I found myself without a tripod for this shot taken alongside the road (hence the reduced image size). There was a bit of motion in the exposure, but I still managed to capture the Moon Pillar. This was a really beautiful scene… and makes me want to never be without all kinds of equipment. Oh, well…

Moon pillars are most apparent just after moonrise or just before moonset as the moon is sitting just above the horizon. Moon pillars are caused by moon light reflecting off tiny particles of ice in the atmosphere.

Here’s a closeup of January’s Full Moon, aka The Full Wolf Moon. Skies were clear and cold last night. Fortunately, there was no wind and the atmosphere was bone dry. Temperatures were approaching the single digit range, but with all the layering I’d done, I was surprised at how comfortable I was. I even had my mittens off for an extended period of time.

Astro Photo Details:

* Designation: The Moon
* Magnitude: roughly mag -12
* Size: roughly 1/2*

Astro Photo Processing Details

* Canon Digital Rebel XTi
* 1/500s at ISO100
* Astro Physics Starfire Refractor 160mm f/7.5
* PhotoShop CS2 Curves & Levels (mac version)

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A beautiful full wolf moon rose above the hills to the east of my home this evening. After countless weeks of cloudy, snowy skies, it was a joy to see anything in the night sky. I actually noticed the moon a while earlier (while east of the hills seen in the foreground. With a much lower eastern horizon, I knew I was going to have a nice shot on my hands when I got back home. NOTE: clear skies typically usher in arctic temperatures in this area. Temperatures were already down into the mid-teens by the time I took this shot. Single digits or even negative numbers are not out of the question as the night progresses.

The Full Wolf Moon is the name given by Native Americans to the January full moon. With deep snow blanketing their hunting grounds, I’m sure that the wolves howled a bit more intensely as the January moon rose. This moon was also referred to as the Full Snow Moon. This is a term that is quite fitting for this area, as there is easily 30″ of snow on the ground… with accumulations to climb (perhaps significantly) before they begin to drop in earnest.

Astro Photo Details:

* Designation: The Moon
* Magnitude: roughly mag -12
* Size: roughly 1/2*

Astro Photo Processing Details

* Canon Digital Rebel XTi
* First 1/160s at ISO100 ~ 80mm
* PhotoShop CS2 Curves & Levels (mac version)

We’ve all seen amazing astro photos created by ‘amateur’ astronomers. Some are on par with the finest works of professional observatories just a few years ago. What’s their secret? Well, there are a number of secrets… more than can go into a single blog post. First, there have been amazing breakthroughs in CCD technology in the last several years. Combine this with dramatic price reductions and high end astrocams are within reach of many an aspiring astrophotographer. But, guess what? The finest CCD camera on the market all by itself isn’t enough to catapult you to the top tier of the astrophotography world.

Secondly, the degree of control available to astrophotographers through the latest image processing software programs is unrivaled. With an off the shelf computer and off the shelf image processing software, aspiring astrophotographers can coax an almost unimaginable amount of detail from raw images. Additionally, many kinds of ‘mistakes’ can be cleaned up with these programs. Still, with just the latest copy of Photoshop, you won’t find yourself among the top tier of astrophotographers.

I’ve saved arguably the best and most important component of high-end astrophotography for last. Polar alignment. Without a precise polar alignment, your hopes of taking the spectacular images that’ll end up in Sky and Telescope or on the APOD simply aren’t going to happen. Sure, you can get lucky and shoot some phenomenal passing event. I know, I’ve been lucky a few times I’ll certainly take luck over skill any day. But, that said… if you want to take seriously amazing deep sky images, you must have an absolutely spot on polar alignment. Skip this step and you’re doomed to ‘nice’ shots… but not truly amazing.

