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.

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.

Friday night there was a clear sky and I was able to spend a couple hours observing and imaging a great red spot (GRS) transit of the planet Jupiter.

I was not feeling well and I had told myself if there were any issues with the equipment it was going to be an observing only night. Luckily everything worked out OK.

The moon was nearly full so I knew I would not have much luck with deep sky objects but I did have a quick look at M42 in Orion (still one of my favorites). It looked nice but a little washed out. The next target was the planet Uranus. I was not expecting to be able to see it very well and was surprised when it the blue/green disk appeared in the eyepiece.

At around 7:45 PM I moved to Jupiter and set up the Celestron NexImage Camera. Seeing was actually OK early on and I was quickly able to get decent focus. I took a couple of quick test shots and things looked pretty good.

Over the next hour or so I took a series of 1 minute video captures of Jupiter to record the transit of the Great Red Spot across the planets surface. The seeing declined considerably after 8:30 or so and the wind picked up. The images are still OK but the earlier images have a bit more detail. Still pretty neat seeing the disturbance in the southern equatorial band caused by the GRS.

The GRS is noted on the flickr page for this image which can be found here.

As the wind picked up and seeing declined I decided to take a couple quick shots of the moon. I have not taken the time to identify the features yet, but the pictures turned out nice.

Just after 10 PM I decided to call it a night. A great observing and imaging session, hopefully it will not be such a long wait for the next one.

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

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!

Despite the bad seeing I think this image turned out pretty nice.

Saturn – 04/02/2011
Backyard – Suffolk, VA
Scope: Celestron C8-SGT
Mount Celestron CG5-Goto
Camera: Celestron NexImage Solar System Imager
600 frames – 120 second AVI 5 fps – 130 frames stacked
Stacked using RegiStax V5

If you look close you can just make out the Cassini Division in the rings. Look closely at the rings to the left and right of the planet and you can just make out the dark divide. Looking forward to getting another try at Saturn in better seeing.

It was actually a pretty nice night despite the seeing being kind of shaky. Visually the planet looked awesome and we could see 4 of Saturn’s moons.

The sky was very dark and after a getting a few shots of Saturn we took a look at M65, M66, M81, and M82.

Nice night to be out looking at the stars.

This picture was taken of Discovery on Pad 39A back in October 2010. The Rotating Service Structure (RSS) is in place protecting the Shuttle while payload is being loaded.

New launch dates were set in December but after cracks were discovered in the external tank these dates also passed and Shuttle Discovery was moved back into the Vehicle Assembly Building on Kennedy Space Center.

Repairs were made to the external tank and a new launch date was set for February 24, 2011. On January 31, 2011 Space Shuttle Discovery was again rolled out to launch pad 39A to be prepared for the historic final launch.

Sandy and I decided to make plans to drive down to view the February 24 launch. We took Thursday and Friday off work and planned to drive down at least most of the way on Wednesday night. We followed the mission status updates closely and it looked like all was going well for a launch on the 24th. We made plans to hang out a couple of days in the event Discovery did not fly on the 24th.

On the trip down a twitter update from NASA saying that Discovery was “Go” for launch and a 90% chance of favorable weather got us excited about the launch and I was checking #sts133 on twitter and the SpaceFlightNow mission status center regularly for updates. We drove well into the night and stopped for a rest in St. Augustine, FL.

Thursday morning we were up early, had a quick breakfast in the hotel, and then we were back on the road to Titusville. We arrived in Titusville just after 9:00 AM and there were already a lot of people in town, many had camped over night and we heard that some had even been there for several days. The main part of Space View Park was already packed with people but we found a nice spot in the shade on the south side of the park near the water. We did not know it at the time but we were in a prime spot to view the launch from the park.

The launch was scheduled for 4:50 PM EST and it was just a wait till then. A nap or two, an occasional walk to stretch out, chatting with some of the folks around us, and a 30 minute or so wait in the bathroom line to pass the time. There were people from all over, a group from Washington state behind us, a couple from Michigan beside us, some other folks from West Virginia, just people from everywhere there to see this historic launch. Some of them had witnessed past launches, others had not, and others, like us, had been there for the past scrubbed attempts and hoping that this time Discovery would fly.

A family in front of us had been there over night and had a large tent set up. They broke camp at about 3:00 PM and in an instant the empty area where the tent had been filled in with people. A few minutes later a couple in front of us would move to try and get just a couple feet closer and because of this we ended up with an incredible unobstructed view of the launch pad.

At around 4:30 PM you could feel the energy in the crowd as the time for launch neared. A speaker system was set up in the main area of the park and we were just in ear shot of it. Just before launch there was some talk on an issue with range safety, turns out this was a problem with a computer system used by the range safety officer. There was a count down of the time remaining in the launch window before the launch would have to be scrubbed for another day.

