Non-Astro post

Strange title isn't it?  Well, I thought I'd post a picture of our Christmas tree here in Maryland.  After thinking about what might be in my future if I set up the 6' tree with all the trimmings having a very rambunctious 7 month old puppy around to notice all the cool new toys hanging just where she could get them, I decided that just a smaller tree on a table would suffice for this year.  And what could be better than a Star Trek tree??

So here it is, with the complete Hallmark Star Trek system.  The ornaments are based on the "Mirror Mirror" episode.  Each figurine has a specific sound track, the Enterprise has multiple lighting effects, and when the command insignia on the Star Trek emblem ornament is pressed a complete segment of the episode is voiced.

Hardware fixed; Imaging - not so much :)

Last evening we had a rather nice, clear and crisp night, which would generally be a great time to image nebulae. Only problem - the nearly full moon. So, rather than waste the opportunity I decided to mount my ZS61 wide field telescope and experiment with determining why I was getting such awful star images about the edges of the frame. 

This problem occurred last month when I was trying to photograph some wide-field nebulae. I thought it was just incorrect back focus adjustment, but then after a few hours of adjusting and readjusting I sent a note off to William Optics claiming that I may have a defective field flattener/focal reducer. I had heard that there were a number of units that had a defect, and since I got mine for a Christmas present from my wife last year (only got around to getting it configured this year!) I thought maybe I received a defective unit. WO told me that I may need to mount the camera on the flattener while the telescope was upside down to eliminate any tilt.

So I installed the ZS61 on top of my two other telescopes and when attaching the camera to it I realized that all this time I was setting the back focus incorrectly (I attribute this to old age!). Instead of measuring from the camera sensor back to the flattener (as WO tried to explain in their instructions - which weren't very clear) and then adding in spacers to make the total distance 56mm, I was assuming that the total spacing from the flattener side needed to be 56mm. I was about 20-25mm too long! Once the proper spacing was determined and the correct spacer installed I was ready to test the ZS61 with my ASI2600 camera.

Initial tests confirmed that indeed there was no defect in the flattener and the system behaved wonderfully. I still need to fine tune the spacing but I'm really close and pleased with the results.

Not desiring to waste the rest of the evening I set up to image the flaming star nebula, IC 405, in Ha light. I figured that my Ha filter was narrow enough to work even though the moon was only about 20 degrees to the east of the nebula. I took a 180 sec, 300 sec and 600 sec exposure. My normal process is to image the stars in RGB at 60sec and the narrowband data at 300sec. However, I've been thinking that I need to increase my exposure times to 10 minutes to gather more signal. The results of the three runs showed significant improvement using the 600sec time. This, of course, has its drawbacks - if anything goes wrong during that long exposure (plane or satellite crossing, wind, etc.) 10 minutes of precious imaging time is wasted. And you need to spend a lot more time to get the 30+ images to reduce the noise and increase signal-to-noise ratio. But the result seems to indicate its worth it.

So I set the sequence to run forty 10min subs of IC 405. 

Today I started to process the Ha data from the run last night. As soon as I ran the Subframe Selector process on the images to reject the poor ones (stars that trailed; any dim image due to possible clouds; etc.) I realized that I was in trouble. ALL the subs were bad - yep, all 40! I had totally miscalculated the ability of my mount to track, unguided, for the long exposure time. Now my mount is certainly capable of doing so provided I run a sky model prior to the imaging run. Without that I would need active guiding. Well I didn't create the model, didn't use active guiding and so the images suffered for it. The trailing was too great. Argh. So be it; I'll set up again early next week when the skies should be clear with much reduced moon interference. At least I got the ZS61 working well.

Upcoming occultation of Mars

On the evening of December 7-8, 2022, those of us in the mid and western US will get a great opportunity to view a somewhat rare occultation of Mars by the moon.  For us in the east-southeast it will be a near miss. But it will be very close and definitively worth viewing.

