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.

Lunar Eclipse - November 19, 2021

It wasn't until the evening of November 18th that I remembered there was going to be a partial (almost total) lunar eclipse early on the morning of November 19th. I guess the rain earlier in the day and the busyness of my schedule was the culprit. Of course, age might also be a factor.

I am still processing all the images I took, but here is the moon at mid-eclipse which occurred at 4:02AM.  

Mid-eclipse - November 19, 2021, 4:02AM
GT102 (562mm; f/5.5) - Canon 50D; ISO 200; 4 sec

A Lion, an 'E' and some Dark Nebulae

The first eleven days of September offered me some excellent seeing conditions for a change and so I was very busy taking lots of subs for a number of new and interesting deep space objects. 

First up is Sh2-132 which is a relatively faint emission nebula about 10,000 lightyears distant in the constellation of Cepheus the King. Commonly known as the 'Lion Nebula' due to its shape (you can make out the head at the upper left, tail to the right, with four legs below). It features a conspicuous dark lane in the "head" section. 

This image was taken over five nights, with a total integration time of about 16 hours; 14 of those hours in narrowband and the remaining in RGB to capture the stars. 

Sh2-132 - Lion Nebula in SHORGB
William Optics GT102 (f/5.5) with ZWO ASI2600mm Camera
September 3, 6-9 2021

Next is LDN 688 & 694 (B142 & B143), collectively known as Barnard's 'E' nebula; gets it's name from the distinctive 'E' shape of the dark nebula that obscures the dense background of stars. The pair is also known as the Triple Cave Nebula. Although it appears that the two nebula are part of the same structure, they are, in fact, two distinct objects. It is our brain that wants to combine them into a familiar symbol, and so it appears as a single object.

LDN 688 & 694 in LRGB
William Optics GT102 (f/5.5) with ZWO ASI2600mm Camera
September 9 and 10, 2021

The bright star to the left is Gamma Aquilae (Tarazed). Gamma Aquilae is a relatively young star with an age of about 270 million years, estimated to be 3.5 times the mass of the Sun and about 92 times the Sun's radius. Shining at over 2100 times the luminosity of the Sun this K-type star glows with an orange hue. The image is a combination of twenty, 60sec exposures of RG and B with 40 x 60sec of luminance.

Finally, we have LDN 900 which is a Dark Nebula in the constellation of Cygnus.  It is approximately 8 arc-minutes (0.133 degrees) in size.  

LDN 900 in HaLRGB
William Optics GT102 (f/5.5) with ZWO ASI2600mm Camera
September 10 and 11, 2021

Dark nebulae are interstellar clouds that contain a very high concentration of dust. This allows them to scatter and absorb all incident optical light, making them completely opaque at visible wavelengths.  The nebula (centered in the image and running top to bottom) obscures the background of dust and ionized gas.

The blue regions are vdB 131 (upper) and vdB 132 (lower). These are both reflection nebulae, regions of what have been dark nebulae if not for the fact that the dust reflects the light from nearby bright stars that is not hot enough to ionize the cloud's hydrogen. This scattered light generally appears blue since the typical size of dust grains in the cloud are comparable to the wavelength of blue light.

This image is 5 hours of Hydrogen-alpha (Ha) and 4 hours of LRGB.

Project "Final Cut" - an awesome rocket

It's not often that I blog about amateur high power rocketry in this space since I essentially have just about ended (but not entirely!) my efforts in that hobby as of late. Between the time (and expense) of running my telescope(s) and doing all other manner of hobby and hobby-like activities rocketry has taken back stage. It was getting really difficult to lug around all the equipment to the rocket field on the eastern shore of Maryland, not knowing if the weather conditions were going to be suitable for launch until the last minute. And add to that, taking the better part of an entire day prepping my large rocket(s) and then having to chase them down when they drift to the edge of the launch site and carry them back to the launch area. Some of my largest rockets weigh in at 50-150 lbs. plus. Gets to be problematic in the summer heat, and almost equally so in the winter chill at my age. I still plan to continue in the hobby, but only building and flying small to mid-size rockets.

However, in the most recent Sport Rocketry magazine is a feature article on Project Final Cut, an amazing rocket built and flown by Doug Gerrard of Socorro, New Mexico. This incredible project is an 8" diameter rocket with a 98mm central motor mount and six 54mm strap-on boosters. It is over 15ft tall and weighs in at just under 190lbs at liftoff. Doug's passion is launching rockets and capturing photographic footage and stills. For the last 33 years nearly all his rockets carried camera payloads and all of them were named after photography/movie terms. This project, likely his last, is appropriately named "Final Cut". On board there are 13 cameras, 12 altimeters/timers and 7 motors. The central motor is a 15-second burn N1000 and the outboards are six K270 long burn motors. All seven were planned to ignite at once to lift the massive rocket into the sky. Then at about T+7.5 seconds, the strap on boosters would separate in pairs while the main motor continues it's burn. Although the flight had a few issues, the rocket reached an altitude of 11,000 ft. and landed successfully not far from the flight line. 

Final Cut launch

With cameras in the main rocket, in the strap-on boosters and on the launch tower, the footage captured was incredible. Looking to the rear of the main body tube was a special high-speed Chronos 1.4 camera with a 1" sensor that records at 1080P at 1000 frames per second. Video of the launch can be found on Vimeo (https://vimeo.com/558878230) - a must see!! One thing to keep in mind while watching the video is that all the clips are played back in slow motion. This makes the rocket appear to take a long time to take off and the sound of the motors is a thundering roar. In real time amateur rockets accelerate rather quickly; usually in excess of 5gs, the lowest recommended acceleration for safe launch since these rockets are fin stabilized and need to move at 30 -45 ft per second to achieve flight stability. Because all of the motors used in Final Cut were long burn motors, the rocket only accelerated at a max acceleration of 4.5gs, and therefore the team constructed a special launch rail that was twice the normal 12ft length to keep the 'pointy-end' pointing up until the rocket reaches the required minimum velocity for fin stabilization.