Polar alignment involves adjusting your telescope’s mount such that the polar axis of the mount is pointing at the north celestial pole. Huh? Ok, its not as complicated a concept as it might sound. Let’s think this through. We all know that objects in the sky (sun, moon, stars) seem to rise in the east and set in the west. This phenomenon is caused by the Earth’s rotation. Earth is spinning on its axis and astronomical objects (not bound to the Earth) are seen to move because of this. The polar axis of your mount (when aimed properly) corresponds to the axis upon which the Earth turns as it rotates. Simple, right? When properly polar aligned, your mount only needs to make use of one of its two motors to keep the image centered. The RA (Right Ascension) gears compensate for the Earth’s rotation and keep your image centered in the eyepiece or in the camera’s field of view. If your alignment is off, the mount needs to make corrections on two axis. This is almost impossible to do with incredible precision. For visual use, this really isn’t even a critical issue. Simply eyeballing the telescope’s direction as north is ok. For lunar or planetary images you might even stop at this point. However, for deep sky images, you’ll need to go the extra mile to get your scope precisely polar aligned.

Ok, so how do we actually go about precisely polar aligning your mount? First, get the scope roughly polar aligned. Simply pointing the mount’s polar axis to the north star (Polaris) is a good first step. Next, you’ll want to make use of the ‘drift method’ of alignment. The drift method is a technique whereby you point at a couple of specific stars and watch the star drift out of the center of your eyepiece over time. Hence, the name. Adjustments are then made to the mount itself to bring you closer to alignment. This processes is repeated until there is no more drift. Note, that as you fix one axis, you can be slightly messing up the other, hence the iterative nature of this adjustment.

Azimuth Adjustment

To proceed, choose a star near the intersection of the meridian and the celestial equator. The closer the better. I’ve seen references say you should be within 1/2 hour of Right Ascension and 5* of declination. I’m not sure how these tolerances were picked, but I’ve tried my best to follow them. You’ll find that at times, this is easier said than done. Sometimes, there simply aren’t any bright stars in those areas. A goto scope and some good astronomical software will be helpful to find these points (you’ll need a pretty accurate pointing model to find these). To get the stars perfectly centered, you’ll need an illumated reticle eyepiece. I have a non-illuminated one at the moment and usually have to use a red light to help me see the lines that crisscross the eyepiece. Accuracy here is pretty important. Additionally, the higher the power your setup the better. So, either get a very small focal length eyepiece… use a barlow… or both. The higher the power, the faster you’ll notice the drift and the more closely you can watch for improvements.

For this star, you’ll only be making adjustments in azimuth. If the star drifts to the south, adjust your polar axis to the west. If the star drifts to the north, adjust the polar axis to the east.

I like to try to use a consistent time period for the drift, say 2 minutes. This way, you’ll start to get a feel for how quickly your improving things. If you drift out of the eyepiece in 2 minutes the first time, and then only 1/2 way out of the eyepiece the second time, you know that you’re making good adjustments and should have things nailed shortly.  If you use widely divergent intervals, its much harder to gauge how you’re progressing. You can still do it, but it starts to feel much more hit or miss. I usually like to get 3 or 4 iterations on this star before doing an about face.

Additional Resources:

Celestron

Jerry Lodriguss

I’ve always enjoyed viewing our star. Watching sunspots grow and morph over time has always fascinated me. Up until the arrival of my new Coronado Solar Max 40 telescope, this has meant that solar flares and coronal mass ejections were off limits. CME’s are some of the most spectacular views in astronomy, so adding them to my list of observing targets is a big plus.

My first thoughts when unboxing the Solar Max was…its cute. I mean that in a positive way :)  It is a 40mm f/10 aperture. That’s a 400mm focal length… or about a 16″ telescope. Many folks have larger aperture binoculars (i do).  The scope is a beauty though. Craftsmanship is definitely a priority for Coronado. This is as stout as a tiny telescope can get.

As the weather gods would have it after any optics purchase, skies have been cloudy with copious quantities of snow falling for the last several days (over 2 feet in less than a week). The new year is expected to bring clear skies…. or so they say. Look for future updates on my progress with this beauty.

