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.

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