The Suffolk Sky

Horsehead Nebula – 01/15/2012

Sunday night was beautiful. A little cool but very clear. I had left my equipment set up just as it was Saturday night so everything was still aligned pretty well. Just a few minor tweaks and the GOTOs and guiding were spot on. Love it when you slew to an object and GOTO puts it dead center field of view (and stays that way). Guiding was working very well, only having to make minor adjustments. I have an error in my mount that shows itself about every half an hour or so were Dec goes a bit hairy. On this night the error was there but the guider was able to correct it without chasing it (so awesome when things work well ).

I was originally planing to get some more time on M78 but I started by taking a couple of guided 5 minute shots of the Horsehead Nebula (IC 434) with very good results. I ended up with nearly 2 1/2 hours of exposures, with just over 2 hours of them usable. This is my best image of the Horsehead Nebula yet. Really helps when you can increase the exposure time.

This image was taken using my AT66ED with the Orion Star Shoot DSI II guided with the Orion StarShoot Autoguider on the Celestron C6. The image is a stack of 25 x 5 minute exposures combined with 5 x 5 minute darks.

Several of us had just had some discussions about the Horsehead Nebula at BBAA SkyWatch on Friday. This is one of the few things I have imaged that I have not been able to see through the eyepiece. I have tried through my scope and through others but I have not been able to make out this faint Nebula in Orion’s belt.

Very happy with this one.

NGC2024 and M78 Images from 01/14/2012

Here are my images from Saturday 01/14/2012. Started out really cloudy but then cleared for a bit. Clouds rolled back in again just after midnight.

My equipment was working great. I love it when everything gets set up and works just like it is suppose to with out having to spend tons of observing or imaging time to get things right. Tonight was one of those nights. Alignment was right on, GOTOs were perfect, and guiding was making the corrections as it should.

These images were taken with my Orion Star Shoot DSI II camera through my AT66 while guiding with Starshoot Autoguider on the Celestron C6.

This image is 15 x 2 minute exposures of the Flame Nebula (NGC2024) in Orion. Equipment was working well and guiding was right on. I think it turned out nice. Next time I will up the exposure time a bit more. There is still a lot of detail in there that can be brought out with more data.

Messier 78 (M78) in Orion was my second target of the night. Again this is 15 x 2 minute exposures. I would have taken more of this one but the clouds moved in and ended imaging for the night. I really need to revisit this one and get some longer exposures.

While I was taking the darks and before the clouds obscured everything but the rising moon I took a few minutes to check out Mars. Could not make out any details but the red planet is bright and easy to find. Will be focusing a camera on Mars soon.

M51 Whirlpool Galaxy with Supernova

Check it out! A supernova in M51 the Whirlpool Galaxy. Pretty cool stuff.

More information on the supernova can be found here www.universetoday.com/86261/supernova-discovered-in-m51-t…

The supernova is tagged on the Flickr page which can be found here http://www.flickr.com/photos/herseyc/5797898286/.

M51- Whirlpool Galaxy with Supernova
06/03/2011 – Suffolk, VA
Camera: Orion Star Shoot DSI II
Scope: Astro-Tech 66 ED
Focal Length: 400mm
Mount: Celestron AS-CG5 GOTO
Exposures: 30 x 2 minute
Guided: Yes – Celestron C6-SGT/Orion Starshoot Autoguider/PHD
Stacked with DeepSky Stacker 3.3.2

Galaxy Weekend!

A couple galaxy shots I took last weekend.

First was M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy. This is a stack of thirty 60 second shots through the AT66 with my Orion StarShooter DSI II. I guided through the C6-SCT. I think it turned out pretty good.

This is M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy. Again it is a stack of thirty 60 second shots through the AT66 with my StarShooter DSI II and guided with the C6. Unfortunately it was directly over my neighbors house and their motion activated flood lights kept coming on. You can make out the Pinwheel but there is a lot o noise there. Will definitely try this one again soon.

Hoping for a clear sky this weekend so I can get a few more shots.

Go outside and look up!

Imaging/Observing Log – January 29, 2011 – IC434 (Horsehead Nebula) and M42 (Orion Nebula)

I wanted to get these posted to share. I will update with details fore each before the end of the week. Enjoy…

The Orion Nebula (M42)

Flickr link for this image is http://www.flickr.com/photos/herseyc/5401039974/in/photostream/

Open Cluster – M37

Flickr link for this image is http://www.flickr.com/photos/herseyc/5401127642/in/photostream/

The Horsehead Nebula – IC434

Flickr link for this image is http://www.flickr.com/photos/herseyc/5400436753/in/photostream/

Imaging/Observation Log – 11/27 and 11/28/2010 – NGC1055, NGC6960, and NGC457

An absolutely great weekend. It was pretty chilly out but the sky was nice and clear on both Saturday and Sunday night.

I was looking for a nice deep sky galaxy target for Saturday night and after looking at M74, NGC7331, and NGC1055 I decided on NGC1055 as the object I was going to image. I ended up having nothing but problems. I could not get the autoguider to work, tried using both the camera port and the ASCOM driver but I was not able to get the mount to guide consistently for more than 5 or 6 minutes.

