Planetary Alignment, May 27, 2013

  Higher resolution image here.

 

Higher resolution image here.

Here is Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter, starting at the top and moving clockwise, on the evening of May 27, 2013.  Of course, both images show better at higher resolution.  Canon T3i, 50mm f/1.8 II.

M3 (April 19, 2013)

Full resolution image here.

This globular cluster, known as M3 or Messier 3, brightens the sky in the constellation Canes Venatici.  It is roughly 33- to 39,000 light years away.  Globs are interesting, and they become more interesting the deeper one can see into them.  They contain so many stars that no telescope from earth could see them all.  One can always go deeper!  Yet deeper images and larger telescopes make the objects fascinating.

Telescope: Astro-Tech AT111EDT and William Optics AFR-IV (eff. at f/5.6)
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9 (RGB: 6:6:6 x 300" (1.5 hours)), Alnitak Flat-man flats
Filter: Astronomik RGB
Guiding: SX Lodestar and SX OAG
Mount: Takahashi NJP
Software: Nebulosity, Maxim DL, Photoshop CS3, Registar
Location: The Woodlands, TX

AT65EDQ Test Image (April 20, 2013)

Here is a test image taken through a new AT65EDQ.  This image was taken with the SXVF-H9C, a one-shot-color camera; you can see the color correction of the lens system is excellent.  I'm still trying to determine whether to swap out the stock focuser.  It held the equipment well but does not have the precision I'm used to.  Focus was a bit less snappy than I'm used to, too, and I'm not sure why.  But the image looks promising.

This is a bit over an hour (23x180").  Clouds were rolling in, and the moon was out.  The cluster is M13, of course.  I was anxious to see how stars looked in the corners of the full frame (small though this chip is), so I did not even bother to center the cluster.

Full resolution image here.

NGC 4631, the Whale Galaxy and the Remora (March & April, 2013)

Full resolution image here.

This asymmetrical galaxy is 13-25 million light years away in the constellation Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs).  The shape reminds some of a whale.  I'd say it's a baleen whale, almost certainly a gray, especially given the mottled appearance.

The galaxy immediately above the Whale is NGC 4627.  Probably the two are interacting gravitationally, and this may explain the asymmetrical appearance of each.  Together they are cataloged as #281 in Halton Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies.  I'd say if NGC 4631 is the Whale Galaxy then NGC 4627 is the Remora.

The image itself has a peculiar shape.  I took two sets of sub-frames, one in March and one in April.  The camera was placed at a slightly different angle with respect to the telescope in March than in April.  So I had edge lines in the final image.  Normally, I would crop all those out, but I wanted to show all of the little galaxies floating about in this part of the sky, especially the irregular galaxies, so I selected around all of them, then added a darker layer outside of the selection.  Exploring in this image is pretty fun.  You might compare the full resolution image to what is shown for this area in sky-map.org, linked at right. The dimmest stars in this image are magnitude +18.5.

Telescope: Astro-Tech AT111EDT and William Optics AFR-IV (eff. at f/5.6)
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9 (104x480" (13.86 hours)), Alnitak Flat-man flats
Filter: Astronomik CLS
Guiding: SX Lodestar and SX OAG
Mount: Takahashi NJP
Software: Nebulosity, Maxim DL, Photoshop CS3
Location: The Woodlands, TX

NGC 3628 (Dec. 2012 - Feb. 2013)

 Full resolution image here.

This galaxy appears in the constellation Leo and sits 35±14 million light years away.  Its asymmetries are thought attributable to interactions with nearby galaxies.  NGC 3628 is renowned for looking like a ham sandwich.  Here the sandwich is upside-down, and the toothpick is sticking out of the bottom—the toothpick is the small satellite galaxy or ripped-off piece of NGC 3628 that appears just below it in this image.

My best visual view of the galaxy was through an 8" Newtonian reflector from a dark site at 40x magnification.  The galaxy was a long, ghostly glow with a dark lane down the center—quite a stunning sight!  This image is just luminance.

Telescope: Astro-Tech AT111EDT and William Optics AFR-IV (eff. at f/5.6)
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9 (108x480" (14.4 hours)), Alnitak Flat-man flats
Filter: Astronomik CLS
Guiding: SX Lodestar and SX OAG
Mount: Takahashi NJP
Software: Nebulosity, Maxim DL, Photoshop CS3
Location: The Woodlands, TX

M109 (March 11 and 12, 2013)

Full resolution image here.

M109 is very roughly 81 million light years away, give or take 24 million.  We find it in Ursa Major very near one of the stars in the Big Dipper's bowl.  M109 is classed as a barred spiral.  It is the largest of a group of galaxies called, with affection, the M109 Group.  I've always found M109 fascinating.  This is my second image of it. Other galaxies are readily visible in the image.  The brightest of these are UGC 6923 (PGC 37553), on the left; UGC 6940, about 9:30 from M109; and UGC 6969 (PGC 37700), above and right of M109.  Some or none of these might be satellite galaxies of M109, but some folks think each of them is.  This image is shrunken slightly for noise reduction.

Telescope: Astro-Tech AT111EDT and William Optics AFR-IV (eff. at f/5.6)
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9 (24x900" for M109 and 17x900" for everything else---I had some sort of glow in 7 frames that did not cover the galaxy), Alnitak Flat-man flats
Filter: Astronomik CLS
Guiding: SX Lodestar and SX OAG
Mount: Takahashi NJP
Software: Nebulosity, Maxim DL, Photoshop CS3
Location: SHSU Observatory near Huntsville, TX; Starry Nights Bed and Breakfast near Wimberley, TX 

M81 (March 11 & 12, 2013)

Full resolution image here.

M81 is roughly 12 million light years away.  We see it in the constellation Ursa Major.  In fact, it sits just west of the Big Dipper's bowl.  M81 is the largest of a group of nearby galaxies called, with affection, the M81 group.  The galaxy just below (west of) M81 in the image is PGC 28757 or Holmberg IX, an irregular dwarf satellite galaxy of M81.  There are other, more distant galaxies in the image, too, but I have no idea what names they carry, or if they do.

This image was taken from skies darker than my normal location.   Distant galaxies are always better seen from darker skies.  The image is shrunken slightly for noise reduction.

If you look closely at the image above, you will see there are clouds to the left of M81 running from the top to the bottom of the image.  These are probably clouds of gas and dust within our own galaxy and have earned the name "Galactic Cirrus."  See here and here.  These clouds are very dimly lit.  They are more easily seen in this inverted version:

Telescope: Astro-Tech AT111EDT and William Optics AFR-IV (eff. at f/5.6)
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9 (29x900"), Alnitak Flat-man flats
Filter: Astronomik CLS
Guiding: SX Lodestar and SX OAG
Mount: Takahashi NJP
Software: Nebulosity, Maxim DL, Photoshop CS3
Location: SHSU Observatory near Huntsville, TX; Starry Nights Bed and Breakfast near Wimberley, TX