Venus and Jupiter Conjunction One More Time

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I just had to get out one more time to see and image them this evening.  This time from my home.  There was just enough haze and clouds to add some nice color to the sky and put a glow around the planets.  I hope you got a chance to see them.

Venus and Jupiter Conjunction

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It's been almost 5 months since my last post on this PhotoBlog.  Five days after that last post, October 22nd, I fell of a ladder and found myself in the hospital with a broken ankle and wrist.  So it's been very tough to get around.  I finally felt good enough to set up my camera a take the above image from a friends front yard.

This is Venus (the brighter one) and Jupiter as they came close together in what astronomers call a conjunction.  They are 3.1 degrees apart on this date, March 12.  The next day they are closer, but only by 1/10 of a degree.  Standing here on Earth, they seem fairly close to each other, but that's only an optical illusion.  Venus is actually about as far away as the Sun (93 million miles) but way off to the left of the Sun, while Jupiter is about 5.3 times (586 million miles) further away on the other side of the Sun.

In the days to come they will be going further apart, but starting on March 24th, a beautiful crescent Moon will be just below Jupiter.  On the 25th, the Moon lies between the planets and on the 26th, it will be just above Venus.  I'm hoping for some clear skies and some warm weather for picture taking.

"Things That Go Bump In The Night" - Happy Halloween

With a nip in the Autumn air, its the season for Halloween, so I have uploaded some things that go "bump" in the night.  Otherwise know as nebulae, these remarkable wisps of gas and dust reminds me of the ghosts and goblins of the season.  Taken last month, all of these deep sky objects are up sometime during the night.

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The image above is known as "The Wizard Nebula" in the constellation Cepheus.  I don't see a wizard.  Maybe you have better luck at seeing one.  It could be that it looks like a wizard when seen visually through a telescope, but I kinda doubt it, because it's pretty faint.  The camera picks up a lot more faint nebulosity than our human eyes can ever hope to do.  Instead of a wizard, my mind does see a one-eyed black goblin.  It's at the lower right of the image.  Of course, this is just a dark, dusty region out in space.  I can not find an offical name for the "dark nebula", but the Wizard is  called Sh2-142, from a 1959 second version of a catalog by Stewart Sharpless.  The star cluster involved with this nebula is NGC7380, from Dreyer's New General Catalog of 7,840 objects.

The image was shot with my 190mm f/5.3 Maksutov/Newtonian.  I took 12 10-minute shots for a total of 2 hours worth of data.

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The deep sky object at the center of this image is the "Cave Nebula", officially known as Sh2-155, is also in the constellation Cepheus.  Presumably the dark nebula on the right side of the bright nebula reminds one of the opening to a cave.  I, however, see it as the head of a fire breathing dragon with it's body extending to the right.   Do you see the red flames coming out of its mouth? Or maybe it's a cloud of bats.  What do you think?

The image was shot with my 300mm f/4 Canon lens, and my Q453 CCD camera.  I took nine 20-minute shots for a total of 3 hours worth of data.

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I have annotated some of the other deep sky objects in the field and I have outlined the dragon.

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Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

                             William Shakespeare

Shakespeare would have loved this image of the "Witch Head Nebula".  There is no trouble seeing this Halloween character.  She seems to be contemplating the bright light at the upper right, which is actually Rigel, the bright blue supergiant star in the constellation Orion.  The Witch Head, lying in the  Eridanus constellation, is a supernova remnant, the left over pieces of a star explosion. Dust particles in the cloud reflect the blue light from Rigel.  The whole area is composed of molecular hydrogen and can be seen as the reddish areas surrounding the Witch Head.

The image was shot with my 300mm f/4 Canon lens, and my Q453 CCD camera.  I took eight 20-minute shots for a total of 2 hours and 40 minutes worth of data.

The Dark Horse and The Pipe Nebula

Click HERE to see it at its highest resolution

Astronomers have given the dark areas in the above image two familiar names:  "Dark Horse Nebula" and "Pipe Nebula".  The first one is a side view of a "Dark Horse" with the darkest part being the rump and back leg with the fainter head and forelegs to the right.  Can you see that it has one foreleg raised as if it is prancing among the stars?  The Pipe Nebula consists of the rump of the horse as the bowl of the pipe and the rear leg makes up the pipe stem.  Click HERE to see it in high resolution.

The image below is an annotated version outlining the horse and many labels of various "dark nebulae" in and around the horse. Click HERE to see it in high resolution.  The labels starting with the letter "B" are from the Edward E. Barnard catalog of dark nebulae.  Most of the NGC numbered objects are globular clusters (NGC stands for New General Catalog).  I have also outlined some very faint red emission nebulae.  It is best to view it at high resolution on a large monitor as this is the full resolution of my CCD camera.