Many people find themselves in the possession of a new telescope this time of year. For some, it is the fulfillment of a dream, for others, a quite unexpected surprise. If you’re one of these people, you may be wondering to yourself… now what? What in the world am I going to do with this shiny new telescope? How in the world will I ever be able to find anything besides the Moon to observe? Let me give you some advice right up front. Stop. Take a deep breath. Relax. It doesn’t need to be an overwhelming proposition. Getting to know your telescope… and the night sky… are things that virtually anyone can do. Think of it like this… when you first met your best friend… did it instantly feel like a future best friendship? LIkely not. Sure, you may have hit it off well, but friendships take time to develop. The same is true for your understanding of your telescope… and (perhaps more importantly) with the night sky. Take it night by night and step by step and you’ll develop a passion that will last a lifetime.

Ok, you’re feeling more relaxed now, right? The first thing you need to do is get to learn about your telescope. Is it a reflector? A refractor? A catadioptric (huh?)? A catadioptric is a mix of a reflector and a refractor. First up… reflectors have mirrors and reflect the light that strikes them. Refractors have lenses and refract light. Catadioptric telescopes are hybrids… having lenses and mirrors. The type of telescope that you have determines how it collects light. Light collection (not magnification) is the single most significant characteristic of telescopes. Most of what you’ll be looking at through your telescope is too faint to see with the unaided eye. Galaxies, nebulae and star clusters are all quite distant and (typically) quite faint. It is the light gathering ability of your telescope that will reveal them to you. Your telescope will typically have a focuser. This is where you’ll put your eyepieces and focus the image being created. There are many good resources on each type of telescope. Search for a couple of these and you should find out more than you’re likely to need to know to operate your new piece of equipment. Read as much or as little for you to feel comfortable.

The next thing you’ll need to do is to familiarize yourself with the night sky. Even if you got a ‘goto telescope’, I can’t tell you with stronger conviction that you should gain a very comfortable understanding of the layout of the night sky. For this, a star chart or planisphere is key. These show you the night sky for a given time of year. Seek out and learn the names of the brightest stars in the sky… at least for the current season. Many people are familiar with the constellation Orion and its famous belt. This is a great starting point. If not, this is an easy one to find. Simply head outside shortly after dark and look to the southeast (for those in the northern hemisphere). Orion is a large constellation with a number of very bright stars. It is generally rectangular in shape and is cut by 3 bright stars in a diagonal. This is the belt of Orion. This is your key to learning the winter night sky. The stars of Orion are so bright that they tend to stand out even under light polluted skies. To the upper left of Orion is Betelgeuse.  To the lower right is Rigel. These are 2 of the 20 brightest stars in the night sky. From here, you can use your star chart to learn the constellations that border Orion.

Above Orion is the Constellation Taurus led by the bright star Aldebaran. Above this (north) is the constellation Auriga led by the bright star Capella. East of these constellations is Gemini with its twins Castor and Pollux. Smack in the middle of all of this is the red planet Mars. Mars is currently at its biggest and brightest for the year, so you won’t be able to miss this. This little swath of night sky is full of literally dozens of Messier Objects. Messy what? Messier Objects. Google this. Seriously. The Messier Objects are what you’ll spend a good portion of your observing time chasing after and observing. These are what most amateur astronomers cut their teeth on. They are a list of some of the finest objects to be observed in amateur telescopes. The Orion Nebula, The Andromeda Galaxy, The Hercules Cluster. These are just a few of the amazing astronomical objects that inhabit the night sky… waiting for you to seek and eventually find them. The stars and constellations listed above are your roadmap. Study them well and these and countless other objects are there for the taking. Head out whenever you have the opportunity. Even if you won’t be able to use your telescope. Just get out under the stars and you’ll slowly come to know them as you know your good friends.

