The Suffolk Sky » m81

M81 and M82 on March 20, 2010

Hersey — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:41:07 +0000

Pretty nice night. Pretty clear, a few high thin clouds passing every once in a while, and the air was fairly still. The temperature was around 60 the whole time I was out. The seeing is generally much better when it is cool and crisp outside, but it sure was nice to be out with out having to wear ten layers.

Here is an image of M81 (in the center) and M82 (to the left) I took last night.

This image is a stack of 18 2 minute exposures at ISO800 with my Nikon D60 through my AstroTech 66ED.

The polar alignment routine on the Celestron GOTO is pretty slick. I do a manual rough polar alignment using the polar alignment scope in the mount, then I do the two star alignment with a calibration start, then use the polar alignment on the hand controller to get it dialed in, then reset to the indexes and do another 2 star align – even though this process takes a bit of time, you do end up with a pretty good polar alignment.

I took the time to get a good polar alignment, but did not feel like setting up the laptop and everything for the guide camera. I was not going to do any imaging at all, but since I did have a a pretty good alignment and it was clear, I decided to go ahead and attach the camera to the 66 and take some shots while I observed visually through the C8. The alignment was good enough that out of the 20 2 minute exposures I took, 18 of them were good enough to stack. Next time I will set up the autoguider and try for longer exposures.

I also took a few exposures of M66 and M65, but I have not finished stacking and processing them yet. I will probably post them in a few days.

M81, M82, Saturn and Something ??? – 04/26/09

Hersey — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:33:53 +0000

Pretty warm out but the sky was very clear. First time in several weeks that time and the weather allowed for some stargazing. Also the first time I have been out this year where I did not need a jacket. Biggest problem with the warmer weather is the bugs and there were plenty of them out. I still had a great time observing.

I was able to observe M81, M82, Sombrero Galaxy (M104), Whirlpool Galaxy (M51), Ghost of Jupiter, and Saturn.

Here are a couple of piggy back shots I took.

M81 and M82 - Piggyback 100mm 2 Minute

Below is a piggy back picture of Saturn using the 100mm Sigma on my Nikon D60. Anyone have any idea what that green fuzzy up and to the left of Saturn is?

Saturn and ??? - Piggyback 100mm 2 Minutes

I checked Stellarium and looked around the ‘net but I have not been able to identify what this object is. Please leave a comment if you can identify it. Thanks.

Suppose to be clear again tonight so I hope to get some prime focus shots of M51, M104, M81, M82, and maybe the Ghost of Jupiter.

Prime Focus Images from 1/31/09

Hersey — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 20:37:39 +0000

Here are the images from last night. I will post my observation log later. I think the images of M3 and M42 turned out very nice.

M3 - Prime Focus - 11x1min ISO 800

M42 - Prime Focus - 11x1min ISO 800

M53 - Prime Focus - 10x1min ISO 800

I think I should have done longer exposures of M81 and M104. You can see them, but there is not really any detail. On M104 you can just make out the edge. They looked much better through the eye piece.

M81 - Prime Focus 10x1min ISO 800

M104 - Prime Focus - 11x1min ISO 800