During the month of December, Mars reaches opposition - a point that places the Earth directly between the planet and the Sun. And although this opposition wont be as close as the one 2 years ago, the planet is placed in a much. much better location in the sky - high up where atmospheric distortions and dimming are minimized. Most everyone is familiar with the constellation of Orion, the hunter. Mars is located above the hunter and can't be missed as it is glowing a bright red during the month. Its in a great location for anyone wanting to image the red planet. I may try myself later in the month if the weather cooperates.

So, with the combination of a fully illuminated Mars and a bright full moon, this year's occultation should be a real interesting event. Get those binoculars out and take a look. How long can you see Mars with the naked eye as the moon slowly encroaches on the planet before the moon's bright glow overpowers Mars' dimmer rusty red appearance? In areas where the planet will be completely covered, can you see it right up to disappearance? Mars makes it's closest approach to the Moon at about 10:50pm on December 7, 2022. Unlike star occultations where the star blinks out instantaneously (since stars are effectively just points of light due to their immense distance from us), planetary occultations take much longer as the moon gradually hides more and more of the planet's disk. 

I've provided a sample view of what Mars and the moon may look like from Baltimore, Maryland, as well as a graphic of the path Mars takes behind the moon for various locations.

Mars and Moon from Baltimore - approximatly 10:50pm Dec 7, 2022

2022, Sky and Telescope

For details on the opposition of Mars, and additional info on the occultation, head on over to Sky and Telescope. 

Artemis 1 cubesat has a problem

Artemis 1, the first mission of the Artemis program to return astronauts to the moon was launched successfully November 16, 2022, at 01:47:44 EST. It's mission - to test the Orion spacecraft, especially its heat shield. The Orion capsule is currently in orbit around the moon. Secondary missions include ten CubeSats, also on a trajectory to the Moon. 

One of those sats, the LunaH-Map spacecraft, failed to ignite it's engine, probably due to a stuck valve (how many times have we heard that one before). Read the complete story at Space.com.

Total Lunar Eclipse of Nov 8, 2022

The last total lunar eclipse until March of 2025 is now in the past.  At first, I didn't expect to see it let alone photograph it as the weather forecasts were all calling for high cirrus clouds from 3:00am to 7:00am. The partial would phases would be OK, but if the moon goes really dark during the total phase, the clouds may have made it near impossible to see.

I prayed before I left the house for the skies to clear. I was planning to drive to my church in Westminster MD since the tree line surrounding my house where the permanent scope is set up doesn't allow any views of objects lower than 25 degrees and most of the event would occur at 20 degrees or less, with mid eclipse at 10.

Arriving at the church around 3:15am the western sky was covered with cirrus clouds, some fairly thick. I decided to setup my portable WO GT102 refractor with my Canon 50D as the imaging camera. Once I had everything ready to go I started taking a few exposures and soon after first contact with the umbra the skies cleared and remained so for the whole event - praise the Lord!

There were, however, a couple of issues. One was I forgot to pack the cable for my remote shutter release, so I had to trigger it by hand, which would potentially cause some vibration of the scope during exposures greater than 1/100 second. Second, was the wind, typical for the location at my church which is at the top of a hill - great 360 degree views, but usually has a breeze. At first it was manageable, but when totality was about to commence (requiring the longest exposures) it really picked up, with gusts reaching 20MPH.

But I was still able to get a few good shots. The first image is a montage of subs from first contact to full phase.

Details of the exposures are as follows:

              Time             Exposure

Image   (EST)   ISO  (sec)

  1          4:06    400  1/1000

  2          4:17    400  1/1000

  3          4:26    400  1/1000

  4          4:55    400  1/200

  5          5:06    400  1/60

  6          5:14    400  1/10

  7          5:17    800  1/20

  8          5:18    800  1

The second image is the moon near mid-eclipse. Time: 5:50am, 2 sec, ISO800.

