Mike's Astro Photos

The current Moon phase is making it difficult to image, but Comet ISON continues to get brighter. Here’s a color picture of ISON from October 26th, 2013.

Comet ISON – October 26th, 2013

The early morning moon has been hampering ISON imaging the last few days and this morning we had a little competition from our friend Mars. Here’s an animation of 9 frames of Comet ISON passing just two degrees from the Mars. The light streaks in the picture are Martian light.

Animation of Comet ISON passing Mars – October 16th, 2013

Here’s a color RGBL image from the same morning. Between the Moon and Mars its a pretty grainy picture, but I kinda of like the planetary glow in the shot.

Comet ISON with Mars Light – October 16th, 2013

Here’s a photo of Comet ISON from October 5th, 2013. Some new studies have been published this week that seem to be improving the chances of ISON’s survival around the Sun on Thanksgiving day. If that happens we should have quite a light show leading up to the new year.

Comet ISON – October 5th, 2013

This photo was constructed using 30 minutes of Luminance and 2 minutes each of Red Green and Blue.
 

For more info about comet ISON’s survival rates check out this article from Sky and Telescope.

Here are two photos of Comet ISON from September 24th and 26th.

Comet ISON – September 26th, 2013

Here is comet from two days before. The tail and comet appear brighter after just two days, but its possible this could just be differences in the seeing conditions between the two days.

Comet ISON – September 24th, 2013

Here are the first few pictures of Comet ISON taken over the weekend from my internet operated remote observatory in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The first picture was made with three, two minute exposures each of Red (R), Green (G), Blue (B) and Clear or Luminance (L) filters. Each of the color frames are stacked into a final 6 minute master image for that color. When this is completed for each filter, the 4 channels are combined into the final color (LRGB) image seen below. The stars in the picture are dotted lines because the telescope was tracking the comet instead of the Earth’s rotation. After about ten minutes of time the comet’s visible location changes relative to the star field causing the individual stars to trail.

Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) – September 20th, 2013 / Image Details: 3×2-min RGB & 3×3-min L – RCOS 14.5 – Apogee U16M

Here’s an LRGB image consisting of a single two minute exposure for each color frame. The stars are not trailing in this image because the entire image was taken within 8 minutes which was not enough time for the stars to noticeably  move. There is a lot more noise in this image (it is grainy) because of the shorter exposure time.

Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) – September 21st, 2013 – Image Details: 120 Second Exposure LRGB – RCOS 14.5 / Apogee U16M

Below is a longer exposure from September 21st totaling 48 total minutes of exposure time.

Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON)  – September 21st, 2013 – Image Details: LRGB 2 Minutes x 6 – RCOS 14.5 Apogee U16M

The way some people are talking, Comet ISON could be the comet of the century by the end of this November, but nobody really knows for sure just yet. For good reasons, the comet community has been a bit apprehensive about hyping up the comet any more than it already has been, mainly because they don’t know for sure what’s going to happen. Its possible the comet could light up half of the early morning sky this December, but its also possible it could break apart and melt completely on its journey around the sun which starts this Thanksgiving Day.

Comet ISON is also what they call a ‘Sun Grazer’. This means the comet’s orbit puts it close enough to the sun that it will literally fly through the outer Corona. If this voyage does not complete destroy the comet, it will leave it with a significant tail that could stretch half of the sky. See the pictures of comet love joy, a similar sun grazer that was visible from the southern hemisphere last year. If ISON can make it past the sun, we should expect a light show that is comparable or better than comet love joy. Of course, this comet could be a total dud and that’s why the professionals are being cautious. They don’t want to get people’s hopes up and then look silly if the comet falls apart.

Comet ISON Orbit and Location on October 1st, 2013 – Image Credit NASA

Here’s an image of the comet’s orbit and location when it has its closest fly by past Earth on December 30th, 2013.

Comet ISON Orbit and Location on December 30th, 2013 – Image Credit NASA

Around January 15th, the Earth will pass through the comet’s orbital path and we ‘might’ see a meteor shower.

Comet ISON Orbit and Location on January 15th, 2014 – Image Credit NASA

If you want to take a look at an interactive orbit model for Comet ISON check out this really cool ISON Orbit app built by NASA.

