Hubble, ISS, Geminids.

(Obviously, the post that I thought was going to be the last one for the year wasn't.)

This entry may be one of my shortest. Last night, December 13, 2017 was the Geminid meteor shower. I usually don't go out for meteor showers, but I decided to have a look last night, and I'm glad I did. The reason I usually don't go out for meteor showers is I usually don't see any. But last night was different. I was out for about an hour and saw at least 11 bright meteors. I saw a 12^th , but I think that was space junk burning up rather than a Geminid. It was cold, but worth the effort this time. UPDATE: Tonight, the 14^th, the grandkids and I watched the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station go over. Following that, we saw a few stray Geminids fall as well. A first for the grandkids, seeing the satellites and the meteors. That was a fun 35 minutes spent under the stars.

Re post of last night's entry, with more information.

This is an image from November 18, 2016 of M110.

M110 from last post, image taken a year later.

Compare this one to the one from the last posting. What's the difference? The one from November of last year, is a much, much longer exposure plus combining exposures from 4 color bands, LRGB. LRGB, which is luminance, red, green, blue, were exposure times of 60L, 9R, 9G, 9B, so a total time of 60+9+9+9 = 87 minutes vs. 3L for the one from this year ( 3 minutes in L band). (What's the L band, really? It's basically a clear filter, except it doesn't allow infra red (IR) light through. That's important because the camera sensor will respond quite well to IR. This can throw off the focus, sense we mostly look for the greatest response of the chip, ie, most output, to help determine then focus is achieved.)

You can read about M110 in the post from November 20, 2016.

NGC 404

This image shows a very bright star called Mirach, which is the brightest star in the image, and a galaxy to the star's lower left, which is the “fuzz ball”. The fuzz ball is actually the intended target for this image and is NGC 404, which is also know as the Ghost of Mirach. NGC 404 is about 10 million light years away and is described as a lenticular or elliptical galaxy. The fuzz (nebulosity) around Mirach is a bit of a puzzle. Mirach is a bright star, about 2^nd magnitude. Because it is so bright, the light from it fills the sensor receptors and then spills over to adjacent receptors (pixels, actually). So, instead of the star appearing round, it has a tail going off to the right, which is where the extra light has spilled. That much I understand. It's possible that a similar phenomena is the cause of the dark curved streaks, but I don't know.

NGC 891

NGC 891 is an edge-on galaxy that is about 30 million ly away. From side to side, it's about 100,000 ly across.

And now the 10 second images.

NGC 752

NGC 752 is an open cluster that's about 1300 ly away and contains about 100 stars.

NGC 7662

Nebula, Shells visible, but not central star

NGC 7662 aka the Blue Snowball Nebula is a dying star, much like M57, the Ring Nebula in Lyra. There is a central star that has shed some outer layers of gas. Images with greater resolution can show the central star. It's presence is hinted at here, showing a somewhat darker center than outer edges of the nebula. Distance is not know with any accuracy. Estimates range from 1800 ly to 5600 ly.

NGC 7686

NGC 7686 is an open cluster containing about 80 stars. I've found little information on this cluster, including no estimate of it's distance.

I'm Probably Closing Out The Year A Little Early

After much traveling and some surgery, I may not have much time or energy to do much more imaging. I did get some done the night of December 10^th. As noted earlier, I'm trying to image the Herschel objects on the Herschel 400 list. What I'm finding is that some of the objects are turning out to be things I will want to come back to when I get the time. One such object was found Sunday, NGC891, a cool looking galaxy in the constellation of Andromeda. Of course, Andromeda also has many other galaxies, such as the huge M31 galaxy. Mostly, it's just I didn't know this one was here, and it's looks like a nice one to take a longer look at. In this “run” of 6 images, 3 of the images are stacks of 1 minute, the other images are only 10 seconds, but stacks of 5 images. The 10 second images do not contain any galaxies. I hope to be able to give more information on these objects at a later time.

Lets start with the 1 minute images.

NGC205, aka M110, Elliptical galaxy, Stack of 3 1 min frames F6.3, 8" LX200GPS

NGC404 lenticular galaxy. Stack of 3 1 min frames. I need to find out about the nebulosity around the bright star.

NGC891 This is the one I'm coming back to. Obviously a galaxy with a dark dust lane thru the center.

And now the 10 second images.

NGC752 Open cluster.

NGC7662 a planetary nebula aka at the Blue Snowball Nebula

NGC7686 another open cluster.