I did take one other photo. That was my setup, at 5:49, that I took with my iPhone. Considering I had to hold it as steady as I could for 3 seconds it came out pretty good. You can even see the Pleaides just above the moon.  All in all, a great evening (or should I say, morning!).

Upcoming Lunar Eclipse - November 8

The last Total Lunar Eclipse until 2025 will be coming our way on early Tuesday morning, November 8, 2022.  And I mean 'early'. The partial phase starts at 4:09 EST, with total starting at 5:16 EST, lasting until 6:42 EST. 

Not only is this an early morning event, but the moon will be quite low in the western horizon. When the total phase starts the moon will only be about 15 degrees high in the western sky for us here in the Maryland/Washington DC area. So you'll need to find a clear view to see it. The moon will set while it's still total, so we can only watch the first half of the event.

Right now, as I post this, the weather is so-so, with clear skies up to the start of the event and high, cirrus clouds getting in the way during the event. Depending on the thickness of the clouds and how dark the moon will be you may loose it from view. Dusk will really make things worse around 5:50.

Lunar eclipses are can easily be observed with the naked eye, but binoculars will really enhance the view.

Full details on the eclipse can be found at Sky and Telescope.

More from the JWST - Fingerprints in Space

A new image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals a remarkable cosmic sight: at least 17 concentric dust rings emanating from a pair of stars. Located just over 5,000 light-years from Earth, the duo is collectively known as Wolf-Rayet 140 (NASA).

When I first saw this I though for sure it was a test of the optics. Complete story can be found at: NASA

The Coathanger

Seems like this year has been an interesting one for astrophotography. Either the skies are cloudy, or they are very clear but during the full moon. What to do. 

Well, when the sky is bright and deep sky imaging is not ideal, it is an opportunity for imaging some of the brighter objects the universe has to offer. In this case the Coathanger.

The Coathanger
September 10, 2022 - WO GT102/ASI2600mm
f/5.6 107 minutes

The Coathanger is not a constellation, but a pattern of stars that is not one of the traditionally established, named constellations.  These collections are known as asterisms. It is a small collection of physically unrelated stars, also known as Brocchi’s cluster and Collinder 399. Although It looks very much like its namesake, and easy to make out with a pair of binoculars, you will need a dark sky and know just where to look.

DART Hits Dimorphos

Certainly not of the level of technology that Captain Kirk discovered on Miramanee's planet, which was ultimately used to save her planet from doom (that was science fiction of course) but impressive nonetheless was the successful impact of DART – the Double Asteroid Redirect Test on Dimorphos, a small asteroid moon of Didymos. DART struck the little asteroid – hoping to nudge it slightly off-orbit – at 7:14 p.m. ET (23:14 UTC) on Monday, September 26, 2022.

Didymos-B aka Dimorphos

I remember back in the day discussing the unlikelihood of anything that could redirect an asteroid, but here we are, a first test of doing that very thing. Now this asteroid is very, very small compared to the one on that Star Trek Episode (The Paradise Syndrome, which aired Oct 4, 1968) but it is a first ever to test the viability of redirecting an asteroid impact threat to Earth. 

NASA has a number of images and videos of the impact. 

Here is the series of stills taken as DART approaches Dimorphos.

And here is a actual view from the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS): A NASA and University of Hawaii project to patrol the sky every night in search of incoming asteroids as DART hits the asteroid.

EarthSky has a good writeup on the mission. We won't know for sure yet if the mission was a complete success. We need to wait for data to come in on the change in Dimorphos' orbit. 

The Eastern Veil and the 'Bat'

Yikes.  It's been almost two months since my last post. Have I been that busy on other things? Why, YES. Work, gardening, my retirement business, church activities and a new puppy. Now that's a lot of things keeping me busy.

Cloudy skies for most of the time made imaging a real challenge. But I did get in a few objects; just took awhile to find the time to process them. Turns out that a recent image run is what I processed first. So here it is: the Eastern Veil nebula and a starless cropped close up of the section known as the 'Bat'.