I took over 90 minutes or exposures but only ended up with 15 or so where the stars were even somewhat round. Here is what I was able to get with 15 2 minute exposures.

Here is the Flickr page for NGC1055

Not very pretty but the faint galaxy NGC1055 is there.

I had much better luck on Sunday night. I found that the mount was a bit off balance and I have a feeling that was what caused the guiding issue on Saturday. I was able to guide for over an hour without any issues while imaging NGC6960, the Veil Nebula, and I think the picture turned out nice. It is a stack of 34×2 minute exposures. NGC6960 is also known as the Veil Nebula and this is only a small piece of it. I plan to have another go at this with my DSLR to get a wider field.

Here is the Flickr page for NGC6960

A couple weeks ago I created a small diffraction mask for the AT66. Nothing fancy, just a piece of card board cut to fit over the AT66′s dew shield and two pieces of thin elastic strings. I decided to give it a try on NGC457, the Owl Cluster. Again, guiding was working well and I was able to get 30 minutes of usable exposures (15 x 2 minutes). The diffraction spikes can be seen in the bright stars. I think it worked pretty well, but I think the elastic strings need to be a bit thinner, I’ll have to see what I can come up with.

The Flickr page for NGC457 can be found here.

Imaging/Observation Log – 11/06/2010 – M33 Triangulum Galaxy

This weekend was my first chance in several weeks to do some imaging. Things have been busy and when I have had down time either the clouds moved in or I just had time for a quick look. The weather report for the weekend was promising – mostly clear and cool. Friday night there were a few clouds moving through so I really did not do any imaging. I took the time to get the mount balanced and aligned and get the guiding working.

Saturday night was clear and cool (cold actually). The mount had a good polar alignment and was balanced well thanks to my efforts the night before. Seeing was pretty good – probably a 7 maybe even an 8, as was transparency at about 7-8. I decided to focus my imaging efforts on a single target – Messier 33 (M33) Triangulum Galaxy.

My guiding was working pretty well I was able to guide rock solid for 35 minutes then there were some issues, I think maybe there is a bad place in the mount since I have had this issue before. I need to take the time to look into this so I can get some longer exposures and sets, but it was cold and I was happy with what I had. I took a little over 30 minutes of 2 minute exposures of M33 and ended up with 13 very nice subs to stack. I also took 10 minutes of darks (5 x 120 seconds) to use.

Here is a quick shot I took of the laptop while imaging. You can see the PHD Guiding window to the left and the Maxim DL Essentials window (with M33) on the right.

The image of M33 is a stack of 13 120 second color images taken with the Orion Star Shoot DSI II attached to my Astro-Tech 66mm scope (400mm Focal length), no other filters, reducers or correctors were used. I used my Celestron C6 SCT (with f/6.3 focal reducer) and the Orion Star Shoot autoguider camera to guide.

This is just the stack and adjustment of the RGB, Luminance, and saturation in Deep Sky Stacker. I did not do any post processing clean up in gimp (except to convert it to jpeg).

I am really happy with this image and I learn a bit more each time I go out. This is definitely a nice target that I will revisit.

Flickr page for this image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/herseyc/5154280096/

I have some narrow-band filters on the way so I am looking forward to experimenting with them

Observation/Imaging Log – 09/04/2010

Date: 9/4/2010
Time: 9:00 PM – 12:00 AM EDT
Scope: Astro-Tech 66mm ED
Guidescope: Celestron C6-SGT
Mount: Celestron Advance CG5 GOTO
Eyepieces: 25mm Plossl for alignment
Location: Backyard, Suffolk, VA
Weather: Cooler, very clear, a little humid.
Transparency: 7/8 Seeing: 6
Alignment Stars: Arcturus, Antares
Calibration Stars: Deneb, Caph, Albireo
Hand Controller Polar Align Routine on Antares.

Very nice clear night. The Milky Way was easily visible across the sky, which is unusual for my backyard, the light pollution usually does it in. I was also able to see all the stars in the little dipper without assistance. So a very nice night for observing.

I was set up to image but I did have a look at M27 and M31 through both scopes with the 25mm Plossl and both resolved nicely. M31 was still very low but bright and the bright galactic core was very easy to resolve in both scopes. M27 was nearly directly overhead and looked fantastic.

I also check out M22. In the C6 it was very easy to resolve individual stars, it also looked great in the 66 but it was not as easy to see individual members.

My first target for imaging was Messier 11 (M11) – The Wild Duck Cluster. I took fifteen 60 second exposures with the Orion Starshoot DSI II through the Astro-Tech 66mm guided with the Starshoot Autoguider on the Celestron C6-SGT and ended up with a twelve minutes (12×60 seconds)to stack. I had a little problem with the guiding after about 10 minutes and this caused some issues with the last few shots.

I think I need to work on this a bit more. It looks a little over exposed to me. I am going to try to reprocess what I have and will definitely spend some more time on this in the near future. It really is a nice looking cluster.

