Mike's Astro Photos

Here is a picture of Messier Object 63 a spectacular spiral galaxy nicknamed the Sun Flower Galaxy.

M63 - February 20th, 2010

I recently bought a new telescope and I used it for the first time Saturday March 6th. I was really having a tough time with it the whole night. Between setup, polar alignment, balancing, tracking and then doing it all over again a few times, I didn’t get much time to do photography. I was really only taking test shots most of the evening and after several hours of frustration and not expecting to have taken any good photos, I chalked the perfectly dark no moon clear night up to a leaning experience. I was eager to review the test shots just to see how the new scope performed. During the session, I took 3 shots of the Flame Nebula to test focusing. While reviewing the photos at the end of the evening, I found this meteor looking streak right through it.

Flame Nebula & Telescopic Meteor

Here’s a zoom-crop of just the meteor part:

Meteor

Here’s an inverted image of the meteor. The variation in light intensity and pixel width (a sign of a meteor) is clear in the inverted picture:

Inverted Image of Meteor

I haven’t gotten confirmation on what this is yet, but I’ve posted the picture to the meteor observing community to get some opinions. If it was in fact a meteor, it would have been a very teeny tiny one, probably the size of a grain of sand. This meteor would not have been visible to the human eye or normal camera lens.

Here’s a picture of M3 a magnificent globular star cluster.

Here’s a picture of Messier 84, a galaxy in the constellation Virgo. M84 is in the core of the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies, a part of the sky comprised of approximately 1300 galaxies… Wow. You can see what look to be at least 5 galaxies in this picture. Doing some quick math on this… over 5 billion stars are represented in this small piece of the sky imaged from a backyard telescope.

M84 - A Cluster of Galaxies

Here’s a photo of M35 an open star cluster in the constellation Gemini. This is a 60 minute exposure (3 minute x 20 frames) at ISO 800 taken with my Canon 20D and CPC 1100 using the focal reducer. This is a pretty big object about the same size as the full moon. I spent most of my time this weekend hunting the skies for Comets Wild 81/P and C/2007 Q3 Siding Spring. These two comets don’t rise until close to midnight so I captured a few DSOs while I was waiting. After 3 nights of searching I still have not been able to find either of these comets, but they will be around for at least a month, so I will keep at it.

Open Cluster M35 - February 19th, 2010

Most of this weeks episode of Meteorite Men will be about the West Texas / Ash Creek meteorite search, but they will have a segment dedicated to the PA Fireball from July 6th, 2010. Any meteorite hunters out there tracking the Lancaster Meteorites will get a jolt of motivation from watching this episode. It should also be a fun and interesting episode for anyone who experienced the fall last summer. Check it out on Science Channel at 9:00 PM & 11:00 PM this Wednesday night.

Update Tuesday Feb 23, 2010: I got a call from the meteorite men producers and they said they bumped the Mason Dixon segment from the show in favor of a longer Lorton episode.

Sometimes people have a hard time understanding why I’m so obsessed with finding the Mason Dixon Meteor. Its hard to explain really, but the other day someone on the meteorite list posted this quote from 1964 made by Doctors who were part of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris.

Dr.Hey, Dr.Mason, Prof. Orcel, Prof. Sztrokay and Dr.Fournier D’Albe wrote:

“Since meteorites are the only specimens we receive of material from outside
our Earth, it is essential for the progress of science that every effort be
made to collect these specimens and make them available for investigation.
Unesco, through its Working Group on Meteorites, is trying to interest
people everywhere in the observation and recovery of meteorites.”

Those are the first sentences of a circular, they proposed, which….

“It is recommended that the circular”…”be sent to the institution
responsible for meteorites in each country, with the suggestion that copies
of it be given wide circulations in schools, post offices, police stations
and other public services. It is desirable that the press and radio be
encouraged to arouse public interest in this subject.”

Any questions?

Here’s a picture of M82, an irregular galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major. Dubbed the cigar galaxy for its shape, M82 looks like its exploding. Astronomers explain this effect as gas being driven out of the galaxy by particle winds.

M82 Cigar Galaxy - February 13th, 2010

Check out this Hubble photo of M82 to experience the full effect.

Here’s a pretty cool picture of a meteor with a nifty spear like shape.