Winter has finally arrive here in Park City. About 20″ or so fell in the last couple of days with more likely (and hopefully) on the way. Park City is ski country. That’s one of the main reasons that I’m here. That said, I’m also an avid astronomer. Park City’s snow filled winters can be a bit of a challenge to the hobby. Here’s a picture of what I awoke to this morning. I spent quite a bit of time clearing off the deck (twice) and the driveway (twice). Summer and fall are generally quite clear and great for observing. Winter, on the other hand tends to be quite a bit stormier. We get lots of snow here typically, and that means considerably more cloud cover.

On top of the cloud cover, snow is quite reflective. As such, light pollution from outdoor lighting is magnified considerably in the winter. Even night sky friendly down lights hit the reflective snow and send a huge proportion of this light back up into the night sky. In some instances, this requires astro-imagers to cut their exposure times considerably. This just makes it that much harder to get the killer photos that I’m aiming for.

Don’t let me bum you out too bad though. There are many pluses to astronomy in the winter. First of all, it gets dark really early… and stays dark until well into the morning. Finding time to get out and observe is typically much easier. Also, the winter night sky is chock full of some truly amazing astronomical targets. We’ve already seen M42, the Orion Nebula. It’s been amazing, and its not even really well positioned yet. The constellation Andromeda is sitting over head as soon as it gets dark. Andromeda is home to the sweetest galaxy visible to northern observers, M31 the Andromeda Galaxy. Swinging in the other direction, M45 the Pleiades Star Cluster in Taurus is an awesome rich field target. Just behind (east) this, the constellation Gemini is home to a few treats as well.

So, don’t think that you can’t do astronomy in the winter. You’ll certainly will want to bundle up as temps can be quite low in many areas… especially given that this is a predominantly low energy endeavor. However, the number and diversity of astronomical targets make it more than worth the effort.

I’ll finish by mentioning that next Thursday night into Friday morning (12/13-12/14), the annual Geminid Meteor Shower peaks. This is probably the best meteor shower of the year. It routinely puts 50+ meteors per hour during its peak and can easily top 100 per hour during better shows. This years event is pretty nicely helped by the fact that the moon will be less than 1/2 illuminated and setting before midnight.

I got my first ever images of IC434, the Horsehead Nebula in the constellation Orion. The Horse Head is the faintest object that I’ve ever attempted to image at  mag 10 or so. I’d taken about 20 images or so that on Monday night (12/3/07). Unfortunately, due to a number of mishaps, only about 12 were actually usable.

These 12 images were stacked using RegiStax to give me a good starting point. FYI, each original/raw image barely showed the horsehead. You could kind of see where the nebula was. This was brought out quite a bit after the stacking. However, it wasn’t until I brought the image into The GIMP that things really came into view. Its amazing how much data was ‘hidden’ originally. Almost like pealing the layers off an onion, the nebula slowly revealed itself with each processing option.

I’m happy with the results of this first attempt to capture the illusive Horse Head Nebula. This is a very tough object. I’ve only seen this on a small handful of occasions. This is a faint object. Its also just large enough that the minimal light arriving in the telescope is spread out enough to make this a highly difficult target. Only seriously dark skies and a fairly substantial aperture will allow you to see this in the eyepiece.

As far as the image goes, it seem that 12 minutes was not quite long enough Additionally, as the constellation Orion is still fairly low in the southeast early on, I was fighting a bit of local light pollution. Had there been a bit less moisture in the sky and had this been a bit higher in the sky, I’d have taken longer exposures. These, were all 60 seconds a piece. Longer exposures had the background sky looking all washed out due to light pollution from a neighboring shopping center. Perhaps, towards the end of the month, I’ll have another shot at the Horsehead before the moon rises. This, plus another round of telescope alignments, should hopefully allow me to hit this pretty hard. My goal is to get perhaps 50-100 minutes of exposures (5 minutes at a time). With the nebula sitting a bit higher in the sky and more and longer exposures, my signal to noise ratio should be dramatically improved. If this works out as planned, I should have quite a bit more data to start with as well as a much darker background. Anyway… I’m happy with this, my first image of IC434, The Horsehead Nebula.