Then at 4:53 PM, just minutes before the launch window closed, Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off from launch pad 39A on it’s final mission. Cheers and applause from the crowd gave way to the clicks of camera shutters and then more cheers.

About a minute into the flight you could hear the rumble of the engines and you could feel the ground vibrate. At about 2 minutes into the flight the two solid rocket boosters (SRBs) separated from the main fuel tank as the shuttle continued on. In the light sky it was hard to see this but the camera picked up the two boosters moving away and the bright light from the shuttles main engines. In just over 3 minutes the shuttle and the 6 astronauts within it are beyond Earth’s atmosphere and in SPACE, in just over 8 minutes Discovery is in orbit on the way to rendezvous with the International Space Station. That is absolutely AMAZING!!!

To be there to see this was just incredible. Being there turned out to be both an inspiring and an emotional experience. The best I can come up with to describe it is WOW! The launch brought back memories of watching the launch of Columbia on STS-1, memories of the teachers bringing the TVs into class to watch launches during the early years of the Shuttle program when I was in middle school, memories of the tragic Challenger accident and the loss of Columbia, memories of each launch that I have watched on my computer in my office. It made me think of the courage of the crews that pilot the shuttle and all of the people that support the mission on the ground. I really cannot find the words needed to describe the feeling I felt watching Discovery lift off, I wish I could but I just keep coming back to WOW!

God speed to Discovery and crew. Have a safe and successful mission.

Some of my pictures from the launch turned out OK but I was really more into seeing and enjoying the launch than taking pictures. I am glad I did get a few good ones because I am sure I would have been upset if I had not. There is a gallery of the Discovery launch pictures here, enjoy. Sandy also took a great video of the launch which you can find here.

Seeing the launch was worth the missed attempts, the drive, the crowds, and the wait. If you have even a small chance of getting to see one of the final launches you should take it and experience a launch for yourself.

I am going to miss the shuttle program. I am glad Sandy and I were there to witness this historic final flight of Space Shuttle Discovery. I am already making plans to try to catch at least one of the two final launches of Endeavor and Atlantis.

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/

Mary Shannon and I arrived on site just before 5:00 PM and set up our Celestron C8-SGT. Ted arrived shortly after us with his 18″ Obsession Dob. Several other folks showed up after that and there was a good mix of scope including a 5″ refractor, a 14″ Dob, and a 6″ reflector.

The night started out mostly cloudy with a few stars peeking through holes in the clouds and Jupiter shining bright enough to even be seen through all but the thickest clouds. Because of the clouds I only did a Solar System align on Jupiter, I had pretty good polar alignment so that alignment worked well enough for the rest of the night. The sky cleared pretty nice just before 8 PM.

The “star” of the night, at least for me, was M37. This open cluster was absolutely beautiful with the central bright red/yellow star and it looked very nice in my 26mm SWAN filling nearly the entire field of view. A really nice view in the dark sky.

Also checked out a few other open clusters, M35, M41, and M44 along with M42 the Orion Nebula, M1 the Crab Nebula, and a few other bright Messier object. M45, the Pleiades, cluster looked awesome filling the field of my 50mm finder scope. The Pleiades cluster is so large that even at my lowest power on the C8 I am not able to get all of it in the eyepiece. I was able to get M81 and M82 in the same field of view using my 33mm SWAN and that was the first time I had seen them both in the same field on my scope so that was really neat.

I also had the chance to observe a few new objects. NGC2169, which is a small open cluster in Orion and NGC2261 the Hubble Variable Nebula. NGC2261 was very interesting, it looked a lot like a blue comet.

At around 9:45 PM a bank of clouds moved through and it looked like that was going to be the end of the night. I decided to pack up about 10:00 PM and shortly after putting the last piece of gear in the car the sky cleared so we hung out checking out the views in other scopes. Finally around 11:15 or so we called it a night.

Great time and I am looking forward to the next one.

It was cold, just over freezing, and dry in Suffolk. I set up my Stellarvue SV80BV to do some prime focus photos of the event. The full set of photos can be found here.

I took my first images around 1:30 AM and even though you could not see a shadow on the moon with the unaided eye the camera did pick up a bit of shadow starting to creep over the surface.

Around 2:10 AM or so some pretty heavy clouds started to move through, the moon was bright enough to be seen even through the clouds, but there was a period of time around 2:20 AM that the moon was completely blocked out and I thought that we may miss seeing totality.

Luckily the clouds moved off about as quickly as they moved in and by 2:30 or so the sky was crystal clear. Still a few thin clouds for the first photo below.

But then things started to clear up nicely.

During totality the moon was a nice red color and it was amazing how as the moon darkened the stars brightened. It was really cool to look through the eye piece and see a field of stars behind the moon, these stars are usually washed out during a full moon.

At around 4:00 AM I decided to call it a night and try to get a few hours sleep. It was great to see the eclipse and I am glad my picture came out as well as they did. The full set can be found in my Flickr Lunar Eclipse December 21, 2010 Set.