Age of Aquarids

Last weekend had beautiful clear skies and was pretty close to the peak of the Eta-Aquarid meteor shower so I spend the night at the Observatory at Bisbee Hill.  My astro-buddy Jim had a spanking new Canon 60D he was chomping at the bit to try out on the scope.  After resolving a bit of alignment as well as PC issues we decided to shoot a couple galaxies I've been wanting to hit.  These three images were processed with out darks subtracted because Randy wasn't there to remind us (it's all your fault, Randy).  I may reprocess them with darks later to see if it can improve anything.

We started with the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51), that's always a favorite lying in the constellation Canes Venatici (Boötes' hunting dogs).  This shot is 29 frames stacked and processed with Deep Sky Stacker then touched up a tad in Photoshop.  The focus could be admittedly better but not bad for the virgin astrophoto on the new DSLR.

We then moved on to the Black Eye Galaxy (M64).  Quite an interesting little (or unfathomably huge depending on your perspective) gem lying in the constellation Coma Berenices. This image is 29 stacked frames.

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Coma Berenices is apparently a satellite superhighway because we captured 4 of them traveling through our tiny window on the sky.  Kinda nifty.

The Sunflower Galaxy(M63) is another found in Canes Venatici.  It was pretty bleh in the individual images, I almost didn't bother processing them but after stacking it really popped (I guess that's the point though, isn't it?).

While we were shooting with the scope I had my camera shooting a time lapse of the Eta-Aquarid meteors. The radiant is in the constellation Aquarius and specifically the star Eta-Aquarii, "Eta" being the 7th brightest star of the constellation.  Aquarius was set to rise in the east around 2:30 so I decided a "Milky Way rise" time lapse was in order.  I set up my camera with a wide lens and intervalometer set at 45 sec and started shooting around 11:30pm until my battery died at 4:05am.  I hoped I could make it until the Moon rose over the treeline but apparently I need to invest in a battery grip to double my power.  I captured at least three meteors towards the end of the night.  The local farm kids were having quite a party in the woods at the bottom of the video.  At one point they decided it would be fun to drive a truck up to the observatory, but when we gave them the international sign for cut the lights (or maybe they thought we were threatening to cut their throats?) they quickly returned to their bonfire.  This is my best time lapse to date, definitely something to improve on, I've got much more to learn.

Polaris Vortex

Winter observing...not for pansies.

Last night was the most gorgeous sky we've seen in a long time.  A high, bright, and long ISS pass started the evening on the right foot but eventually it was just too cold to keep frost off the optics...and our fingers. Good thing we had good company, good food, and good beer so it wasn't a total bust.

While we stayed warm inside, I set up the camera for consecutive 1 min exposures at 18mm, f4, ISO1000 and left it out in the cold for 75 min.  I'm perpetually unprepared and forgot a frost shield so I wasn't comfortable with my gear out there much longer than that.  I used Startrails to create the final image as well as the "comet" images used in the progessive trail video.

I think my next investment will have to be a super wide angle lens so I can get more sky and foreground without feeling like I have to be in portrait orientation.
Make sure you view the vidoes in full screen and HD or they look awful.

Sunset on the trees

This was the scenery I drove through on my way home this morning.

...and I made my first GIF!

I Bode you Good Night!

I've had these shots sitting neglected on my hard drive for nearly a month, don't know how they slipped my mind.  It was May 17th, and it was a fantastic night of brilliantly clear dark skies, many scopes, and good company out at the Observatory at Bisbee Hill.  Tonight looks like another one of those nights and I'm trying my best to not run out the door as I'm sure a good crew is out there right now (I have to drive to Philadelphia in the morning or I definitely would be out there!)  Hopefully the skies will hold this weekend.

This is a couple really long exposures showing the astronomers (and the stars) in action.

one 15 min exposure

and 30 min

Then I strapped my camera to the big scope and pointed it at a spectacular pair located in Ursa Major.  M81 and M82 also known as Bode's Galaxy and Cigar Galaxy are quite a dynamic duo.  M81 is a very large face on spiral galaxy and M82 is a unique starburst galaxy that is churning out stars on a massive scale being helped along by tidal forces from it's large neighbor M81.  There's a small galaxy on the lower left called NGC 3077, it's is also an irregular galaxy likely being acted upon by it's larger neighbor as well.

11 frames @  2min, f6, 81mm, ISO1600 , merged in DeepSkyStacker

You can put lipstick on an Sbig...

Last night, Jim, Randy and I decided it was high time to break out the SBIG ST2000XCM and get some real photography going.  We spent a good hour or more precision aligning and tweaking the scope.  Mostly I stood in the way watching and at best was a pair of sharp eyes to sight guide stars for alignment while the guys twisted various knobs and timed star movements.

Then, hungrily rubbing our hands together, we hunkered down for the next 4+ hours in front of the computer screen searching for guide stars and refocusing and searching for guide stars and refocusing and...  Now I know this sounds like the epitome of tedium but when spiked coffee and a bit of tequila are involved it becomes an all out astrogeek party.  It really was a blast and we learned a few things even if we don't have photos, the next clear night we'll definitely have something to show.  I believe the biggest problem we had was the sky, seeing was below average making good astrophotography near impossible even if we had all the kinks worked out.

While all this was going on I had my camera aimed at the observatory (with Polaris directly above) for 245, 1 min exposures the entire time.  Hours of star (and astronomer) movement were captured and turned into this timelapse video.

All the frames combined using Startrails for this photo.

245 frames @ 59sec f4 ISO500

And at around 2am as I was about to head home the inner Milky Way made it's grand appearance with the summer triangle riding high in the east.  The observatory is on the left.

Good things to come as summer is truly on it's way.

10 vertical frames @ 18mm 44sec f3.5