Mike's Astro Photos

Here’s my first shot of the Crab Nebula. It was taken during a 3/4 moon so the skies were pretty light. This was my first time taking flats, darks and lights and then stacking the images in deep sky stacker. I used 25×2 minute exposures of the nebula along with flats taken at dusk and darks taken at the end of the night.

Crab Nebula - November 29th, 2009

Its not quite as nice as this Hubble photo of the Crab Nebula but pretty close (not).

My first amateur attempt at nova detection

I posted last Friday about a Nova that was discovered by Japanese astronomer Koichi Itagaki on November 25th, 2009. Mr Itagaki has discovered 50 super novas and is the 8th most successful super nova hunter in the world. I researched Mr Itagaki’s astronomy career a little and learned he has a day job that has nothing to do with astronomy! Here’s a picture of Mr Itagaki’s observatory — that is so money!

This is the original email from Russian Astronomer Dennis Denisenko posted on the Global Meteor Observing Forum

Subject: Important! Check your Leonids images of Nov. 15-18

Dear meteor observers!

Possible Nova in Eridanus was discovered by famous Japanese astronomer
Koichi Itagaki on Nov. 25.536 UT (CBET 2050) at magnitude 8.1.  It was
then retrospectively found on ASAS images dated by as early as Nov.
19.241 UT being yet brighter at 7.3 mag (AAVSO Special Notice #181).
The star has 15th magnitude at quiescence.

No images of possible Nova Eridani are available between Nov. 10.236 UT
when it was fainter than 14.0 and Nov. 19.241 UT.  Looks like the real
maximum has been missed!  Since the spectrum of the star in outburst
shows bright Balmer emission lines with expansion velocity of 3400-3600
km/s, this object is likely a classical Nova rather than a cataclysmic
variable of WZ Sge type.  This means that the real outburst amplitude
should have been 13-14 magnitudes rather than the observed 7.5, and some
time between Nov. 10th and 19th it *could* have been as bright as mag
1-2!!!  But nobody knows it for sure.  Not yet!

Here is where your help is needed.  Please check your photos (and
probably even videos) from the nights of 2009 Leonid shower activity
containing Orion and its surrounding constellations.  The Nova is
located near the Orion-Eridanus border, about 7 deg West and 2 deg South
of Regulus.  Precise coordinates of the star are:

R.A. = 04h47m54.2s, Decl. = -10d10’43” (J2000.0)

The position of star is shown with blue dashes on the following chart
(stars to 6.5m are shown):

http://hea.iki.rssi.ru/~denis/NovaEri2009Nov18.gif

If you find the images taken any time between Nov. 10 and Nov. 19
covering the area of interest, please check them for the presence of the
Nova Eridani 2009, or send them directly to me for the analysis and
photometry via E-mail address below in my signature.  Also, feel free to
send this message to other mailing list and circulate it among your
fellow astronomers.  This is really a rare coincidence that many images
of the sky were taken just in time during the Nova outburst because of
the Leonid meteors activity, and reconstructing the light curve of this
variable star would be very important.

Best regards,

Denis
—
Denis V. Denisenko
Space Research Institute
Profsoyuznaya st., 84/32
117997, Moscow, Russia

After reading the email I found 4 pictures of Orion and posted one to the Forum. While I waited for a reply I plotted the pictures in Stellarium (awesome planetarium app — download it, its free). I looked in the general area Denis had specified and realized after a bit of hunting that at a specific location in the picture a star was present, but in the star chart it was just empty space. This was the first time I ever tried to identify a Nova in an astro photo and it was very exciting when I made my conclusion as to which star in the photo was in fact the Nova (granted I had a good bit of help from Denis and Koichi on where to look, but it was still challenging and exciting to make this discovery on my own.)

A little later that day J.Bortell wrote to the Meteor Obs List and confirmed the existence of the Nova in my picture. J wrote:

Mike,

Indeed, the nova is clearly indicated on your image, appearing to be
magnitude 6.9-7.0 . Definitely worth passing it along to the proper
agency/individual for further examination.

J.Bortle (AAVSO member)

The interesting thing about J’s magnitude rating is it shows the Nova was brighter on the 17th than it was on the 19th or 25th. Here are the magnitude readings: Nov 25 = 8.1 ; Nov 19 7.3 ; Nov 17 6.9 — (stellar magnitude is a counter intuitive scale where the lower the number the brighter the object, the moon being a -12 and the sun -26.) Denis mentioned the expected peak magnitude would have been between 1-3, so I think the peak probably would still have been a few days earlier than the 17th.