It's projects like Final Cut that make me want to get out there and get another one of my birds in the air. Maybe even design a similar rocket. We'll see :)

Final Cut launched at NAR's National Sport Launch (NSL 2021) in Alamosa, CO, during the last weekend of May. Additional details can be found at: NSL 2021 and NSL 2021 - Facebook, as well as in the Sept/Oct 2021 issue of Sport Rocketry.

WR 134 - A Wolf-Rayet Star with Nebulosity

Oh my gosh, what a terrible summer season for astrophotography. There was maybe 5 relatively clear nights since July 12 when I completed the tandem telescope setup. I had expected to image my favorites by now - the Trifid, the Lagoon, etc., with my new ASI2600 camera, but alas, that's probably not going to happen now as they are slowly receding in the southwest. I may have another couple of weeks to give them a try while the moon is out of the picture, but if the weather doesn't cooperate soon I may need to wait until next year. 

However, I did point my scope to an object I have never imaged before. It is well placed in the sky, high and to the SE allowing me to run long series of narrowband images throughout the entire evening. This object is WR134, a Wolf-Rayet star with surrounding nebulosity. A tough one for sure, but I wanted to give it a try. The star itself is nondescript, but because of the intense radiation it spews forth, the surrounding gas, excited by the star's radiation, glows brightly.

Wolf–Rayet stars, often abbreviated as WR stars, are a rare heterogeneous set of stars with unusual spectra showing prominent broad emission lines of ionized helium and highly ionized nitrogen or carbon. The spectra indicate very high surface enhancement of heavy elements, depletion of hydrogen, and strong stellar winds. The surface temperatures of known Wolf-Rayet stars range from 20,000 K to around 210,000 K, hotter than almost all other kinds of stars. (Wiki)

WR 134 is a variable Wolf-Rayet star located around 6,000 light years away from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus, surrounded by a faint bubble nebula blown by the intense radiation and fast wind from the star. It is five times the radius of the sun, but due to a temperature over 63,000 K it is 400,000 times as luminous as the Sun. (Wiki)

Over the nights of August 2, 3 and 6, I captured both Ha and Oiii narrowband data, 65 subs of 300 sec exposures for each, and a series of RGB subs to get the star colors correct. I had planned to get Sii data as well (to complete the standard SHO Hubble Palette) but the clouds moved in and stayed for awhile! So, with what I had, I processed a HOO palette, the results shown in the image below.

WR134 and Nebulosity (August 2021)
WO GT102 f/5.6  -  ASI2600mm Pro
65x300s Ha; 65x300s Oiii; 10x30s RGB Stars

WR134 is the brighter star in the small group of four stars at the center of the image. The enlarged central region clearly shows the star (reddish-white at center) with the bubble nebula surrounding it. The upper region of the bubble, bluish in color, is the Oiii ionized gas. 

Then, some clear skies presented themselves on and about August 25th. I had to setup and try to get the missing Sii data, which I was able to do over two evenings. I managed to get 67 subs of 300sec. I added this new data into the mix and with some re-processing of the original data with the new Sii data I created the final image using a modified SHO Hubble palette.

WR134 and Nebulosity (August 2021)
WO GT102 f/5.6  -  ASI2600mm Pro
65x300s Ha; 65x300s Oiii; 67x300s Sii; 10x30s RGB Stars

Full resolution images can be found at XCalRocketMan's Astrobin page

So, I have at least one new image to add to my collection from the 2021 summer season. Hopefully I'll capture some other deep space summer gems before they move out of view until next year.

 

Grand Slam of Jupiter Moons

On the night of August 15, 2021, a very rare alignment of Jupiter's moons occurred. On this night a triple transit on Jupiter with the moons Callisto, Ganymede and Europa in transit was visible from some parts of the world.  After the triple transit there was very rare event when Ganymede occulted Europa followed by Ganymede eclipsing Europa!  

Although I have tried my best to capture images of the planets the seeing at my location in Maryland is usually awful - and good seeing is an absolute 'must have' in planetary imaging. This event would have been one that I would have certainly tried for, but the weather conditions (clouds, go figure) nixed that.

However, Christopher Go, one of the handful of the best amateur planetary photographers, had excellent conditions at his location in the Philippines. He was able to capture the entire series of events with his 14" Celestron SCT.

Here is the NASA Astrophoto of the Day that he was awarded.

For a more complete review of Christopher's imaging, including this event, point your browser to his web page at http://astro.christone.net

Mars Drilling Didn't go Quite as Expected

Last week, NASA’s Perseverance rover shot for a new milestone in the search for extraterrestrial life: drilling into Mars to extract a plug of rock, which will eventually get fired back to Earth for scientists to study. Data sent to NASA scientists early on August 6 indicated a victory—the robot had indeed drilled into the red planet, and a photo even showed a dust pile around the borehole.

NASA

But, while data indicated that Perseverance had transferred a sample tube into its belly for storage, that tube was in fact empty, driving Katie Stack Morgan, deputy project scientist of the Mars 2020 mission, to call it “the case of the missing core.”

While this is not the 'hole in one' we hoped for, there is always risk with breaking new ground," Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, said in a statement. (Perseverance's mission is the first step in a Mars sample-return campaign, which has never been done before.)

Read the full story at ARS Technica