M37

Tonight I arrived home late. The sky was wonderfully clear. It was too late to set up for imaging. I took the 6" achromat out and wandered through Auriga and southern Gemini. Conclusion: It's hard to describe how beautiful M37 is. The other local clusters---M38, M36, M35---don't hold a candle to it. Yes, M38 has NGC 1907 nearby, and M35 has NGC 2158, but M37 doesn't need these crutches. It is stunning on its own in the 6" at 35x, where it fills the middle half of the view with sparkling gemstones on purple velvet. Whoa!

Lunar Occultation of Venus (4-22-09)

The occultation occurred for me around 7:25 am on 4-22-09. The images were taken with a Canon XTi through a Canon 50mm f/1.8, a Nikon 200mm f/4, and a Meade AR6. Some of these images were published at Spaceweather.com (see the link here or go directly to here).

Luna in the AR6 (3-3-2009) --- The "Lunar X"

This is not a bad image considering the high clouds and haze through which it was shot. It is a single exposure with the XTi through the AR6 at prime focus. The upper image has been processed further in PSE7. The upper image includes the famous "Lunar X" described here and here.

Trapezium Stars E & F, AR6, and Atik 16

The Trapezium of Orion! These six stars (you must click on the picture to see the larger image) are gravitationally bound. This is a "multiple star," not just a double or triple star. There are several others in the same tiny group. In fact, you can see in this image a hint of a few others---perhaps G, H, and I---if you compare this image with the one near the bottom of this link. There may even be other stars shown in this image. Look at the blobby shape of the lowest star. It turns out that faint stars exist just to the lower left and right of this star. My little AR6 with this makeshift imaging system can't resolve them, but perhaps light from these stars is deforming this component of cluster. (Thanks to Anjal Sharma of the Huntsville Amateur Astronomy Society for pointing out the deformation and the possibility of other stars there.)

Anyone who reads this blog much knows that I check the Trapezium almost every time it is up and I am out. I take great delight in seeing the four stars hanging together in the sky. I am even more delighted when I see the E and F components. I've described them here and in three earlier posts. But they are so easy to see in the AR6! Moreover, they are bright stars. So I figured: The focal length of the AR6 is 1219mm. If I can attach the Atik 16 to the AR6 and use an Ha filter, I can take many very short exposures and stack them to show the E and F components. This is the result. This is unguided on the LXD75, and it was pretty shaky. In fact, this is only 28 out of the 100 sub-exposures I took, but they were only 1- or 2-second subs, so I didn't lose much time. Shakiness and "seeing" took a toll. Also, the thing took some time to set up. I was afraid Orion would move behind my neighbors' tree before I was finished. In the end, I had 30 minutes to spare. The Ha filter is an Astronomik 13nm bandwidth. One key to the process was Nebulosity's Drizzle function, which yielded a better resolution than mere stacking or combining.

Here are two great images of the Trapezium by Samir Kharusi and Roland Christen. Both make me want to try again soon.