Clouds on 8/17/08

While we did have a really nice night last night, I was too tired to stay out and observe since I’ve been staying up too late watching the Olympics. Tonight, there are a bunch of clouds and its expected to get worse so I won’t be out tonight. Unfortunately the weather hasn’t cooperated for too much lately, but I may get a break tomorrow…

This evening (Thursday, August 14) is the Barnard Astronomical Society meeting and I’m scheduled to give the main talk. My part starts at 8:30pm, but if you’re interested in coming, it’d probably be good to get there closer to 8:00. I’ll be talking about this past year of astronomy that I’ve been doing and how I use software and the Internet (specifically this blog!) to do what I do. My presentation will have a lot of images and will focus on what I’ve learned over this past year.

I hope to see you there!

Perseid Meteor on 8/12/08

I didn’t stay up too late because there was a thin cloud layer all over the sky, but since I could still see some stars (maybe mag 3 or so) through them, I set up my D50 and just took 30 second exposure after 30 second exposure, hoping to capture something for about an hour. During that time I saw maybe 10-12 meteors, none of them super bright and only one even close to where the camera was pointing.

This morning, I went through those images and found just one that had a meteor in it. I tried to process out the clouds to show the meteor better, but was only partly successful. That’s okay though because I have my first picture of a meteor.

M27-Dumbbell Nebula on 8/11/08

Here’s the Dumbbell Nebula - this is just 8 stacked images, but since each of them is 60s, the image is really the best I’ve ever gotten of it. Long exposures make a huge difference.

Well, while I’ve been doing this, clouds have started to roll in and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to see too many meteors tonight. I haven’t completely given up hope (I actually just saw one), but I’m not sure viewing conditions are going to be good enough for me to justify staying up extremely late.

M101-Pinwheel Galaxy on 8/11/08

While siting out here waiting for the Moon to set so I can see the Perseid meteor shower, I’ve been taking some long exposures of some Messier objects. With the Moon out (and being so bright) there’s a lot of sky glow which makes it more difficult to pull deep sky objects out of the background and so it makes it that much more important to get as long of exposures as possible. This image has 50 minutes of data - from 1 minute subs. It’s due to the precise nature of the drift alignment that I’m able to get subs that long.

The Moon on 8/11/08

Tonight is supposed to be the best night for the Perseid meteor shower, but the Moon is really, really bright. It will be setting around 1:30am though, which is when the peak time for meteors stars. I’m hoping to see a few and maybe even get some images.

For right now, I’m hanging out in my driveway taking some long images after having successfully drift aligned (I’m getting the hang of this…) the scope again tonight.

M51-Whirlpool Galaxy on 8/10/08

Tonight I spent almost an hour refining my alignment using the DSI camera and the drift alignment technique. In the end, I think I’ve pretty much figured it out and I wound up with the images only limited by periodic error which I’ll (hopefully) work on correcting over then next couple weeks.

As a result of the successful alignment, I was able to take lots of 1 minute images with minimal star trailing. I decided to have a go at M51 - the Whirlpool Galaxy to see how well it was working. It was working very, very well. I was able to gather a bunch of images which were stacked to make the image above. Since the Moon was really washing out the sky, I thought the end result was really pretty good. I’m excited about finally figuring out drift alignment - I believe that’ll wind up making a big difference to my future imaging.

NGC7331 and Stephan’s Quintet

Tonight, I spent quite a bit of time figuring out drift alignment using my DSI camera. I think I’m finally getting the idea of how to do this. Tonight, my alignment wound up so close that periodic error in the drives became the biggest source of instability and so I was able to take some long exposures that I stacked. While I’m pretty happy with the picture above, I plan on taking many more exposures to really bring out the detail in this area of the sky. NGC7331 and the other galaxies are found in the constellation Pegasus. NGC7331 is the galaxy in the upper right. Stephan’s Quintet is the group of 5 galaxies in the bottom left of the image. Four of the five galaxies are seriously interacting with each other and on a collision course. It’s a neat target that I’ve seen some great images of in the past and had wanted to visit for a long time.

The Moon on 8/8/08

The Moon was high in a clear sky when I took this picture, but clouds have moved in now. I’m going to stay out for a bit - the weather indicates it should clear…

It’s really pleasant this evening - it’s around 78° with very low humidity. If these clouds clear off like they’re supposed to, I should have a great opportunity for some good imaging tonight.

Jupiter on 8/7/08

After installing my new electric focuser I had to try it on something that was very difficult to focus on. Jupiter using eyepiece projection was a great torture test. When focusing by hand, using eyepiece projection, the magnification is so high, it’s essentially impossible to not knock the object out of the field of view while focusing. It’s also difficult to move the focuser only slightly at a time by hand. With the electric focuser, it was a dream. While it will shift the image a bit when I change directions (start moving out when I had been moving in and vice-versa), it’s nothing like hand focusing. It’s really extraordinary - the image stays very still and I’m able to change the focus in very, very small steps. This enabled me to get what I believe is the best focus I’ve ever had for a planetary image. The Great Red Spot is very visible and three of the four Galilean moons show up at the same exposure level. I don’t think I’ve ever had that happen - with sharp focus, they are bright enough to show up in an image like this. In the past, I’ve had to composite two images together with different brightness. I think I’m really going to like this new focuser.

Oh, and one more thing - the other night, I talked about joining the Astronomy Pirates by wearing my eyepatch. Well, the eyepatch thing works spectacularly. When I go to the eyepiece, I use the eye that’s under the patch and when I look through I can see so much better that there’s no comparison. Okay, sure I look dorky, but boy it makes observing a lot better and more productive. I heartily recommend joining the pirates to my astronomy friends. Arrgh matey!