The Eastern Veil Nebula is part of the larger Veil Nebula, a cloud of ionized gas and dust. It is located in the constellation Cygnus the Swan.  This object is actually the visible portion of the much larger Cygnus Loop, which itself is a supernova remnant.

Eastern Veil - GT102/ASI2600 - f/5.6
August 19, 30 and 31, 2022
46x300sec Ha; 46x300sec Oiii; 20x60sec RGB

The star that was the source of the supernova weighed in at 20 times more massive than the Sun and exploded some 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. If you were living at that time you would have seen an object in the daytime sky that would have been brighter than the planet Venus. During the 20,000 years since the explosion the remnants of that star have now expanded to an area roughly 3 degrees in diameter (six times the size of the Moon). It is estimated to be about 2,400 light-years distant.

This rendition is a combination of the Ha and Oiii narrowband (HOO) palette combined with RGB stars.  A total of 8 hours integration of the narrowband and 1 hour for the stars.

The lower section of the nebula is known as the 'Bat'. I cropped the original NB image to capture just the Bat and removed the stars to produce a starless version. I generally don't like starless astrophotos but this nebula looks pretty good when portrayed starless.

The "Bat"

First full color image from the James Webb telescope

Well here it is. The first full color infrared image released from the James Webb telescope. And it’s awesome! This is a region of the sky that represents an area the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length.

Each of those colorful ellipses and oblong objects are distant galaxies. Only the bright objects with the diffraction spikes are local stars from our own galaxy. And the curved sections around the middle is a even more distant galaxy whose light is being gravitationally bent by a foreground galaxy allowing it's faint light to be magnified and made visible. 

Wow - can't wait for more - and there is more to come for sure!

Full details can be read at NASA and here at SkyandRockets.

First James Webb image to be released today

NASA

The first full color image from the new James Webb telescope will be announced later today. The image, known as “Webb’s First Deep Field,” will be the deepest and highest-resolution view of the universe ever captured. Biden is scheduled to release it today, Monday, July 11, at 5:00pm.

Details on the Webb telescope can be found at nasa.gov

Comet C/2017 K2 (PANSTARRS)

C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS) is an Oort cloud comet with an inbound hyperbolic orbit, discovered in May 2017 at a distance beyond the orbit of Saturn when it was 16 AU (2.4 billion km) from the Sun. It had been in the constellation of Draco from July 2007 until August 2020. As of June 2022, the estimated distance of the comet from the Sun is ±5000 km. The comet is record breaking because it is already becoming active at such a distance. Only comet Hale–Bopp produced such a show from that distance with a similar nucleus. However, this comet will not be as visible as Hale–Bopp was in 1997 in part because it does not come nearly as close to the Sun.

Comet C/2017 K2 (PANSTARRS)
June 25, 2022
GT102 - ASI533MC - 50x180 sec exposures

On its way to perihelion, C/2017 K2 is currently shining at about mag 7. Missing is the typical greenish glow of a comet's halo that comes from diatomic carbon (C2), a simple yet unstable form of elementary carbon. C/2017 K2 is too far from the sun for the reaction to occur.

M20 - The Trifid Nebula

With the pier maintenance completed it was time to start imaging again.

The Trifid Nebula (catalogued as Messier 20 or M20 and as NGC 6514) is an H II region in the north-west of Sagittarius in a star-forming region in the Milky Way's Scutum-Centaurus Arm. It was discovered by Charles Messier on June 5, 1764. Its name means 'three-lobe'. The object is an unusual combination of an open cluster of stars, an emission nebula (the relatively dense, reddish-pink portion), a reflection nebula (the mainly NNE blue portion), and a dark nebula (the apparent 'gaps' in the former that cause the trifurcated appearance, also designated Barnard 85). Viewed through a small telescope, the Trifid Nebula is a bright and peculiar object, and is thus a perennial favorite of amateur astronomers. (wiki)

Trifid Nebula (M20) - June 27, 2022
William Optics GT102 and ASI533MC Camera
146x60 sec at f/5.5

My image of the Trifid is part of a study I am conducting on the benefits of taking lots of short exposure subs vs a moderate amount of longer exposure subs. Longer subs are prone to satellite and aircraft crossings, clouds, and other image corrupting events, and inaccurate guiding (although my AP1100 mount produces almost perfect guiding). So, it would be really good if you could, say for example, take a hundred 30 second subs and make it produce as good a final image as ten 300 second subs - the total integration time is the same; 50 minutes. 

