Lunar Images

With Christmas so near, I haven't been doing much imaging. It's also been quite cloudy and rainy. Georgia , ot at least Atlanta, is on track for 2018 to be the 5^th wettest year “on record.. Getting images of the moon is actually a fairly quick thing to do.

November 16th image. Ignore "Ken's Canyon".

The first image is around the north end of the moon. The identification was put there for someone else, but it works well here. This image was taken the night of November 16^th.

December 17th image.

This is a mosaic of 7 images taken the night of December 17^th. As you can see, the terminator is in nearly the same place on the moon (as one would expect). The mosaic just allows you to see along the entire terminator, which is usually the most interesting area of the moon. This image is also interesting to me because I was able to show on the November image that the mount was tracking too fast. For the December image, I slowed the mount down 1% and got much better tracking. Unfortunately, the unsteady air more than made up for the previous poor tracking.

Since it is so close to Christmas, I want to wish any readers of this blog a very Merry Christmas.

Revisit of NGC253 Plus A Comet Plus Stars

Below is the same data for NGC253 as the previous post, but I have changes the processing. I think the colors are rendered better. At any rate, I like this one better, even if it was a little harder to do.

NGC253 Reprocessed.I like this one better.

Comet 46P is in the night sky now, and may become a naked eye comet before Christmas. Below is an image taken the night of November 28, 2018. You can see that it looks different than the nearby stars. However, it doesn't seem to have the tail most comets will have. Maybe I should say the prominent tail most comets have. It appears to have a very very faint tail going from upper left (ie, right at the comet) to lower right. I really have to squint to see it.

Comet 46P. Comet is "fuzzy star" in center of picture.

PROCESSING FUN

Below, an image of NGC613, a galaxy in the constellation of the Sculptor.

NGC613

It's an interesting looking galaxy in it's own right. However, when I process to bring out the very faint details, instead of the 2 prominent spiral arms, 3 more faint ones can be seen. I think that's pretty cool.

NGC613 cropped and brightened a LOT.

Finally, we have 2 images of NGC288, which is a globular cluster, also in Sculptor. For the 1^st image, the one below, I combined all 10 second exposures (ie, 25 lum at 10 secs, 11 red at 10 secs, 11green at 10 secs, and 11 blue at 10 secs).

NGC288 10 sec exposures.

Compare that one to the one below. The difference between the 2 is that the RGB channels of the one below are each 1 minute exposures (ie, lum the same, but red is 5 exposure at 1 min, green is 5 exposures at 1 min, and blue is 5 exposures at 1 min.). Obviously, more stars can be seen in the 1 minute exposure image (even though the lum channel is exactly the same), but the colors of the stars has shifted decidedly to the red. I wonder why that is.

NGC288 1 min is RGB(5), still 10 sec in Lum(25).

NGC 253

Well, I had a fairly clear night last night (November 10^th), so I decided to try NGC 253 again. This time, I imaged it in color (LRBG for the techies). I still think that being low on the horizon is causing me some trouble, but this image is, I think, at least respectable.

NGC 253

Catch-Up

According to my files, August 30^th was the last entry into this blog. Since I'm typing this off-line, I hope the on-line version agrees with this.

At any rate, the primary project is finding and photographing the Herschel 400 list. I appear to have around 160 or so photographed at this point. I'm able, usually, to get around 10 to 15 on any given night, since I'm doing short exposures. Having found them, I'm looking for those to come back to to photograph again, in color. I have found another interesting one. This time, its a galaxy, NGC 253, in the constellation of Sculptor. Unfortunately for me, that constellation is low in the southern sky, and I have to dodge trees to see it. My chances are limited. However, I hope to get a good night before the end of the year to get a good, color image. The image below, shows the galaxy, along with what I think are clouds. The “cloudiness” varied from image to image, so I think that is what it is. When I showed this image to the grandkids, I told them the cloudiness was ghosts, since it was taken just before Halloween. Of course, I told them it was really clouds, but it was fun to see their reaction.

NGC 253, the Sculptor Galaxy, thru clouds.

A Finale, Of Sorts

On the evening of August 27^th, 2018, I finished a project started in 2014, although I didn't formally make it a project until, maybe, 2016. That project was to photograph all 110 of the Messier objects. The entire series serves to goals : 1) to prove that I have “seen” all of the objects (more on that later), and 2) to document the progress I have made in photographing the night sky. The equipment underwent only one change in that time, which was a change from a Starlight Express M516 camera to a QSI 683 camera. Many of the images taken are on this blog.

