register the images as the stars trailed a little on each exposure (as expected) but so did the comet. I was then forced to manually register the frames. With elongated stars I was not able to process an RGB stars only image so I had to settle for the star trails. 

To make matters worse the position of the comet (in the east, south-east) placed it right over Baltimore's light dome, at a fairly low altitude. I didn't have the LP filter installed (I forgot) and so had to process out as much of the skyglow as I could and still get a decent image. But here it is. With the comet dropping lower in the east I doubt I'll have another attempt to capture it in the future.

Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard)
GT102 f/5.6
ASI2600mm 18x60sec R, 18x60sec G, 20x60sec B

I plan to spend some time experimenting with Horizons to determine why I was getting drift in the comet's position as this software was designed to make these type of image runs. More on this in a future blog.