Preliminary results are encouraging as demonstrated by the image above which was processed as 146 single 60 second broadband subs. Narrowband imaging requires substantially longer subs to collect sufficient light through the special filters and so would not benefit from this technique. But OSC (one shot color) and LRGB filtered mono cameras would benefit.

Check back later when I post the complete study results.

Pier Maintenance Completed

The new pier pads have been completed and the telescope mount re-assembled. I was able to spend a few hours recalibrating and realigning the scope this past Monday. First new photos will be attempted this weekend.

New Pier Pads Installed

As reported in my previous blog, I have been having problems with moles digging in under my telescope pier. I finally found the time to make the repairs.

I decided to do the construction in the same location as the original mount to keep from having to redo the Lat/Lon data used in all my software. Each footing was dug in about a foot into the ground at each tripod leg location. 

Once the holes were dug, I removed the layer of grass completely around the pads. 

Then, paver base was poured into each hole and tamped down. I ended up using sufficient base to go to a depth of 10"-12"; a bit overkill, but I had the material.

Next, paver sand was placed at a depth of 1".

The plan was to use 12"x12"x1.5" paver stone to support the tripod pier. I needed three at the southern point and two at the other locations to handle the ground grade. I was concerned that the stones would slide on each other, so I cemented them together with stone mortar. Paver sand was tamped in around each set of stones.

Finally, ground cover to prevent grass and weeds from growing and ornamental marble gravel was spread around the entire area.

The pier was placed on the pads and adjusted to line up true north. The first section of the telescope mount was attached and alignment was double-checked. I needed to move the legs slightly, so they are not perfectly centered on the stone pads, but this is not a problem. 

Next, the wiring needs to be installed and the second section of the mount connected. But that is for another day.

One more galaxy before telescope maintenance

With the moles digging in under my telescope mount, it has finally got to the point where I need to dismantle my telescope setup and construct a new foundation. With the ground softened up with the rain and the full moon coming up this is an ideal time to do the work. So this is the last image for awhile. 

Messier 82 (also known as NGC 3034, Cigar Galaxy or M82) is a starburst galaxy approximately 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. A member of the M81 Group, it is about five times more luminous than the Milky Way and has a center one hundred times more luminous. The starburst activity (deep red structures blowing up to either side) is thought to have been triggered by interaction with neighboring galaxy M81. As the closest starburst galaxy to Earth, M82 is the prototypical example of this galaxy type (wiki).

M82 (Cigar Galaxy) - May 10, June 4,5,6, 2022
EdgeHD11; ASI2600mm at f/10
4 hours Ha; 4 hrs RGB color
https://astrob.in/mhkrsd/0/

Imaging this galactic wonder was rather easy as M82 is fairly bright. Getting the starburst regions to show was a challenge in post-processing. The main galaxy was imaged in RGB. The starburst regions were captured in Ha. But the Ha was also fairly prominent in the galaxy's central core and extremes. Normal HaRGB combination techniques gave the whole image a pinkish cast. So I had to crop out and adjust the saturation levels of the Ha master prior to combination with the RGB color master. Took a bit of time, but the result was  pleasing.

Hopefully the maintenance on the mount and scope wont take too long and I'll be imaging again come next new moon in a couple of weeks.

No meteor storm, but a good galaxy image!

Well the potential meteor storm didn't pan out - not that I was surprised.  But I did have the telescope out imaging that night so I was able to capture the Needle Galaxy with my new ASI533MC camera. 

