It's a-rainin' me...teors

Hey, it's been a long time (again). I feel like I've forgotten more than I ever knew about astronomy over the nearly 2 year blog hiatus but it's never too late to get back in the saddle.

Dew, no bueno

Last night was the peak of this year's Perseid meteor shower. I packed up my photo gear, my daughter packed up the bedding and snacks she requires, and we headed out to Mingo Observatory for a late night. The media likes to drum up excitement for the Perseids in particular by saying, "This shower is predicted to be very active!" This, of course, means nothing. Still, the main reason most of us go out and sit all night is the possibility of the ever elusive "meteor storm". I always assume this phenomenon occurs as soon as I call it a night, get in bed, and close my eyes. This is why you stay out until it's 3am and your camera lens has fogged over.

Car lights, also no bueno

The sky was clear and the moon had set in early evening, it was a perfect night. We arrived to quite the crowd out at the observatory. There had to have been 300 people there at one point. I was glad to see a large crowd out to stargaze but that also means there are cars (with giant bright lights blazing) and flashlights all over the place. This naturally makes photography, and even seeing the stars, difficult to say the least. Remember folks, when you're out observing, limit all white light (use red light if needed) and when arriving or leaving after dark use only your parking lights (trust me, you can see just fine, go slow).  It takes approx 45 minutes to fully adjust your eyes to the dark (you can see surprisingly well enough) but it only takes seconds to ruin that adjustment.

Enough lecturing, here's some shots. I captured very few meteors and some unfortunately were caught during a taillight parade. I did play around with some full Milky-Way panoramic stitches, you can definitely see the light pollution problem we face in SW PA.

This one happened just as my exposure stopped and cut it short.
Check out the green tail on it though!

This was prety cool but the car lights interfered a bit.

Starting to fog over the lens but nabbed this one.
You can see the Pleiades and even the Double Cluster (M103)

Pretty little guy in the Summer Triangle.
This was straight up.
Bonus points: find the "coat-hanger" asterism (Brocchi's cluster)

Milky-Way towards Sagittarius
Galactic center, lots of stuff going on in there

Milky-way up and over from South to North (upside down)
Thanks for all the light Pittsburgh.
11 frames stitched
Bonus points: find the Andromeda Galaxy

Dark skies of eastern New Mexico

On 7/22/12, the family and I drove from Pennsylvania to Arizona to visit my father and family.  It was a long stretch from St. Louis to Albuquerque but a couple hours before we hit the hotel we drove under some amazingly dark skies.  With much whining and gnashing of teeth from the back seat I pulled off at a random exit on I40 (marked Las Vegas) and into a field.  Stepping out of the car, there was a collective WOW from the wife and kids as they looked up and saw the brightest Milky Way they have ever seen arching from horizon to horizon as I dug my tripod out from under coolers and suitcases.

Unfortunately, it was very warm that night causing an INSANE amount of  nasty green noise in this 30 second exposure at ISO3200.  Needless to say MAJOR noise reduction work was needed in post processing to salvage this shot.  A car was nice enough to light the foreground for me and there was a thunderstorm in the distant horizon.  I could have spent hours out there but we were pressed for time, I'm just glad the boss let me stop at all.

In my normal observing location in northwest Pennsylvania, the "Teapot" of Sagittarius is fairly low on the horizon and the curve of Scorpius' tail dips below.  In the southern states both constellations are much higher meaning the bright center of our own galaxy is riding high in the southern sky giving a more spectacular view.

30s f4.5 @ ISO3200

rough constellation guides

pre noise reduction

Touring Sagittarius

Tuesday, June 10 was an exceptionally clear night.  Unfortunately, we had only 1.5 hours of true darkness before the last quarter moon crashed the party at around 12:30am.  We did a bit of visual observing since Randy adjusted the Meade RCX400's focus from "oooh, that's cool"  to "Holy Crap!" sharp.


Then we strapped my D90 with the business end of the William Optics Gran Turismo 81mm f9 telescope attached to the top of the RCX and got to work.  These images could have used quite a few more frames to stack but with the moonrise in 1 hour, time was of the essence.  I'd like to try again closer to the new moon.

Touring around the busy galactic center.  First we hit the Omega or Swan Nebula (M17) which, as you can see, is a nifty shaped star forming H II region located in the densely populated constellation Sagittarius.  I flipped this image 180 degrees to better show the "swan" shape

8, 1min frames stacked with DeepSkyStacker

The nearby Lagoon Nebula (M8),  also found in Sagittarius is a gorgeous emission nebula churning out stars like a champ.

6, 1min frames stacked with DeepSkyStacker

Just above Sagittarius in the constellation Serpens lies the Eagle Nebula.  The Pillars of Creation create that tiny silhouette of an eagle soaring upward clutching a fish.  An interesting fact (I just learned) is that the pillars have likely been destroyed by a supernova that could have been seen from Earth 1000-2000 years ago.  The light is just now reaching us from approx 6000 light years (35,271,752,239,101,650 miles!!!) away.
The mind-boggling size and distance of cosmic objects means that most of the things we see are drastically changed or completely gone at the same moment we are viewing them.

4, 1min frames stacked with DeepSkyStacker

This is the epic Sagittarius Star Cloud, a massive star field of many different kinds of stars giving it the many different colors.  This cloud is home to some of the oldest stars known.

1 min single exp