Why “seen” in quotes? Two reasons. First, my eyes are getting quite old and don't see dim things in the night sky very well. All of the objects in the Messier catalog would be considered dim. Second, the sky quality at the observatory has deteriorated significantly, mostly due to light pollution, making seeing dim objects that much harder. For me, photographing was the only way to go.

So, which one was the last one? M73, an open star cluster in the constellation of Aquarius. I circled the four brightest stars. If you follow the progression of things, Charles Messier first thought this might be a comet; enough so that he made a note that this was something to be avoided in his search for comets. Later, it was decided that this was a loosely associated open cluster. Then, it was decided that it wasn't an open cluster at all, but just four stars that made an asterism. It wasn't until 2002, when M. Odenkirchen and C. Soubiran finally demonstrated that this is just an asterism.

M73, Messier catalogue complete!

Finally, for this installment of the blog, a few images of the sun. Since I image primarily in shade of gray, I' showing the images after processing, but before colorizing, except for the red one which was shot in color.

There was a prominence visible that was imaged in the normal configuration for the solar scope and one with the scope using a 3x Barlow lens to magnify it. There was also something (a filament) that was barely visibly visually, so much so that I wasn't sure it was really there. As shown in the gray image, it was difficult to see even with the camera. The red image is essentially the same as the gray image, but color enhanced to increase the contrast. I'm not sure why it was so difficult to see, except that there has been a lot of high cloudiness this summer...... a LOT. Even the image of M73 was shot through high cloudiness. When focusing, a halo was seen around the star I was focusing on (the halo presumably from the clouds). 

Prominence.

Same one, but magnified 3x.

Barely visible filament.

Same image, color enhanced to increase contrast. The filament is the "line" running upper left to lower right.

Mars and Saturn

In the few breaks in the clouds we have had this summer, I managed to image Mars and Saturn on the evening of August 14^th. The steadiness of the air, also known as the seeing, was quite poor and the images show it. However, as astronomers are wont to say, I needed my photon fix. I did enjoy the evening under the star. Yes, that is singular, since the ever present high cloudiness managed to block out most of the visible stars. Actually, a few, as in maybe 10, were visible. For comparison's sake, the ideal number of stars visible should be around 2500 to 3000.

Also, for comparison's sake, I've included one frame of the Saturn group to show just how fuzzy looking the planet looked. So, how did I manage to get the final, somewhat clear image, you ask? (Thank you for asking.) By using the “magic” afforded to me by digital imaging techniques, of course. In this case, actually on both the Mars and Saturn images, I took 5000 frames of video and then “stacked” the best 3500 of them to make one image. That tends to eliminate to worst, most distorted, images. Then by using the wavelet sharpening in RegiStax 6, then importing that image into GIMP and using the unsharp mask, I was able to arrive at the images you see now. Bear in mind, there is has been a planet wide dust storm going on for quite some time. The amount of detail I think I pretty good, considering that. The dust storm also explains why the WinJUPOS generated image looks quite clear, and shows things you would think mine would, but doesn't.

Mars, best 3500 of 5000 frames 8" SCT at F10 ZWO ASI 120MC. See below to help  ID features.

WinJUPOS generated image of Mars, with a few features identified. I don't know what the red circle is.

Raw image (same equipment as above) of Saturn. Blurry, Huh?

Saturn, best 3500 of 5000 frames, sharpened. Cleans up pretty well, don't you think?

Sun Again

On the morning of July 26^th, I imaged the sun again. It seems like Georgia has clouds almost every night lately, so no imaging of the one Messier item and any more Herschel items. Or Mars, Jupiter or Saturn. And then there is the fatigue that goes along with my current health issues, so I would have difficulty staying up too late, anyway.

So, what's on store for this entry? Not much. There were two prominences visible and one filament. The filament was so thin that it was almost impossible to pick up with the camera. The optics of the telescope and camera are such that it spread the thin filament out enough to make it almost invisible on it's “close up” shot, and just visible on the full disk shot. And I suspect strongly that the prominence (ie filament) was fading away as well, so there wasn't much to see.  As far as the prominences go, they were just visible when viewed through the eyepiece, and only a little more so when imaged. But, they are here. Bearing in mind that we are going through a solar minimum, I'm surprised to get this much. However, I'll take just about anything.

The filament (really?)

The above image shows what was left after the filament had a chance to start fading away; at least that's what I think was happening. Filaments are prominences that we see face on; ie, we are looking at the top of it toward the surface of the sun. As the prominence subsides, the contrast we see in temperature that makes it visible subsides as well. Hence, it becomes harder to see. The darkening below it appears to be a very small sunspot.