Some people ask, where does the comet come from, why has it never made it to the inner solar system, how long did it take to get here and how fast is it going. Space is a big place. Our solar system is a big place. Our inner solar system is a big place. BUT when you compare the distance between the Sun and Pluto, and then look at that distance relative the the Oort cloud (our outer solar system), you will be amazed at how small the planetary part of the solar system is compared to its outer regions. Take a look at this image of our solar system all the way out to the Oort cloud to give some perspective. ISON is an Oort cloud comet.

Planetary Region of Solar System Compared to the Oort Cloud

If all goes well, and Comet ISON survives its passage around the sun, we might be able to see something like this in the morning skies leading up to the new year. Of course if it melts around the sun, we won’t see anything.

Comet Lovejoy – Image Credit: Alex Cherney, TWAN

The Perseids were mostly cloudy here in Maryland, but I was fortunate enough to catch this one meteor during a window of clear skies early monday morning. That’s me on the front porch observing from the rocking chair.

Perseid Meteor – August 12th, 2013

I got the latest issue of meteorite magazine in the mail today.

This is a special issue because it contains my first ever published magazine article, “Understanding the Orbits of Asteroid 2012 DA 14 and the Chelyabinsk Meteor”. Meteorite Magazine gave me permission to scan the article and post it here. Meteorite Magazine is 19 year old quarterly magazine and the leading scientific quarterly for meteorites. If you have an interest in meteorites, this magazine is a must. You can signup and order it here: http://meteoritemag.org/ 

If you happen to read the article, please send me your comments (good or bad) to mike.hankey [AT] gmail.com

I’ve been imaging Comet Lemmon the last week or so. There’s only about 1/2 hour of imaging time available each day just before dawn. At about 4:00 AM Comet Lemmon is 20 degrees or so off the eastern horizon and just barely imageable until about 4:30 when the sun starts to rise. I’ve been experimenting with a few different imaging strategies and found that a single frame 2-3 minute LRGB seems to have the best results. If there were more time I could capture a deeper exposure, but 1/2 hour doesn’t really allow for enough time.

Here are the best images of the comet I’ve captured over the last week.

Comet C/2012 F6 Lemmon – May 23rd, 2013 – Two minute exposure each of LRGB

Comet C/2012 F6 Lemmon – May 21st, 2013 – Two minute exposure each of LRGB

Comet C/2012 F6 Lemmon – May 20th, 2013 – Two minute exposure each of LRGB

Comet C/2012 F6 Lemmon – May 19th, 2013 – Three minute exposure each of LRGB

Photo Details

Comet C/2012 F6 Lemmon
LRGB 2x2x2x2 Minutes Each
Total exposure: 8 Minutes
Camera: Apogee U16M
Guider: Not Guided
Telescope: RCOS 14.5
Mount: Paramount ME
Location: Auberry, CA
Date: May 19-May 23 2013
Software: The SkyX, MaximDL, FocusMax, CCDStack, Photoshop

Anticipating clear skies for the Eta Aquariids peak, I finalized the setup of 3 Watec video cameras during the day and shortly after dark, started shooting with my DSLR. Unfortunately, the new PC was set to automatically do a windows update at 3:00 AM and rebooted causing the meteor capture software to permanently exit. Despite a clear sky weather report for the entire night, clouds rolled in around 3:30 right as things were getting started. But, as luck would have it, at 3:13 AM, while the radiant was on the horizon, I caught a nice bright Eta Aquariid Meteor right over the barn!

Eta Aquariid Meteor – May 5th, 2013

Here’s a full resolution close up of just the meteor:

Eta Aquariid Meteor – May 5th, 2013 @ 3:13 AM EST

Now I knew that the radiant would be rising in the East around 3 am, directly over the barn, so when I saw this meteor I recognized it right away as an Eta Aquariid, but I wanted to confirm it with a sky chart just to be sure (i’ve got a bad habit of mis-classifying some of my meteor photos!) . Here’s the picture layered over a start chart for that moment in time.

Eta Aquariid Meteor and Star Chart

The meteor shower will be active for the rest of the month, so I may get another chance to catch some more of these.