Needle Galaxy (NGC 4565)
May 29-30, 2022
EdgeHD 11; ASI533MC (73x180sec subs)

NGC 4565 (also known as the Needle Galaxy or Caldwell 38) is an edge-on spiral galaxy about 30 to 50 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. It lies close to the North Galactic Pole and has a visual magnitude of approximately 10. It is known as the Needle Galaxy for its narrow profile. First recorded in 1785 by William Herschel, it is a prominent example of an edge-on spiral galaxy. (wiki)

This image run was to be another test of my ASI533MC camera, and the results have really panned out to be above my expectations. This camera, unlike my ASI2600 and ASI1600, is a OSC (one shot color) sensor (similar to a standard digital camera). This makes capturing and processing the astro-images much easier and less time consuming at the expense of not being able to image through NB filters, or take advantage of the higher sensitivity of the monochrome sensors in the 1600 and 2600. It also sports a square image sensor, which takes a bit getting used to. 

The ASI533MC was actually purchased for a number of reasons. First of all, for cometary imaging you don't have to deal with the three RGB filters and can spend the time capturing lots of single color subs. And since comets move noticeably in their orbits while being imaged, dealing with single color subs makes it a whole lot easier to process the final image. Second, it is planned to be added to my new wide field portable telescope for ease of transporting and operation in the field. And finally, it can used in the Hyperstar setup on my EdgeHD 11 for super fast, f/2 imaging with an 11" aperture telescope.

Hopefully in the coming months I'll be able to try out all three of these uses to see how well the ASI533MC performs.

A New Meteor shower? Maybe

On the night of May 30-31 there may be a new meteor shower - and it might be a big one! Meteor showers occur when the earth passes through the dust of comets when it intersects the orbit of a comet. There are a number of well known annual showers, the Perseids in August being the most recognized.

Back in 1995 comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 (SW3) fractured into several large pieces and left a trail of smaller fragments behind. It turns out that the special conditions needed for these particles to produce a shower may have come to fruition. If that is true, and there is a lot of uncertainty, then we may be gifted with an amazing event. For the specific details of this potential major shower, see the article in Sky&Telescope.

If you want to stay up and see what happens, here are the details.

The meteors will appear to come from a point, called the radiant, very near the brilliant orange star Arcturus with the peak occurring at 1:00AM EDT on the 31st. This point will be in the W-SW, about 50 degrees above the horizon. The altitude is high, there is no moon, and right now the weather folks are forecasting clear skies with cool temperatures - the three top ingredients for any meteor shower observer!

S&T Diagram / Gregg Dinderman

But don't be late, or too early. This shower, if it occurs, will only last a few hours at best. I would suggest starting at midnight.

How good could it be? Good question - hard to answer. If all goes well we may be in for up to 600 bright meteors per hour! Or, maybe nothing at all. We'll see.

Don't miss the May Lunar Eclipse

Late Sunday evening, May 15, 2022, the Moon will slip into the earth's shadow for one of the best total lunar eclipses in a long time.  Conditions are favorable for a dark, ruddy red moon, as the path takes our satellite deep within the umbra of the earth's shadow.

Details below are from Sky and Telescope

On Sunday night–Monday morning May 15–16, the Moon will undergo a total eclipse widely visible across the Americas, Europe, and Africa as seen in the diagram below:

As the moon moves through the earth's shadow, it first encounters the penumbra or outer shadow. Here the globe of the Earth partially blocks the solar disk, resulting in a faint shading visible across half the Moon about half an hour before the start of partial eclipse. The first dark "bite" occurs as the Moon enters the umbra, where the Earth completely blocks the Sun's glaring disk — save for reddened sunlight that filters through the atmosphere and into the umbra to color the Moon red.

Starry Night with additions by Bob King

The following diagram shows the key phases of the May 15–16 eclipse as the Moon passes through Earth's shadow. Times are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). 

