Solar eclipse or not........

Diary entry for March 21st 2015 just reads "Bugger"

Alas the weather as usual blotted out ANY view at all of the solar eclipse. Right on cue at 11.30 the skies cleared to reveal what the remainder of a lovely spring day. I am of course disappointed that I didn't get to see anything. However I get get some pics of the Jan 4th 2011.

 

 So at least this post is totally wasted.

A trio in Leo.

Unfortunately I have been ill and off work these past few months and my astronomy has taken a back seat. along with my cycling and my passion for just about everything that means the world to me.  I have been outside just 3 times since. I am now thankfully on the road to recovery with the support of my wonderful partner & family plus some great close friends. Mentioning no names Des & Phil oops, and once again my love for astronomy and everything else is returning. Also a big thanks also to all my colleagues that have asked after me at work. most of which have a gander as to what this astro geek gets up to at night. I enjoy talking to you guys & gals about my amazing hobby.

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Looking back over some old images. I found the ever popular Leo triplet of galaxies. Taken with the Canon 40D. I knew I could improve on it so that was the nights target. Taken through the Williams Optics GT81 and using 20 minute guided sub exposures. Calibrated with Dark frames in Maxim DL5. Processed in photoshop. This final cropped image is 3 hours of data. A very pleasing result Perfect focus and some lovely lane structure in all 3 galaxies.

Me being me I wasn't just satisfied with that. So I loaded Carte Du Ceil and had a closer look. I downloaded the PGC Principle Galaxies Catalogue and brought up my field of view.  The field lit up with large number of very little red dots. I loaded side by side Photoshop with my image. It soon became very clear that I had a deep image. The 15th- 18th magnitude galaxies were easily visible. After finding a few dozen I thought I should mark them and see how many I could find. There was a few places I must have missed as I seem to be adding more each time I    look. So far the total is 153 and counting.

The fainter galaxies were somewhat more of a challenge.

The image has been plate solved and I needed this to locate and verify the position of the objects that were barely visible even at 400 x  zoom in Photoshop. But I did find that an inverse of the frame gives greater contrast as some of the faintest smudges are just a couple of shades brighter than the background.

Incredibly small movements in the mouse movement moved the RA and DEC by arc seconds across the frame and CDC confirms the location of PGC 3542189. As I mentioned earlier the subtle difference in colour in the centre of the square with a contrast boost and inverted. reveals the presence of this Magnitude 20.31 Galaxy. Position confirmed as RA:11:18:17 and 
DEC :13:03:11. Unfortunately I am unable to find any information on the galaxy type or distance / redshift other than it has been catalogued.

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 I just picked up on my emails to learn  that our society http://www.brecklandastro.org.uk/ will again host the presenters of the Sky at night programme for a piece based on the HST. and it's deep field images. I think I will point the scopes next clear night and put in a contribution of my own deep field. They may be interested in what I have just done as well as a previous post on M97 & M108 with some very distant quasars. We will wait and see.

Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy animation

They say an image speaks a thousand words.

So for me an animation speakes a whole volume.

This will be the 3rd animation I have done that shows the movement

of a comet. This one is of course Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy.

 

 

26 Frames of 2 minute exposures. Animation created in Maxim DL after a DDP stretch, & Crop in Imagesplus.

 

I hope we get a few more clear nights to have another go. Rapidly moving North also it has  moved over 10 degrees in 3 days since imaging on Saturday night.

Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy

Discovered on the 17th August by the renound Terry Lovejoy with a very modest set up 8 " Schmidt–Cassegrain telescope. C2014 Q2  was discovered at apparent magnitude 15 in the southern constellation of Puppis, from his observatory in Brisbane, Australia. This long period comet has arrived at an inclination of 80 degrees so we can be sure it originated from the Oort cloud. Orbital calculations show that this passage of the comet was 11,000 years. But our solar system have had a dramatic effect pulling on the comet and reduced it's next pass to 8,000 years.