As time goes by and Comet Panstarrs flies deeper into the solar system, while it grows dimmer, its view-ability through a telescope is becoming increasingly better. Each day it rises higher in the morning sky and we have a few more minutes of visibility and time to image. I stepped up my exposure length this session, imaging each channel for 4 minutes. I was able to loop over these 5 times for LRGB and acquire 20 minutes of each channel. Turned out pretty good.

Comet C2011-L4-Panstarrs / April 18th, 2013

Photo Details

C/2011 L4 – Panstarrs
LRGB 4 minutes x 5 or 20 minutes each channel
Total exposure: 80 minutes
Camera: Apogee U16M
Guider: unguided image
Telescope: RCOS 14.5
Mount: Paramount ME
Location: Auberry, CA
Date: Apr 18, 2013
Software: The SkyX, MaximDL, FocusMax, CCDStack, Photoshop

The last week or two, there’s been a 45 minute window each morning to catch comet Panstarrs in the north east sky. I missed the western evening view in March, as it was to close too the horizon, but this morning north eastern view is working out pretty well. Here’s a 30 second X RGBL image of Comet Panstarrs.

Photo Details

C/2011 L4 – Panstarrs
LRGB 3o seconds Each
Total exposure: 2 minutes
Camera: Apogee U16M
Guider: unguided image
Telescope: RCOS 14.5
Mount: Paramount ME
Location: Auberry, CA
Date: Apr 10, 2013
Software: The SkyX, MaximDL, FocusMax, CCDStack, Photoshop

Here’s a photo of Comet Panstarrs and the Crescent Moon from earlier tonight in Monkton, Maryland.

Comet Panstarrs With Crescent Moon – March 12th, 2013 – Monkton, MD

Yesterday, February 15th, 2013 was an exciting day in the meteor world. Of course it started off with the the Russian Fireball that caused quite a stir (see American Meteor Society article on Russian Meteor)

Coincidentally, yesterday was also the day Near Earth Asteroid 2012DA14 passed by at 27,743 kilometers (17,239 mi) above Earth’s surface. I had wanted to image the asteroid last week, but due to it approaching from below the Earth, it was only visible from the southern hemisphere. By chance, I was up late last night doing some work on the scope and I had previously tagged the asteroid in the SkyX (telescope control program). I noticed it was out and realized that after its closest approach it was now moving away from northern hemisphere and thus I could see it nicely from California!

I shot the asteroid for about 2 hours. Here is a composite image of 20 2 minute frames. There is a short pause in between each frame. The asteroid appears to get brighter as it moves, but i think this is really just the effect of clouds / seeing in between the shots.

Near Earth Asteroid – 2012 DA14 – February 16th, 2013

Here is an animation of the same series of pictures.

Near Earth Asteroid – 2012 DA14 – February 16th, 2013

*The streak that appears towards the end of the animation above, I believe is a part of a satellite flare.

Also to note, the Asteroid 2012DA14 and the Russian meteor are NOT related. Below is a diagram of the orbits created by SETI which clearly shows how these two events could not be related to the same stream of meteoroids. See this graphic from SETI & Wired magazine, click graphic to read article.

Orbital trajectories and sizes of 2012 DA14 and the meteor that streaked across the Russian skies on Friday. Photo by: SETI Institute

I bought my first telescope before the new year of 2009 and took my first astrophoto on Jan 7th, of that year, literally 4 years ago today. The inspiration that compelled me to buy that telescope, look up at the sky and document what I saw is still going strong four years later and it kept me up until dawn last night imaging comet K5 Linear! This comet was discovered in May of 2012, went around the Sun in November and just past Earth a few days ago on December 31th missing us by a mere 28 million miles. Yesterday, January 6th was the feast of the Epiphany, a Christian Holiday celebrating the revelation that God was born as a human being in Jesus Christ. Many scholars hypothizize that the star that led the magi to Bethlehem to celebrate this revelation could have been a comet. For me astronomy, has been a great Epiphany and the joy that comes from learning about the Universe is all powerful and never ending. Peace to you in 2013!

Comet C/2012 K5 (Linear) – December 7th, 2013

Here is a brief tutorial on how to image comets.

Imaging comets is a little tricky because they are moving pretty quickly and you have to take short exposures or else the comet will streak through the picture. You can track the comet, but then the stars in the picture will streak. There are additional challenges when trying to get a color photo because by the time you cycle through the red, green, blue and luminance filters the comet has moved significantly enough to cause alignment issues within itself (not to mention the stars). Over time, I have learned a few tricks about imaging comets that I will explain here.