Gregg Dinderman / Sky & Telescope; Source: USNO

You need nothing but your own eyes to see this wonderful event, but binoculars will enhance the view.

Comet C/2021 O3 has disintegrated - too bad :(

Back in March I posted about a new comet discovered on 26 July 2021 by the Pan-STARRS sky survey that looked likely to be a naked-eye object in early May. Unfortunately, C/2021 O3 did not survive it's close pass to the sun. The Astronomer’s Telegram reported on Monday: “Twilight observations conducted with the Lowell Discovery Telescope on April 29 indicate [the comet] has disintegrated. Read more.

Solar Eclipse on Mars

It's amazing how the relative size of our sun and our moon are almost exactly the same, and because of that eclipses of the sun are very exciting - rare, but exciting. No where else in out solar system do moons of planets produce the same awesome site. But, nonetheless, eclipses of the sun do occur on other planets. However, no one (that we know of) is there to witness them. 

Well, not exactly ...

Earlier this month operators of NASA's Perseverance rover turned its powerful Mastcam-Z camera toward the sky to capture Mars' potato-shaped moon Phobos transiting across the surface of the Sun. And the result was amazing. 

Mars' moon Phobos transiting across the surface of the Sun
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Check out the video at ARS Technica.

What's with the W Boson?

The Collider Detector at Fermilab

Something is just not right with the mass of the W boson - it's just a bit heavier than expected. How much? Well, in terms of atomic measurements, it was expected to be 80,357 mega electron volts, or MeV, plus or minus 6 MeV. But the value as measured by the Collider Detector at Fermilab, or CDF, during the period between 1985 and 2011, is 80,433 MeV, plus or minus 9 MeV. That's significant and is a problem. It's critical to know the precise weight of the W boson because that value is factored into the finely tuned equations that are woven into the Standard Model of subatomic physics, one of the most successful theories in science. For the complete story head on over to UniverseToday.

IC 417 and NGC 1931 - The Spider and the Fly (SHORGB)

Working off my backlog of imaged deep space objects, I present the Spider and the Fly in narrowband and broadband combined.  Well, if you pay attention to the dates of acquisition it really wasn't part of my backlog :)

This image was a bear to process as there were some high clouds present while I captured the Oiii and Sii data.  This caused significant background noise in the image and I had to really push the noise reduction in my post-processing. Not too happy with the result, but here it is anyway.

The Spider and the Fly
Feb 27, 28 and Mar 3
GT102 and ASI2600mm Camera f/5.5 10 hours

Taken over three nights (Feb 27, 28 and Mar 3) for about 10 hours of total integration time. 

The Spider is about 10,000 light-years distant while the Fly is a bit closer to us at 7,000 light-years. They reside in the constellation Auriga.  Composed of clouds of gas and dust, this region is the site of new stellar birth.  The glowing nebula is caused by the excitation of the gas by clusters of massive, relatively newly formed, stars located near the centers of the nebulosity.  The large nebula on the right side of the image is the Spider and the small nebula is the Fly.

Full details at: https://www.astrobin.com/8y5xan/

Comet C/2021 O3 PANSTARRS - A Possible Bright Comet

C/2021 O3 (PanSTARRS) is an Oort cloud comet, discovered on 26 July 2021 by the Pan-STARRS sky survey. It will come to perihelion (closest approach to the sun) on 21 April 2022 at 0.287 AU (26.6 million miles) from the Sun. 

As far as calculations go right now it appears that it might reach apparent magnitude 5 by late April 2022, but will only be 15 degrees from the Sun, low in the western sky. Binoculars will be needed to see it in the bright dusk sky. C/2021 O3 will make its closest approach to Earth on 8 May 2022 at a distance of 0.60 AU (56 million miles). As a dynamically new comet from the Oort cloud there is a high risk that this comet may disintegrate after passing perihelion as comet ISON did back in November 2013. 