Denis wrote me back on Monday and also confirmed the Nova existed inside my pictures at the point I identified. He asked me to report the picture to the Central Bureau of Astronomical Telegrams ( an email address at harvard.edu). Denis said there was a chance the image would be mentioned in the next Electronic Telegram (CBET) about this Nova — wouldn’t that be cool! He also said Nova Eridani 2009 is just a temporary name and the official name will be determined later by the people from the General Catalogue of Variable Stars (GCVS) team in Moscow. How awesome would it be to discover a Nova on your own and then have it named after you! Hmm, this Nova hunting might be a fun thing to explore.

Here’s the pre-discovery picture of Orion that shows Nova Eridani:

If you want to see higher res images or the RAW camera files email me at mike.hankey@gmail.com

Here’s a picture of the winning field goal kick from last nights Ravens vs Steelers game in Baltimore. Man it is nice to start the week out with a victory over Pittsburgh. HURA!

Ravens vs Steelers - November 29th, 2009

A Russian astronomer sent out a notice about a newly discovered nova and requested images of Orion between Nov 16th and Nov 19th. Turns out I have 4 pictures of Orion from Nov 17th and the nova was captured in my images! I will post an update with the Orion Nova picture once I have more info and have been able to successfully identify the nova.

While reviewing my meteor shower pictures I found an image of a faint meteor I had originally missed. I haven’t plotted the picture in a star chart yet, so I’m not sure if this is a sporadic meteor or a Leonid. So it turns out I caught at least 2 meteors during the recent Leonid shower, bringing my total meteor picture count up to three.

Leonid - November 17th, 2009

The above image is a crop out of the big picture. Here’s what the full image looked like.

There was big news in the meteorite community last week when a huge bolide was seen exploding over Utah. Multiple cameras caught the meteor as it burst in the skies. Below is a compilation video from youtube that shows the sight from four different security videos.

After a week of gathering information and plotting the trajectory, senior scientist and meteor trajectory expert Rob Matson has estimated the meteorites from this fall have landed inside a secret US military base the size of Rhode Island called Dugway Proving Grounds. The US Army claims to use this gigantic base to test chemical, biological and radioactive weapons and says they have blown up thousands of bombs in the area (and continue to do so). The base is considered so dangerous large parts of it are off limits even to Army personnel. UFO theorists call the base Area 52, in large part because of the UFO sightings that have been reported over or around it. Rumor has it the Roswell UFO wreckage and government alien research program was transferred from Area 51 to the Dugway Proving Ground after its cover was blown in the 1950s.

Here’s what the US General Accounting Office has to say about Dugway Proving Grounds:

“Dugway Proving Ground is a military testing facility located approximately 80 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. For several decades, Dugway has been the site of testing for various chemical and biological agents. From 1951 through 1969, hundreds, perhaps thousands of open-air tests using bacteria and viruses that cause disease in human, animals, and plants were conducted at Dugway… It is unknown how many people in the surrounding vicinity were also exposed to potentially harmful agents used in open-air tests at Dugway.”

Dave Rosenfeld, president of Utah UFO Hunters, has this to say about Dugway:

“Numerous UFOs have been seen and reported in the area in and around Dugway…[military aircraft can’t account for] all the unknowns seen in the area. It might be that our star visitors are keeping an eye on Dugway too…[Dugway is] the new area 51. And probably the new military spaceport.”

The new military spaceport? So maybe that wasn’t a meteor after all…

Sunday night was a great clear night. The crescent moon set early and the clouds stayed away until about 1:00 AM. I used my auto-guider for the first time since setting up the new observatory and it worked out pretty well. I was able to guide an object and keep it centered for well over an hour. I was averaging a little less than a two arc second error rate which should be improved when I perfect my polar alignment.

Here is my first picture of Messier 15, a globular star cluster hidden in the constellation Pegasus. This image is the result of 3×5 minute exposures and 1×1 minute exposure. I manually stacked the frames in Photoshop.

M15 - November 23rd 2009

For comparison sake, here is a picture of M15 from the Hubble telescope. Its a little nicer than my first attempt, but considering my rig didn’t cost $1,500,000,000 to setup, I think I did alright.

Mike with some Jawas

My in-laws gave me tickets to Starwars In Concert as an early Christmas present. The show was amazing and like nothing I have ever seen before. Anothony Daniels (C3p0) was the host and it was a thrill to see him in person. We had great seats so close to the stage I could easily have pegged Daniels with a thermal detonator.