First, here’s the trick — to get your final nice comet image you need to be able to stack on just the comet in one picture while washing out all of the stars and then with another picture, you stack on the stars and wash out the comet. Once this is done you combine the two images into the final product. If you’re doing this for color, then its the same process you just have to do it 4 different times (once for each color channel RGB plus the clear Luminance filter). Now here’s the trick, in order to wash out the stars and the comet, there needs to be sufficient space in between the stars and objects in all frames — the stars can not overlap.  In order to run the error suppression routines, the stars must have spaces in between them.

Here’s an example of a single 60 second exposure using the Luminance filter. We will need 20 of these before the final luminance channel can be completed.

Single 60 Second Exposure of Comet 2012 K5 (Linear)

Knowing that we need to space out the exposures to allow the comet to move enough so that the stars don’t overlap in-between frames, the most efficient way to acquire the data is setting up a loop that switches filters in-between each exposure, for example: Red, Green, Blue, Lum, Dark, Pause, Loop x 20). I throw the dark in there because we will need to calibrate the pictures and this is a nice way to use some time and space it out a little more. The pause time may not be needed or it can be whatever is necessary to space out the comet in between frames. If you setup the acquisition routine like this with a 10 second pause there will be at least 5 minutes before each filter repeats.

Here’s an animation of 7 60 second luminance frames, each spaced out over 10 minutes, so this is 70 minutes of comet flight time. (If the image below is not moving, please give it a minute to load.)

Animation of Comet 2012 K5 (Linear) – 7 x 60 second Frames taken over 70 minute period

Now once we have collected our data if we were to align the frames centering on the comet itself and then stack without error reduction the image would look like this (note the spaces in-between the stars).

Comet K5 Linear Stacked Without Error Suppression

Using poison sigma error correction we can then wash out all of the stars during the stacking process. Poison sigma will essentially delete anything that is not the same between two frames, so if the stars are not touching they will be deleted.

Comet 2012 K5 Linear – January 7th, 2013 – 20 minute stacked exposure with star field eliminated

Once we have done this for all of our frames (Red, Green, Blue, Lum) we combine them to make the color image of the comet.

We can then re-align the frames on the stars and use the poison sigma error reduction to wash out the comet.

Color Star Field with Comet Washed Out

Now that we have our two color master frames, we can line them up together as layers in photoshop. Put the comet on top and then change the layer type to Luminosity and wa-la! The final comet image is ready! It took 80 pictures exposed for 60 seconds each to create this final image.

Comet C/2012 K5 (Linear) – December 7th, 2013

Photo Details
Comet 2012/K5 (Linear)
20×60 Seconds of LRGB Binned X 3
Total exposure: 1 hour 20 minutes
Camera: Apogee U16M
Guider: SBIG 402 with MMOAG Off Axis Guider
Telescope: RCOS 14.5
Mount: Paramount ME
Location: Auberry, CA
Date: 1/7/2013
Software: The SkyX, MaximDL, FocusMax, CCDStack, Photoshop

Comet C/2012 K5 (LINEAR) was discovered by Lincoln Laboratory Near-Earth Asteroid Research project in May of 2012. The comet is just now starting to get bright (magnitude 10) and is in a convient location for night time viewing. I spent a few hours last night checking out the comet and taking some photos. Here’s a color photo of the comet taken with 20 minutes of luminous data and 1.5 minutes of RGB data (30 seconds each). The comet is moving fast against the stars which makes imaging it a bit of a challenge. The trick is to filter out all of the star trails and just stack the comet, and then combine that with an RGB picture of the star field. Here’s my first attempt at this method.

Comet C/2012 K5 (LINEAR) – December 19th, 2012

 
Without the extra processing to remove the trailing stars, the image looks like this.
 

Comet C/2012 K5 (LINEAR) – December 19th, 2012

This comet can be seen with a low powered telescope, binoculars, or even a DSLR camera. Its currently inside the big dipper the next couple of nights. Refer to the star map below for placement over the next few months.

Star Map of Comet C/2012 K5

Star map courtesy of Seiichi Yoshida.