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We have had to wait until late December to get our first glimpse in the northern hemisphere. My first visual and 2nd "Lovejoy" comet was Tuesday 6th at the Ellingham observatory using the 20". The nucleus virtually filled the eyepice and was also a very pleasing sight in the binoculars. The recent high winds have slowed and the forecast for last night was to be clear. Dome open as early as possible allowing scopes to reach ambient temperture. CCD cooled to minus 27 degrees (outside temp 3degrees), scope pointed and centered on the trees across the road from me, awaiting it's rise above the treeline. First image captured at 18.29. A series of 23 x 2 minute exposures. Cropped and overprocessed to show the tail structure.

I have cropped further for the second image and produced an inverse or negative. To me this is more impressive as it clearly shows the tidal ribbons of dust. Images in late December showed some tail disconnection, powerful solar winds cause these disconnections and came sometimes rip a stream from the tail completely. Nothing visible here although the larger central portion appears to be snaking back nicely with the solar wind.

 

 

 

 

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These images are the same series as above but processed a little differntly to focus on just the comet nucleus. Virtually no tail structure can be seen here but for me a more realistic and cleaner image of it's icy core. Iam also amazed at the colours. "The colour is likely due to the presence of two gases cyanogen (CN)2 and diatomic carbon (C2) which glow green when their molecules are ionised or excited.

                                         

 

"Ionisation causes electrons within the molecules to gain energy and when the electrons drop back down to their normal state, they give off light of a certain wavelength. For these molecules, they emit green light and since they are very strong emitters, their green colour dominates the comet."

 

 

 

 

Still wanting a little more, I gave the image an extreme crop on the nucleus and removed colour. What I cant tell is have I captured the nucleus shape or is this just pixel drift?. Tell me what you think. Your comment always welcomed.

 

 

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First post for a long while, Last one of the year.

Due to illness this has been my first post for a few months now. It was great to go out to my observatory and dust off the cobwebs and roll back the roof. I am lucky in that once I have powered & set up approx 10 minutes I can then control all my imaging from the comfort of inside the house. No more endless hours in the cold. Through the 35 years or so I have been an astronomer I feel i have earned & done my time in the cold. I was surprised that everything was working well. I decided an easy target to get me back into the swing. Due to the moon's presence I limited the exposures to 5 minutes. A total of 2 hours 20 minutes has given me this result. I also took a number of 10 second exposures, so the final result was not to over expose the core. Taken through the William Optics GT81. No calibration frames used. Just processed in Photoshop. I hope to return with longer exposures to capture the outer shell of gas. Looking forward to posting pics of Comet Lovejoy too soon.

Pac Man Nebula NGC281

I was at the club observatory last week with Dan Self http://farawaythings.blogspot.co.uk/ using the 20" to observe a few faint fuzzies. A target that I have been wanting to image was the Pac Man nebula Ngc 281 so the opportunity to capture it visually too was one to good to pass up. Through the eyepiece, Time to dark adapt is essential as the nebula was large but very diffuse. Concentrating the eyes on IC1590 the open cluster the surrounding nebulosity started to permeate on the retina and come to view.

My capture here is 5 x 20 minute guided exposures through the GT81 refractor. Processed in Maxim DL and Photoshop. Levels & curves, saturation, high pass filter, unsharp mask, layer mask blending & a few selectice star spikes has produced a nicely balanced & saturated Image.

Comet C/2012 K1 (PANSTARRS)

Most of my viewers on the blog know that I post on facebook aswell under my own page and that of our society Breckland AS https://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/groups/176906152365752/. Please visit our page and join in with the many topics of discussion as well as viewing our wonderful collection of images, Taken by club members and their scopes.

 

I hope you enjoy what we have to offer.

 

 

Well it appears that I had stored some data for processing another day. I had done this in April and had taken a few images of Comet C/2012 K1 PanSTARRS. Take when the comet was approx 3 degrees from Alkaid. Just 8 x 5 minute exposures taken. No calibration frames used. Processed in Deep sky stacker using comet stack. processed twice to align background stars and once again on the comet. I have combined them in Photshop. Currently searching the disc drive for any other unused data.....