First of two small prominences.

Second of two small prominences. Notice how much more diffuse this one is. I suspect this would be similar to the filament.

 

 

Full disk showing location of filament and first prominence. This is a composite of 2 images. The filament looked better in the eyepiece, which I used before starting to image. I guess you had to be there. ??? The second prominence would be just out of site to the lower right, about the 5:30 position.

Sun With Poor Seeing

This morning, about 11 o'clock, I imaged the sun again. Some days there's a lot to see; others, not so much. Today, there was a little more. There were two sunspot groups, and a few “small” prominences. The first image is the composite image of the surface and prominence layers, each a separate layer, of course. The second is the left side sunspot group. It appears the camera doesn't change the resolution; instead, it simply reads the Region of Interest from the camera. The only bonus is a faster frame rate. I think this “feature” is not well documented (no change in resolution). In any event, the focus is “softer” than I would like to see it, but I think that will have to wait for better seeing conditions.

Almost the full sun face.Prominences and sunspots visible.

Sunspots on Left side of sun.

Nearing The End

Of imaging the Messier list, that is. In my current state of poor health, I'm not able to get out as much as I would like, so I took advantage of a relatively good night on June 6 to image most of the remaining objects I need for completion of the list. (Only 2 left.) Most were galaxies in the Virgo-Leo area of the sky, and, therefore, fairly close together. None were what I would call spectacular; most were small and dim. I did try a different technique, for me, in the imaging of these objects; I took my flat frames before imaging the sky, left the camera in place (ie, didn't move it at all), then did my night sky imaging. This is a normal technique for most people, but I have not used it, relying on building a flat “library”. After seeing the difference in quality, I think I will convert to using this technique.

Coincidentally, the Messier images also included 3 Herschel objects that were in the frames:NGC4303 in the M61 image, NGC4594 in the M104 image because NGC4594 IS M104, and NGC4478 in the M87image.

I also have worked on imaging the sun, trying to determine the best method of doing that as well. I have found a method that appears to work for now. For several weeks, we have been having cloudy skies, or at the least lots of water vapor and cirrus clouds. There is also a “quite” sun, meaning not much detail to image. I have also decided that my solar scope is performing about as well as possible, but won't show as much detail as I would like because it would need an additional $950 filter to restrict it's bandpass. If I had a good, scientific reason for getting the detail, I think I would go for the filter. But just to make images of the sun..... well, $950 is a lot. I think I'll pass for now. I also found an interesting method of making the composite image of the sun, using my standard technique of imaging the surface, then the prominence area of the sun and combining them. The surface image gets processed as well as I can get it, then the prominence image gets processed. Finally, I composite them into a single image using a layer mask to hide all but the prominence “ring” (just a small ring of the outer layer of the sun that the prominence is attached to), which allows the surface image to come through. Then the entire image can be colored. All that said, that means that the color of the sun image is of MY making, NOT the actual color of the sun. The entire imaging of the sun is actually done in black and white.

PS. Google has just notified me that they are supposed to put a notice about their use of cookies on this blog. Apparently, they use them. I DO NOT NOW, NOR HAVE I EVER USED COOKIES, the computer kind that is. Send you objections to cookies to Google, not me, please. For me, I usually just clear my browser of all cookies when I close it.

We'll start with M49, an elliptical galaxy.

M58

M59 and friends. I count at least 4 more galaxies in this image.

M61. NGC4303 is the fuzzy at the 4 o'clock position,

M60 and friends. At least 3, probably4, more galaxies here.

M84, left, and M86 right and 2 other bright-ish friends. Actually, about 40 galaxies in this one, most too dim to see.

M87, the bright one in the center.

M89.

M90. I might come back to this one next year. Again, look for the fuzzies. At least 3 more here.

M104/NGC4594. This is interesting, too. Notice the dark dust lane at the "top". AKA Sombrero Galaxy.

Two small promeninces on left side, plauge about 9 o'clock on surface and the black granules are called, amazingly, granulation.

Five Newbies And An Old Friend

On the night of May 5^th I was able to make it to the observatory for a little over an hour's worth of imaging. On my list of Messier objects left to image (18 remaining), I imaged 5 of the 18. The Old Friend was M13, the globular cluster in Hercules that, with M22, are probably the most impressive clusters in the night sky. I really enjoy them. Unfortunately, Georgia is in the midst of daily smog alerts, so the sky is anything but transparent, and that shows up in the images, or at least in the difficulty is processing the images to reduce the skyglow from the scattered ground based light. At the least, these were more interesting to process for that reason.

