First IOTA Result
The International Occultation Timing Associate is a group of amateur astronomers that measure timing and location of asteroid “shadows” that fall on earth. Sometimes the orbit of Earth and an asteroid line up to block a star that is visible in low-light video cameras through telescopes. Coupling this with a video time inserter that itself …
Heart and Soul
The Heart and Soul nebulae (IC 1805 and IC 1848) are in Cassiopeia and are high enough above the horizon to start shooting relatively early in the evening, so I set up and shot 51 x 5 min for 255 minutes of total exposure. Object IC 1805, IC 1848, NGC 1027 Camera Hap Griffin Modified …
M31, more from Cherry Springs
I really should have spent more time per image, but I was so intoxicated with the dark skies that I jumped from object to object. My “neighbors” for the week were Bruce and Jill with Bruce being the imager, and he tended to do imaging of no more than two objects each night. But the …
M8, M20, and More…
Another shot from Cherry Springs State Park, this image has a few flaws starting with a failure on my part to check the focus very well. It doesn’t show in this 25% scaled down image, but yeah, it was out of focus. With a background near the galactic core in Sagittarius, these almost get lost …
Double Cluster from Cherry Springs
It will take some time to work through all the images from this last week to produce “final” products, but this is the first one. While I’ve known about Cherry Springs State Park for a long time, this was my first visit. I’m glad I went. This is the Double Cluster (NGC 869 and NGC …
Mars and Moon Conjunction
So I was up late and stepped out front to set out the garbage cans and couldn’t help but look up at the sky. Mars was just a couple of degrees away from the moon! Back inside to grab the camera and tripod for a quick shot Camera Canon T6i, IR cut filter modified Lens …
Attempting to Image the Veil from Brooklyn
Brooklyn, NY is a Bortle class 8 sky. On a good night. Really, that’s it. On a good, clear, low-humidity night, I can see all four stars in the trapezoid shape of Lyra and probably make out epsilon Lyrae as well. Toss in a little humidity or generally poor air quality and I lose all …
Mercury is Tiny!
This first photo is from 7:44 AM EST, shortly after the transit started. I saw both of the Venus transits (well, the second one was mostly clouded out, but that’s another story). Mercury is so much smaller. With Venus a filtered pair of binoculars at a mere 10X was enough to pick out Venus. I …
Mercury Transit Lessons Learned
The transit is in progress, I’m taking images, it’s actually all working, so what lessons? I usually do night time long exposure imaging. This is different. Set up before daybreak so you can polar align. Did that, check. Just like night time except you’re racing the sunrise. Turn the screen brightness on high for the …
Prelimary processing for M27 Image
Finally took a few minutes to do something with the images I took during the Summer Star Party. This is an LRGB composite of a single frame of each color for M27, the Dumbbell Nebula. We’re talking only about 2 minutes (or less!) exposure per color here. I need to take the time to combine …