Comet Lovejoy (a single, 2-minute sub), Nov. 20, 2013

Lovejoy was well-positioned for imaging through a break in the trees in my backyard.  Clouds were not due till 7 am.
So I set up an imaging rig: wide field, color camera, and guidescope so I could try guiding on the comet.
I took some test images late evening, got some sleep, then woke up at 2:45.  Everything looked great!
I slewed to Procyon to focus, then over to the comet's location.  The comet was bright in the "find and focus" camera mode!  I was excited!
Guide calibration took five minutes.  I punched up 35 2-minute sub-frames and hit "go!"
A few seconds later I checked the guiding program and saw ... what's that?  Trees?  Am I into the trees?  I dashed outside.
Clouds!  Not just a few puffy trailblazers.  The whole sky was full!  Aargh!
There was a small break just south of the comet.  The clouds were moving nearly straight north.  I dashed back in, re-started the 2-minute frames, then hoped the break would last long enough for one.  It did!
I have one cloudless sub-frame of Lovejoy.  That was it.  The clouds never broke after that.  Fifteen minutes later I broke down the rig and pulled everything inside.
Lots of work for a two-minute sub.
Would I do it again?  Of course.

Telescope: Astro-Tech AT65EDQ and TeleVue NPR-1073 (eff. at f/5.2)
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9C (1x120"), Alnitak Flat-man flats
Filter: IDAS LPS-P2
Guiding: Meade DSI Pro and Hutech 50mm
Mount: Takahashi EM-10
Software: Nebulosity, Maxim DL, Photoshop CS3
Location: The Woodlands, TX 

Melotte 15 and IC 1805's Heart, Early Fall 2013

Full resolution image here.

Here is a slightly modified Hubble palette version of the cluster Melotte 15 and the heart of IC 1805.  To the bi-color I've added Sulfur II emission.  Now SII = Red, Ha+NII = Green, and OIII = Blue, though the colors have been shifted somewhat to emphasize the contrasts between them.

Telescope: Astro-Tech AT111EDT and William Optics AFR-IV (eff. at f/5.6)
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9 (Ha+NII:23x1200"; OIII:17x1200"; SII:18x1200"), Alnitak Flat-man flats
Filter: Astronomik Ha+NII, OIII, SII
Guiding: SX Lodestar and SX OAG
Mount: Takahashi NJP
Software: Nebulosity, Maxim DL, Registar, Photoshop CS3
Location: The Woodlands, TX

IC 1805 & Melotte 15, Bi-Color (Sept. & Oct. 2013)

Full resolution image here.

This is the brightest part of IC1805 in eastern Cassiopeia.  The star cluster to the right is Melotte 15.  What is stunning about this area is how the ionization fronts twist and turn next to the star cluster.

This is a bi-color image, but Ha[+NII] dominates the scene.  The OIII is present nearly everywhere the Ha exists, but is dimmer.  I've included both monochrome frames below, Ha then OIII.

Telescope: Astro-Tech AT111EDT and William Optics AFR-IV (eff. at f/5.6)
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9 (Ha+NII:23x1200"; OIII:17x1200"), Alnitak Flat-man flats
Filter: Astronomik Ha+NII & OIII
Guiding: SX Lodestar and SX OAG
Mount: Takahashi NJP
Software: Nebulosity, Maxim DL, Registar, Photoshop CS3
Location: The Woodlands, TX

M27 Bi-Color Narrowband (Sept. & Oct. 2013)

 

Full resolution image here.

M27 again.  Early in the summer I took some OIII of this object, but the frames had a guiding error.  They looked cool, though, so I've wanted to come back for more.  Also, I observed M27 from Bear Lake, Utah, this summer through my SV80ED.  It was stunning, a big cotton ball in the sky.  Too bad the imaging had to wait until late September, when M27 is only available for a few hours from my backyard.

This is a bi-color image, which in this case means that I concocted a synthetic green channel out of the OIII (80%) and Ha (20%) frames.  I opted to show OIII in blue rather than green (OIII is more green than blue) because red and blue look nicer to me than red and green.

Telescope: Astro-Tech AT111EDT and William Optics AFR-IV (eff. at f/5.6)
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9 (Ha+NII:13x1200"; OIII:9x1200"), Alnitak Flat-man flats
Filter: Astronomik Ha+NII & OIII
Guiding: SX Lodestar and SX OAG
Mount: Takahashi NJP
Software: Nebulosity, Maxim DL, Registar, Photoshop CS3
Location: The Woodlands, TX

Cassiopeia A or Cas A (October 8, 2013)

Cas A is a supernova remnant very near the Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635) and M52 in Cassiopeia.  Astronomers estimate that Cas A blew up around 300 years ago.  There is no certain historical record of the event, though one celestial cartographer recorded a star near this location that does not appear there now.

I have always wanted to see this object, and I was encouraged by Sue French's column in the November 2013 Sky & Telescope.  Ms. French said the remnant was visible in her 10-inch scope, so I thought it would be visible with my refractor and camera.  And here it is.  I was unable to find many amateur images of Cas A, but Ken Crawford's is spectacular.  The Chandra X-ray Observatory also has great material on Cas A, including a movie showing the movement of material in the nebula over a relatively few years.  The movie appears to show a central star that may be the neutron star left after the explosion.

This is not a pretty picture, just an observation.  I took only a few hours through a narrowband OIII filter, and the object is very dim.  I had to take an exposure of a few minutes just to find it.  But it's exciting to look at such an object and imagine the tremendous forces that created it and continue to operate there.  The remnant is roughly 11,000 light years away.

Telescope: Astro-Tech AT111EDT and William Optics AFR-IV (eff. at f/5.6)
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9 (OIII: 8x600"), Alnitak Flat-man flats
Filter: Astronomik OIII
Guiding: SX Lodestar and SX OAG
Mount: Takahashi NJP
Software: Nebulosity, Maxim DL, Photoshop CS3
Location: The Woodlands, TX

Train up a Child ... (Feb. 2013)

 

Gotta love this image.  My boy was four at the time.

NGC 7635, the Bubble Nebula (Sept. 24, 2013)

Full resolution image here.

OK, I've shot this before, but I needed a target after M27 set and before my next target came up.  Here it is.  This is the Bubble Nebula, or NGC 7635, in Cassiopeia.  It is a strange and wonderful object.  A very large, bright star is blasting the bubble out of a cloud of gas.  The star sits in what appears to be the upper right of the bubble.  Just below it is a knot of gas that the star is slowly blowing away with ultraviolet radiation.  The head of the knot glows like a star because it absorbs so much energy.  All the glowing gas you see here is ionized hydrogen and nitrogen, as the filter I used catches only those two.  The gas is glowing from radiation emanating from the same star.  It's such a dramatic scene!

Telescope: Astro-Tech AT111EDT and William Optics AFR-IV (eff. at f/5.6)
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9 (Ha-NII: 7x1200"), Alnitak Flat-man flats
Filter: Astronomik Ha-NII
Guiding: SX Lodestar and SX OAG
Mount: Takahashi NJP
Software: Nebulosity, Maxim DL, Photoshop CS3
Location: The Woodlands, TX