Gideon van Buitenen has a web page with some really detailed information (as well as a great animated orbit plot) of C/2021 O3. Worth a look. I'll be keeping a close account of this comet in the weeks to come. Stay tuned.

The Christmas Tree Cluster and Cone Nebula - redux

One of my favorite images that I captured back in 2020 was the Christmas Tree Cluster and Cone Nebula, NGC 2264. Back then I used my ASI1600mm camera and WO GT102 telescope. The result was pretty awesome with lots of color and good detail.

Well, it was time to try again, this time with my new ASI2600mm, a more sensitive camera sensor, deeper full well and wider field of view. Below is a redo using the ASI2600, capturing 24 hours of NB and 30 minutes of RGB stars. I've learned a lot more about the techniques in post-processing, so that has come to bear here as well.  The 'extra' challenge this time was the 31mm filters in my image train. With a nebula that fills the entire sensor the vignetting was very prominent and it took some extra processing to minimize the effects. I didn't have this issue with the 1600 as it has a narrower FOV. It's time to buy larger filters!

NGC 2264 - Feb 5,9,10,19 and 20, 2022
WO GT102 f/5.5; ASI2600mm Camera
8 hours each Ha, Oiii, Sii

Fly by of asteroid 1994 PC1

I'm sure many of you heard of the passage of asteroid 1994 PC1 on January 18, 2022.  Well, if not, here are the details.

On January 18, 2022 a large, stony asteroid, passed relatively close to Earth. Astronomers believe it's size was around 3,280 feet, or, to put it another way, about 2 1/2 times the height of the Empire State Building (as many news outlets commented). Based on the designation of '1994' we’ve known about it since 1994. But based upon it's size and the fact that it's orbit allows it to pass Earth periodically at a close distance it is classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid.

Closest approach occurred on January 18, 2022, at 4:51 p.m. EST, as the speeding asteroid passed 1.2 million miles (1.93 million km) from Earth, or about 5.15 times the Earth-moon distance. 

With a clear night that evening I was able to capture it's movement across the sky in the constellation of Pisces to the W-SW at 8:30 p.m. 

The video below is a composite of 24 images, each 5 sec long, taken one minute apart showing the asteroid movement over a period of about 23 minutes (from 8:14 to 8:37). You can see it move from the bottom left toward upper right in the frame. 

Equipment: WO GT102 f/5.5 and ASI533MC OSC Camera

 

The Seagull Nebula

Working off my backlog of images to process,  I finally got around to completing the Seagull Nebula.

The Seagull Nebula, IC 2177, is a large cloud of dust and gas that spreads across a distance of over 100 light years. It gets its name from the appearance of a seagull in flight.  IC 2177 is located about 3700 light-years away from Earth on the border between the constellations of Monoceros (The Unicorn) and Canis Major (The Great Dog).

IC 2177 - The Seagull Nebula in SHO
WO GT102 f/5.6 with ASI1600 Pro
25 hours integration time over the period 1/11/21 to 2/20/21

As typical of nebulae like the Seagull, the complex array of gas and dust that forms the head of the seagull glows brightly in the sky due to the strong ultraviolet radiation coming mostly from one brilliant young star — HD 53367 — taken to be the seagull’s eye. The radiation from the young stars causes the surrounding hydrogen gas to glow with a rich red color (Ha). Additional radiation from numerous hot blue-white stars is also being scattered off the dust particles in the nebula to create a contrasting blue haze in some parts of the picture which is picked up as ionized oxygen (O3).

This image, although completed in January and February of 2021, was only just now processed (for the fourth time) before I was able to get it just right. I learned a heck of a lot more about PixInsight during this 'adventure in processing', which I guess is a good side effect of the time spent.  RGB stars were planned to be included but those flat sets were corrupted somehow and couldn't be used. So the 'slightly modified' NB stars were used. Colors are not correct, but the image is satisfying.

With my new WO ZS61 waiting for clear skies, I'm sure to take this object for at least one more spin to see what a wider field can do.