Random Musings of an Amateur Astronomer
Astrophotography
Flowers of the Night Sky
1Cygnus is home to a plethora of wonderful objects – both for visual observing as well as imaging. Due to my latitude, it goes right overhead and is easily my favorite constellation – even ousting the hunter of the winter sky, Orion. Filled with gajillions (yes that’s a technical term) of stars, this band of our very own Milky Way galaxy is home to countless nebula, both bright and eerily dark.
Bright nebula such as the Orion Nebula are the ones you’re probably used to seeing. Move forward a More >
M15 and Comet C/2009 P1 (Garradd)
09 months ago
One of the cool iphone apps I use for astronomy is Starmap Pro which includes a great “find comets” feature. Ironically, the brightest one coming up was also the very same one that was mentioned recently in Astronomy magazine as “passing near M15″ and was pretty bright – magnitude 8!
M15 and Comet Garradd
Processing comet images can be a challenge. In particular, comets move fast! Well, they move fast with respect to the background stars. This creates challenges for “stacking” images More >
Conjunction Function
0While the rest of the United States basks in a record setting heatwave, here in Woodinville, WA we are just coming out of a week long rain stretch into what was supposed to be some clear skies. And clear they were – right up until I had set up my equipment. So, after five hours of dysfunctional imaging spoiled by large wafting masses of dihydrogen monoxide, I decided to go ultra short focal length with the Canon Rebel XSI to see if I could capture some of mom nature’s beauty on a wider, less More >
NGC 6960: The Witch’s Broom
2Some of the most beautiful images come the death of stars. Of course, those deaths such as the recent supernova in Messier 51 are so far away that we’re not going to be able to view their beauty (especially against the backdrop of their galaxy hosts!) However, our very own galaxy, the Milky Way is host to it’s fair share of supernova, and the nebulous remnants they leave behind. One such example is the Veil Nebula.
The Veil Nebula is a fairly large complex which is often broken up into three More >
Supernova SN2011dh Caught in Messier 51
4Sometime in late May, early June a star decided that’s its time was up. The largest explosions in nature, supernova occur when massive stars use up all their nuclear fuel. They collapse on themselves and the increase in pressure once again triggers fusion. This results in a massive explosion, first theorized by squirly Caltech Physicist, Fritz Zwicky. To paraphrase Bill Bryson, supernova are very important for a lot of reasons, the least of which is that without them, we wouldn’t be
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M16, The Eagle Nebula
3The Eagle Nebula is wonderful emission nebula, with the apparent image of an ‘eagle’ soaring high in it. This same eagle is where the famous Hubble Pillars of Creation image is. Located in Serpens (7000 light years away), this is generally low on my northern sky, but I was able to pull off a series of 10x 10 min subs that seem to process fairly well.
Messier 16, The Eagle Nebula
Special kudos to Drew, who suggested imaging this object last night
Abell 2218 – A Monster of a Cluster!
212 months ago
by admin
in Astrophotography
Roll back nearly ten years ago and you’d find the most distant galaxy ever detected by humans in the constellation Draco, Abell 2218. This huge cluster of over 10,000 galaxies is heavily shifted into the red by it’s recessional velocity. A galaxy behind it is nearly 13 billion years back (note this cluster is actually around 2 billion years away.) This compared with my previous distance record of 7.8 billion years with the Double Quasar, QSO 0957+561. Aside from it’s massive distance, More >
Messier 101: Pretty Pinwheels
0Messier 101, The Pinwheel Galaxy
Located nearly 25 million light years away, Messier 101 is favorite amateur imaging target. It’s big, bright, and beautiful! Most of today was spent fiddling around with trying to bring out the finer details on the fringes here – and learning more CS5 tricks – thanks Tony Hallas ) Be sure to click on the image for the full scale detail…
In May of last year, I imaged M101 through the four-inch Televue NP 101is with super shallow 60 second frames. Given the More >
Royal Wedding Rings… From Space!
0With all of the recent excitement around the Royal Wedding for Catherine and William, it seems some far-out gifts are in order. Hundreds of years ago, the kings and queens of the land would provide funding for astronomers, hoping to have the name of the next exciting object named in their honor. Today of course, they mostly beg for funding, as recently seen with the SETI shutdown.
Back on April 23, the last clear sky day we had (though tonight is looking great!), I picked up a few additional More >
NGC 4490 – The Cocoon Galaxy
01 year ago
by admin
in Astrophotography
NGC 4490 (and NGC 4485) make a highly distorted pair of galaxies. Located in Canes Ventacti, this pair of galaxies is similar to M51, The Whirlpool Galaxy in that is shows two interacting galaxies. However, unlike M51, these two galaxies have already crossed paths and may not come to meet again. In 2008, a supernova was observed in NGC 4490, the larger of the two. At magnitudes 9.8 and 12.5, respectively, these two galaxies are relatively bright amongst galaxies – but also have a very small More >