The next target was Messier 16 (M16) – The Eagle Nebula. I calibrated the autoguider and it seemed to be working well. I started with 10 60 second exposures and these turned out nice so I up the exposures to 120 seconds. I ended up with twenty minutes (10 x 120 seconds) of exposures with the Orion StarShoot DSI II through the Astro-Tech 66mm guided with the StarShoot Autoguider on the Celestron C6-SGT and I think it turned out very nice.

I also took some images of M31 but they were all junk. I am not sure why. I was having a few issues with the autoguider, not sure if there was a balance issue, if it had something to do with where M31 was in the sky, or what but I just could not get it work right.

All in all a great night to be out looking at the stars.

BBAA Skywatch – 09/03/2010

Date: 09/03/2010
Time: 8:00 PM – 11:00 PM EDT
Scope: Celestron C8-SGT
Mount: Celestron Advance CG5 GOTO
Eyepieces: APM 26mm SWA, 16mm Nagler
Location: Northwest River Park, Chesapeake, VA
Weather: Warm, VERY humid
Transparency: 7 Seeing: 6

Alignment Stars: Arcturus, Vega

Luck for us Hurricane Earl ended up just brushing by and the rain and wind stopped in the early afternoon on Friday. The sky cleared just in time for the BBAA Skywatch at Northwest River Park in Chesapeake. There were four scopes set up, on big Dob, a 6″ (??) refractor, a smaller reflector, and I had my 8″ SCT.

There were a ton of cub scouts out there and this made getting things set up a bit frustrating. It is cool, they were all just very excited to look through the scopes and that is really what we are out there for. The humidity was very high and dew heaters on all the scopes were working over time. The dew got to the small reflector pretty quick which left only 3 scopes and a bunch of anxious cub scouts. Several of the scouts asked some really great questions and I think they had a pretty good time looking through scopes.

This was my first time with my 8″ scope in the field. It took me several attempts to get it aligned but once it was it was dead on for the entire night. My DIY field power supply did great. It is powered by a 12 volt 105 amp hour marine deep cycle battery and it had no problem powering the mount and dew heater for the time we were set up.

I did not keep a very detailed log, just a list of objects. M27, M22, M11, M17, M15, M10, and M12. Jupiter rose above the trees about 10:00 or so and looked great.

One object that I did get a pretty good view of was M71. So far every time I have attempted this one in my backyard the light pollution (or moon light) has made it impossible to find. With the clear dark sky I was able to find M71 and it looked great. In the 8″ scope, M71 appeared as a tight faint cluster of stars, it was hard to resolve any individual members.

All in all it was a great Skywatch and I am already looking forward to the next one scheduled for Friday, October 1, 2010.

Observation Log – 8/28/2010

Date: 8/28/2010
Time: 9:45 PM – 12:00 AM EDT
Scope: Stellarvue 80BV
Mount: Celestron Advance CG5 GOTO
Eyepieces: 16mm Nagler, 7mm Nagler, 4mm Radian
Location: Backyard, Suffolk, VA
Weather: Warm, clear, humid.
Transparency: 4 Seeing: 6/7
Moon: Bright Waning Gibbous
Alignment Stars: Arcturus, Vega
Calibration Stars: Caph, Deneb

I knew the moon was going to be fairly bright, but I wanted to have a look at and maybe try to get an image or two of Jupiter. It was nice and clear, a bit warm, and very humid.

I recently picked up a 16mm Nagler on Astromart and was looking forward to giving it a try in the SV80BV – WOW! This will probably end up being my main eyepiece for this scope. Nice crisp views, sharp focus, just very nice. Since it is a 1.25″ eyepiece I stuck with all 1.25″ eyepieces so I did not have to keep switching out the 2″-1.25″ adapter.

The notes in my log are not as I usually do them – Object: Description of what I see. This time they are a bit more free form, I guess I was just not feeling very structured during this session.

I tried to check out several Messier objects before moon rise, but even with the moon over the horizon the bright light from it still made a wash of the night sky. I did get a view or M27, M57, M13, and M15 but because of the bright moon light I was not able to see very much detail for any of these. M13 was very faint and I was not able to resolve and individual stars with either the 16mm or 7mm eyepieces. M27 looked like a faint bubble and showed no detail.

Jupiter was just awesome! Very clear and crisp in the 16mm and 7mm. Even very nice and sharp in the 4mm Radian. Lots of detail in the 4mm – one dark band and at least two visible lighter bands. The views through the eyepiece were just spectacular! The four Galilean moons of Jupiter were very bright and easy to spot. I could keep all of them in the FOV of the 16mm and 7mm eyepieces. (I made a rough sketch of their position in my log, I might scan it later)

I hooked up the Orion DSI II camera to the Televue 2x Powermate and took 100 exposures at 0.04 second and 100 exposures at 0.05 second. I was a bit out of focus on the second set so they are pretty much trash, but after stacking the 100/0.04 seconds I ended up with my best Jupiter image yet.

I ended the night with a look at M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. Even with the bright moon the galactic center was easy to find and looked very nice in the 16mm. With a darker sky I think this object will end up looking amazing with this eyepiece through this scope.