Astro Photo Details:

* Designation: IC434 / The Horsehead Nebula
* Constellation: Orion
* Magnitude: ?
* Size: 6′ x 4′

Astro Photo Processing Details

* Canon Digital Rebel XTi
* Astro Physics Refractor
* 12 x 60s exposure at ISO1600 (comet)
* RegiStax
* Gimp Curves & Levels
* Neat Image

The impending snow storm has been delayed :-\  That was my realization when I got up this morning. Apparently, by quite a bit. Skies were crystal clear. As I looked out my front window, I noticed that the Moon and the planet Venus were sitting awfully close together (7* I read on Spaceweather.com). Sitting just above the duo was a bright star. Not fully caffeinated yet, I had to fire up Starry Night Pro to see that this was the bright star Spica in the constellation Virgo. Sweet. Groupings like this are called conjunctions and have held major significance throughout recorded history. That being the case, I figured I might as well put the camera on the tripod and see what I could come up with.

I ended up snagging a pair of images. The first shot shows the trio through the Canon Digital Rebel using a 75-30mm zoom lens. This nicely framed the scene. It also revealed a bit of detail on the lunar surface.

The second shot was with the 28-80mm lens pulled all the way back. This allowed me to get the mountains in the foreground. I exposed this shot for a full 10 seconds so that I got a nicely silhouetted mountain.

Astro Photo Details:

* Designation: The Moon
* Magnitude: roughly mag -12
* Size: roughly 1/2*

Astro Photo Processing Details

* Canon Digital Rebel XTi
* First 1/2s at ISO1600
* Second 10s at ISO1600
* Gimp Curves

What an interesting afternoon this image created. I was outside last night snapping a series of images of IC434, The Horse Head Nebula. As I was reviewing the sequence, I noticed a pair of objects moving in tandem across the field of view. What in the world could this be?

I sent the image to a few people to see what ideas they might have. A meteor? Nope, too fast. A satellite? Nope, too fast. A plane? Nope too fast. Even the International Space Station crosses the entire sky horizon to horizon in about 6 minutes. My unidentified flying objects took 6 minutes to span the 1° field of view of my image. I sent the image to Dr. Tony Philips at Spaceweather.com for analysis. I could see it now. I’d have a street named after me in Roswell, NM. Perhaps Asteroid Anthony 2007? Fame, fortune??? Well, not exactly.

Dr. Tony explained to me that this was quite likely a geosynchronous satellite.

Dear Anthony,

You may have photographed a geosynchronous satellite. They move about 1.5 degrees in a 6 minute period. (15 degrees per hour.) Take a look at the Nov. 25, 2006, edition of spaceweather for a similar apparition in the Orion Nebula:

http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=25&month=11&year=2006

Regards, Tony

My UFO had quickly become an IFO (Identified Flying Object) Oh, well… better luck next time

That said, the accompanying image did capture its intended target, IC434 aka The Horsehead Nebula. The image was processed with the UFO turned IFO in mind. So, I’ve not really highlighted it. I’ll work on reprocessing the images (25 of them) a bit later. The emphasis then will most certainly be on revealing as much detail as possible in the Horse Head. This has always been one of my absolute favorite objects. The very fact that I’ve been able to capture it here speaks to the progress I’ve made astro-photography-wise. I’m betting that this is going to be a sweet astrophoto.

Astro Photo Details:

* Designation: IC434 - Barnard 33 - The Horse Head Nebula
* Type: Nebula
* Constellation: Orion
* Magnitude: 10 * Size: 65′

Astro Photo Processing Details

* 6 x 60s exposures at ISO400
* Stacked using RegiStax 4
* Neat Image
* GIMP Levels

Astronomy Equipment

* Astro Physics Starfire 160mm Refractor
* Canon Digital Rebel XTi