The music was performed by a live symphony orchestra while a cleverly edited remix of the movies played on screen behind the stage. Each song was centered around a specific character, event or theme and Daniels introduced each song by telling a story about the character or event. The video footage playing during the song was a cut and mix of conceptual art and footage from all 6 of the films. It was a very stimulating and interesting way to see Star Wars and by the end of the show it felt like you had watched the entire saga in a little under two hours. I was reminded by Daniels that the ‘odds of successfully navigating an asteroid belt are approximately 3720 to 1′. I think finding a piece of an asteroid in Lancaster are slightly worse than that.

Props from the original movies apparently taken from George Lucas’s private collection at the Skywalker Ranch were setup throughout the concorse. It was a great display with all of the usual suspects and well over 20 exhibits. Live characters from a Star Wars fan club walked around the halls in full costumes. The costumes were great and the club was well prepared. There were no-duplicate characters present (except for storm troopers) and all characters were well represented.

Visit the Star Wars in Concert website to check show times and watch some videos. The tour is about 1/2 over but there are still available dates. If its in your area, I highly recommend it. Even the non-star-wars-fan would be impressed.

Thanks to my in-law’s connections at Lucas Film, I got VIP tickets and was able to access the show a couple of hours early. This let us look at the exhibits before the crowds arrived and we even got to watch the orchestra warm up a little. Here are some pictures from the show.

Jedi Master Yoda

Tusken Raider

Storm Troopers

X-Wing Pilot

Jedi Couple

Darth Vader Fighting Youngling

Mike With Chewbaca

C3P0 - Human Cyborg Relations

Anthony Daniels on Stage

Wife Getting Force Choked

Original Score - Written In Pencil!

Here’s are a few quick video clips I took before and during the show:

I setup for the Leonids meteor shower last night and was able to capture a picture of one of the meteors. I focused my camera on Procyon thinking it would be a good spot to catch something. I set the camera to shoot repeatedly and waited. As I waited I stared at Procyon, after a few minutes just like that a bright meteor flew out of the sky, its starting place looked to be exactly at Procyon. I waited for the exposure to finish and then eagerly checked the small camera screen, but I didn’t see anything! I was very upset. I started looking at my camera settings and noticed my focal ratio was way to high — f/5. I dropped it down to f/3 (as low as it can go) and continued to shoot the rest of the night with no results.

This morning I was reviewing my pictures on the computer and I saw my Procyon meteor in all its glory. I was so happy! The streak left by the meteor was too faint to see on the camera screen, but I could clearly see it on the computer. I have ordered a new camera lens that has a f/1.4 ratio which should be much better for future meteor shower pictures.

This is my first ever intentional meteor photo. Not as exciting as the last one, but still pretty good for an amateur like me.

Leonids Meteor - November 17th, 2009 12:30 AM

For reference purposes: I was using a Canon 20D, piggy back mounted on my telescope with ISO 800, f/5 focal ratio and a 60 second exposure.

UPDATE: Robert Lundsford from the American Meteor Society let me know that because of the location of the tail on this meteor, it is considered a sporadic meteor and not a Leonid. I plotted the picture in a star chart to understand what he was saying and I now see what he means. To be a meteor associated with a shower, the meteor has to radiate from a specific central point, in this case Leo. I’m curious to know if sporadic meteor rates increase during a shower though, meaning was this meteor caused from the same dust field that creates the shower, or something totally unrelated.

Here is the star chart plot of the picture. Click to enlarge.

Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star found in the constellation Orion. When viewed with the naked eye, Betelgeuse is visibly bigger than most stars in the sky and has a clear orange color. This star is so big if it were in our solar system it would stretch out to Jupiter, swallowing up Mercury, Venus, Earth & Mars.  Betelgeuse is a relatively young star but due to its enormous size its life span is much shorter and it will end in a super nova, some scientists believe soon enough to be witnessed by human civilization. At 640 light years away from Earth, Betelgeuse is visibly big inside the telescope.

Betelgeuse - November 7th, 2009

I finally got my pier up and running and had a perfect night to break it in. Orion is just now starting to come out again and I figured I would have a go at my favorite nebula. Here’s a quick process of four frames ranging in exposure time from 30 seconds to 1.5 minutes. I was not auto guiding and my polar alignment was a little off (still working things out).

Orion's Nebula - November 7th, 2009

Who says aliens and UFOs don’t exist?