Click HERE to see it at its highest resolution

The image was taken with my 70-200mm f/2.8 Canon zoom lens set at 70mm and f/5.  A total of 8 images were taken with each image being 15 minutes of exposure.

Green Comet and Globular Cluster

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The image above is of Comet Garradd as it went by the globular cluster M71 in the constellation Sagitta back on August 26, 2011.  This is the brightest comet in the sky right now, easily visible with a pair of binoculars, but with a couple of provisions.  You need to view it away from the city lights and you need to know exactly where to look.  Because comets are constantly on the move, you will need a star chart for the evening that you go out into the countryside.  Click here to get some printable star charts for the next 6 months (courtesy of Sky and Telescope magazine) as it heads closer to the sun.  Comet Garradd will be visible for quite a long time, so there should be no excuse of not having enough time to see it.

Are you wondering why the comet is green?  One of the few green objects in the night sky, the color is caused by the Sun's ultraviolet light striking the cyanogen gas surrounding the star-like nucleus of the comet making it glow.  The tail is composed of gas and dust, pushed away from the nucleus, by the pressure of light particles from the sun.

The globular cluster, M71, looks to be fairly close to the comet, but not really.  At the time of the picture, the comet was about 130 million miles away from Earth.  M71 is 13,000 light years away.  To make it easier to compare the difference in distances, lets convert the comets distance in miles to light years.  Light travels 186,000 miles per second.  Dividing 130 million by 186,000 gives about 700 seconds.  Now you can really see the difference:  Light takes about 11.6 minutes to get from the comet to our eyes, but from where M71 is located, it takes light 13,000 years to travel from where it is located.

Technical Data:

• Date Taken: Aug 26, 2011
• Location: ASKC Dark Sky Site
• Telescope: 190mm, f/5.3 Maksutov Newtonian
• Camera:  Q453 CCD (similar to QHY8)
• Exposure: 30 minutes (consisting of 15 - 2 minute shots)
• Calibration: 20 Bias, 20 Flats, 1 Dark
• AutoGuider: Q-Guider with 50mm Finderscope
• Mount: Parallax Instruments HD 150C
• Capture Software: Nebulosity
• Calibration Software: Nebulosity
• Final Processing Software: Photoshop CS3

Supernova Erupts in the Pinwheel Galaxy

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On August 24, the Palomar Observatory discovered a supernova in M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy.  The supernova has been getting brighter every day since its discovery.  I took this picture on the evening of August 30.  The star is brighter than the nucleus of the galaxy, which is composed of millions of stars.  M101 is a large face-on spiral near the Big Dipper with an apparent size of the Moon.  It can just barely be seen with a pair of binoculars from a very dark sky, but now the supernova will be brighter than the galaxy, at least until the explosion dies away in a few days.

Click on the image below to show you a labeled picture pointing out the location of the supernova and a few supergiant star forming areas in the galaxy. Three galaxies near M101 are also labeled.  They are NGC5471, NGC5473 and one that almost looks like a star, PGC49919.  They look smaller than M101 only because they are much further away from us.  M101 is 23 million light years away and 170,000 light years across.  This supernova, designated 2011fe, is being studied by the scientific community.  The early detection, combined with the relative closeness of M101, makes this a spectacular find for professional researchers.  Here's a light curve of magnitude measurements (visual, R, V, and B) that the America Association Variable Star Observers has received.

The Needle Galaxy - NGC4565

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Commonly known as the "Needle Galaxy" because of its narrow edge-on appearance, this spiral galaxy is formerly labeled NGC4565 in the constellation Coma Bernices. Another way to imagine it: Think of a dinner plate with a glob of mashed potatoes in the middle of it, then look at this plate from the edge.  The mashed potatoes is the bulge of stars at the center of the disk.  The plate is the rest of the galaxy consisting of blueish areas of star formation and massive lanes of  dark dust and gas circling the disk.  The "Needle" spans 100,000 light years in diameter and is 30 million light years from Earth.  One of the prettiest edge-on galaxies in the night sky.

Many other galaxies, much further away and therefore fainter and smaller are strewn throughout the image.  I have labeled some of the brighter ones in the image below.  If you can't see these galaxies, then your monitor is too dark.

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Technical Data:

• Date Taken: 04-02-2011
• Location: ASKC Dark Sky Site
• Telescope: 190mm, f/5.3 Maksutov Newtonian by Orion
• Camera: Q453 CCD, 3032(h) X 2016(v) pixels
• Exposure: 1 hour (consisting of 4 - 15 minute shots)
• Calibration Exposures: 20 Bias, 0 Flats, 1 Dark used to make a "Bad Pixel Map"
• AutoGuider: Q-Guider with 50mm Finderscope
• Mount: Parallax Instruments HD 150C
• Capture Software: Nebulosity
• Calibration Software: DeepSkyStacker
• Final Processing Sofware: Photoshop CS3