This group also includes M40, which has been describes as Messier's one mistake. M40 is a double star in Ursa Major (the Big Dipper). According to Wikipedia, Johannes Hevelius described a nebulosity in the area of M40, which Messier looked for. Not finding any, Messier cataloged the double star instead. Speculation is that the nebulosity that Hevelius saw was NGC 4290, which is a dim galaxy that could be seen in larger telescopes, but perhaps not in Messier's. When I image star clusters or, in this case, a double star, I always take as short an exposure as I can, usually 10 seconds. This is the case for the image showing the double star, which, by the way, is just an optical double, meaning the stars are actually very far from each other and not gravitationaly connected (orbiting each other). The second image is a one minute image which shows not only NGC4290, but NGC4284 as well. The effects of the light pollution are also evident, showing up as the “fog” or gray background in the image. This is the very well known property of light pollution; it essentially removes the black sky, substituting gray and thereby significantly reducing contrast between the dim nebulae and the sky. The result is that the nebulae almost disappears; visually, it actually does disappear.

The rest of the images are as noted under the image. Just the “usual”; galaxies and star clusters. Even though “usual”, I still marvel at God's handy work. All made from the same star stuff, but all different, individual; just like people.

M40 (2 stars near center). Actually NGC4290 IS faintly visible in this 10 Second exposure.

 

M40, single 1 minute exposure with no corrections done. Shows NGC4290 (and NGC4284 to it's left).

 

M68. Globular cluster in Hydra. Compare to M13 further down.

M13. Old Friend. In Hercules, just rising in the east when taken 1 Min exp.

M83. Galaxy also in Hydra. 1 Min exp. Low in southern sky and in heavy light pollution.

M101. Galaxy in Ursa Major. 1 Min exp. This would be in the North, light pollution not as bad.

 

M102,galaxy that's also in Ursa Major.

It's Galaxy Season, Take 2. Topic Started BELOW.

M94. NOT a barred galaxy. Can you see the difference with M91?

M95. Also very faint, but appears to be a barred spiral.

M98. Finally, This LOOKS like a galaxy. Notice the satellite "streak" top to bottom to right.

M99.  A spiral, but looks "unbalanced" to me.

M44 wide field. Beehive circled.This is the 18mm image.

Finally, M44 closer up. This is the 40mm image. Beehive pretty much centered.

It's Galaxy Season

I have two projects I'm currently working on, astronomically related, that is. The second one is imaging the Herschel 400 list, on which I've made at least some progress, having imaged about 129 of the 400 so far. The first project, which is much closer to completion, is imaging the Messier catalog. Checking back through my list of imaged targets, I have about 30 left to go (of the 110). That is, until a few nights ago. On the night of the 17^th, I was able to image another 11 objects. On the night of the 20^th, I got another one. For those of you who are math challenged, that leaves 18. I've already plotted when I should be able to finish the list, which will be September or October. I should be able to image all but one target by June, and if I wanted to stay up all night one night, I might be able to get the last one then as well. If my medicine lets me continue sleeping as well as I am now, that's a possibility.

As with the Herschel list, these are very short exposures (usually 3, 1 minute exposures), stacked, dark and flat calibrated and finally stretched so we can see what is actually there. The exception is the image of M44, the Beehive, in the constellation of Cancer. That one was taken with the Canon Xsi mounted on the telescope to help with tracking (and finding, since the constellation is essentially directly overhead; and area that I can't see with my current problem). M44 is a stack of 11, 30 second images, that have been dark calibrated, but no flat correction. I took two images, one at an 18mm focal length, the other at a focal length near 40mm. The 40mm is an estimation, since I am using the only lens I have for that camera, which is a zoom lens. Per the lens markings, it was somewhere between 35mm and 50mm. The 50mm image will be the one that looks “zoomed”. I'll circle the Beehive in the 18mm image so you can find it. See if you can see it for yourself in the 40mm image.

OK, I know I said it's galaxy season, but this is the globular cluster M3.

So, to make up for it, here are TWO galaxies M65 (left) and M66 (upper right)

M63 (centered). Lower left, for the sharp eyed, is UGC 8313, UGC = Uppsala General Catalog of Galaxies)

M85, no so impressive, huh?

M88. This might be one to come back to.

M91. Dim, small barred spiral galaxy. Interesting to see, however.

 Looks like I've reached a limit of images to post at one time. So, I'll continue with images above? This is awkward.