 

Another Once in a lifetime Comet. C/2014 E2 Jacques

We have been treated to a few bright comets over the last year and once again treated to another dance across the heavens. A possible collision event somewhere deep in the Oort cloud has sent another cosmic interloper to grace our skies. Comet C/2014 E2 Jacques is a long period comet of approx 30,000 years, so last seen 1200 generations ago when the Neanderthals and modern man were developing stone tools and art whilst enduring what was earths last last ice age.....
I too have endurred a few recent problems with the DDG focusser on the FLT110 scope and will need to be replaced for sure. So I have for the purpose of this comet removed the Starlight express and replaced it with the Canon 40D. Better for short exposures on what was the guide scope William optics GT81. Offering a nice 2.6 x 1.7 degree fov. The GT 81 boast a flat field lens which performed well on it's first test with the Canon. No coma issues at all.

So my aim was to:
Capture enough frames to put together an animation showing its motion.
Use Deep sky stacker software to Comet stack, Star stack and merge the two together.
The final result is noisy for two reasons capture was @Iso 1600 and there were no calibration frames used. (no time to acquire them) It is also a shame that 4 minute exposures was never going to be long enough to capture the Heart & soul nebula that it lies between in my image.

So first up the animation. 14 frames of 4 minute exposures separated by 1 minute intervals.

Next the comet stack from Deep sky stacker. Sigma clipped to remove most of the stars.

 

 

Final processed image of star field & comet.

I think I will also try the same process in maxim as the stars are not right. But for now it is another comet bagged & tagged.

 

That reminds me I will have to dig out some of my comet Hale Bopp photos and scan them in and post. Them were the days when comets had 2 tails you could see naked eye. We need another Hale Bopp.

 

perigee-syzygy

I am trying to refain from using the term "Supermoon", as it seems to inspire some strange questions from those whom think my interest in Selenology is being a member of the Celine Dion fan club.
No it won't start earthquakes.
No it wont cause a Tsunami.
No the world will not end..............

Therefore you can see my reluctance in using the phrase. The term "Supermoon" was first coined by an astrologer Richard Nolle way back in 1979 He claimed that this proximity of the Moon and the Earth has the tendency to trigger a series of natural disasters on the planet. In order to support his claim, he put forth a list of natural disasters in the past which he alleges happened as a result of this phenomenon. I say "WHAT A LOAD OF TOSH" So as you can see it is what you would expect from an astrologer. (pretend science) sniggering as I type.

Science fact.

Everybody knows that the Moon orbits around the Earth, but only a few people are aware of the fact that its orbit is not round, but is elliptical in shape. As a result of this shape, the distance between the Earth and moon varies from time to time. When the Moon is at its farthest point from the Earth, it is referred to as 'lunar apogee', and when it is at its closest it is referred to as 'lunar perigee'. In other words, the distance between the Earth and the Moon fluctuates between 221,000 to 252,000 miles - and lunar perigee occurs when this distance is somewhere around 221,000 miles.

My Image was taken last night between 21.39 & 21.42 at a mean distance of 222,483 miles.

Using my William Optics GT81 and my trusty Canon 40D I captured segments of the moon in series of AVI files. Processed in Registax 6 with a wavelet sharpening. Stitched together in Photoshop with a small contrast enhancement.

The opinions expressed about Astrology in this post are entirely my own.

M27.

After capturing some swan nebula data. I refocussed and aimed high to the ever enigmatic Dumbell nebula.

 

5 x 20 sub frames, calibrated in axim DL and photoshop processed has produced a nice image with good colour. Unfortunatly I do not have full dome automation and closed the shutter and went to bed at 2.30 am. I am sure a revisit for some more data to add wouldn't go amiss.

M17 The swan Nebula

It has been a very long time since we have had a decent run of good weather here. Plus I have just started 2 weeks holiday with some clear skies so things are really looking up for us astronomers literally !!

We all know how low the constellation of Sagittarius is from the UK, I can see part of the teapot asterism for a short period coming from behind some poplar trees crossing our lane the disappearing as quick as it arrived behind the front wall of my house. I recently saw a post of M17 with some lovely detail and colour. I wanted to see what I could capture in a very short space of time. I have captured here 4 x 600 second exposures calibrated in Maxim DL. Processed in photoshop.