Mike with Alien & UFO

In an effort to make minor improvements to the trajectory and search locations I have been spending a lot of time gathering more information about the original videos. I had contacted Alison Kruse and asked her if she could send me a copy of the original video as the only one that was every analyzed was the youtube version. Rob Matson was able to identify 3 stars plus Jupiter from the youtube version and the hope was we would be able to identify more stars in the HD/RAW version. Alison went to a lot of work to get me the video and I really appreciate it. In addition to meteors Alison has been filming some interesting phenomena in the skies east of Pittsburgh. Check out Alison’s UFO videos on her youtube channel SeeingUFOsPA. I recommend watching her UFO shooting laser beam movie.

After reviewing the high res version I was able to identify 2 new stars upping the total to 6. I talked to Rob and he said he thought he would be able to make some refinements with the new information. So thanks very much Alison the HD version of the video will definitely help narrow our search area.

Here is a single frame from the higher res version:

High Res Frame of Pittsburgh Meteor Video

Essentially I broke out approximately 20 frames from the video. I then layered them in photoshop and stepped through each frame one at a time. On a separate layer I marked anything that looked like it could be a star. I then mapped the image to a star chart. While most of the dots I had tagged were hot pixels or distortion I was able to see two extra ones that were not visible in the youtube version.

Mapped Pittsburgh Frame

I took the angle readings from the star chart myself and they are probably lacking accuracy for various reasons, however ‘the professionals’ will be creating an astrometric plate that will provide improved precision for these angles.

I’m waiting for this new version of the video to be analyzed, but my hope is it will make a slight improvement to the meteor path and ultimately the search locations.

Below is a map of Alison’s angles along with the York Water video angles. Its important to note that I measured these angles myself and they could be subject to a margin of error.

The color code for the lines in the map below are as follows: blue = entry point, green = first meteor position; yellow = last meteor position; red = meteor horizon point.

Here is a pretty cool space video a friend sent me:

We Are All Connected – Watch more Funny Videos

Fake Meteor Crater In Latvia

A report about a 20 meter meteor crater and burning meteorite came out Sunday night. Minutes after the report surfaced meteorite experts called foul.

Today scientists have reported that the crater was man made and concluded this was not caused by a meteor and must be some sort of hoax.

Possible non meteor explanations include:

1) Publicity stunt to increase tourism perpetrated by Borat and the Latvian Government
2) Russian weapons test gone bad
3) Underground natural gas explosion
4) Latest experiment from balloon boy’s dad

At this point most news organizations outside are reporting this as a hoax. The people who created / reported the incident made a pretty cool video though.

In an effort refine or confirm the current meteor trajectory I have been doing a lot of work to improve the altitude and azimuth readings from the collected videos. A couple of meteor experts suggested taking calibrated stellar photos of the direct video sightings. A calibrated stellar photo is a picture or video that contains visible stars or celestial objects taken with the same camera in the same location. The frames from the meteor video can then be layered over the calibrated photo and precise azimuth and altitude readings can be determined. Using known reference points in the calibrated photo you can get reference points to the unknown object in the original photo.

I contacted the York Water Company and asked if we could shoot some video from the fish eye camera that recorded the meteor on July 6th. Based on the distortion and power of the camera I thought grabbing stars was going to be hard. A friend of mine was checking the star charts and let me know that the full moon would be rising in the east on October 4th and October 5th. York’s camera faces east and I agreed this would be our best chance for calibrating the photo. By recording the moon rising on two different nights we would be able to obtain dozens of reference points throughout the night. The videos turned out perfectly and I have been able to do exactly what I wanted.

There are a total of nine frames from the original meteor video. I was able to layer these frames over the moon pictures and in three cases I got perfect matches. The meteor is exactly in the same position as the moon at different points of time. The rest of the frames partially overlay or come very close to moon pictures. I have been able to get a much more precise reading of the altitude and azimuth from the York video using this new calibrated photo. When I trace the meteor path to the horizon in the star maps I come up with a 67 degree angle. If I draw a line NE at 67 degrees in Google Earth from the York Water pumping station it intersects with Rob Matson’s 0km impact point almost perfectly (Rob’s point is actually 67.5 degrees NE from York Water). It is my understanding Rob did not use the York Water video in his original 3D model projection because we could not get a precise enough ALT-AZ reading from the camera due to the distortion caused by the fisheye lens. I interpret the analysis from this calibrated video as a confirmation of what Rob has already predicted. I find it pretty amazing how close this new angle comes to Rob’s original projection considering Rob only used the Pittsburgh video and my astro photo as input for his calculations.

York Water Trajectory Map