Meteor Spear - February 12th, 2010 4:07 AM EST

There are two distinctive bursts where the meteor gets wider and brighter. You can see these more easily in the inverted image:

Meteor Spear Inverted

Here’s the full image. Its no fireball but this is a bigger than average meteor with a distinctive shape.

Meteor Spear - February 12th, 2010 4:07 AM EST

Here’s a photo of Bode’s Galaxy, Messier 81 a grand spiral galaxy. M81 is approximately 12 million light years away and home to a super massive black hole. This photo is the processed output of 20×3 minute ISO 800 exposures. I’m still figuring out the best methods for the Deep Sky Stacker software. It seems I’m loosing a bit of color when I stack and things are turning a little gray. Despite the loss of color DSS brought out a good bit of definition in the outer spiral rings.

Bode's Galaxy M81 - February 13th, 2010

Catalina Mountains Tucson - February 5th, 2010

Here are a few astro photos I took from La Paloma, our Hotel in Tucson. I had originally wanted to drive out into the desert and shoot from there, but the timing wasn’t right so I decided to give it a try from the resort. I spent a few hours one night walking around to different spots trying to get a good vantage point on the stars. It wasn’t till the end of the night that I had discovered the golf course, which turned out to be the perfect place for observing and photographing. There were no street lamps and the course was very dark. The hotel is in the foothills of the Catalina mountains, the suburbs of Tucson, so the skies weren’t super black, but they were better than Baltimore County and the scenery was pretty awesome.

I really wanted to catch some meteor photos over the mountains and I thought about setting up the camera and leaving it running for the whole night, but the thought of sleeping on the golf course didn’t do much for me and I didn’t want to leave the camera unattended in such a public place. I shot 3-5 pictures from a dozen or so different spots. No meteors but the cacti, mountains and sky line all contributed to some cool photos.

Tucson Skyline - February 5th, 2010

Big Dipper & Cactus in Tucson - February 5th, 2010

Big Dipper Catalina Mountains - February 5th, 2010

Catalina Mountains Tucson

Orion From Tucson - February 5th, 2010

Orion Tucson - February 5th, 2010

Tucson Gem & Mineral Show - February 2010

I really wanted to do something special for my wife this Valentines day and I thought, what would be better than a trip to Tucson for the annual Gem & Mineral Show? Exhibitors from around the world converge on Tucson each year show casing the best collections of precious and semi-precious stones, minerals, fossils and other collectibles. This trade show spans dozens of hotels throughout the city and is the home of the world’s largest meteorite expo! I knew she would love it. We arrived Thursday February 4th and were planning a long weekend. Due to the cataclysmic snow storms on the east coast we ended up getting stranded in Tucson for two extra days. We were set to fly back to Dulles on Tuesday and our flight was canceled again as a result of snow storm #2. So we booked a flight to Charlotte NC, rented a 4×4 and planned to drive 8 hours home, through the snow storm. Our luck changed at the Dallas Fort Worth Airport when a plane to Philly was delayed. We were able to jump on that flight and make it home before the snow hit. Now I’m home and looking out the window at 4+ feet of snow on the ground. Its a stark contrast to the sunny 70 degree weather in the west.

Despite the travel chaos the trip to Tucson was a lot of fun. Its a beautiful city and the people are very nice and laid back. I was able to pick up a bunch of nice new meteorites on the cheap and I met up with some of the top meteorite people in the world. I even got a chance to go meteorite hunting in the Wet Stone strewn field. We didn’t find anything but it was a great experience to hunt with pros in the Arizona desert. Here are a few pics of some of the fossils they had at the show. I could have picked up a nice, real, full Triceratops skull for only $250,000, but I didn’t bring that much cash with me.

Tucson Fossil & Meteorite Show - February 2010

T-Rex Skull

Giant Sloth Fossil

Tucson Fossil Show - February 2010

Tucson Fossil Show - February 2010

Tucson Fossil Show - February 2010

Megalodon Jaws

The full moon on January 30th, 2010 was the biggest and brightest it will be all year according to space.com. The moon travels in an elliptical orbit around the Earth and it is closer at some times than others. About 2 times a year this closeness coincides with a full moon and that’s what happened Saturday night. Despite the extra big full moon I tried doing some meteor photography Sunday night. I actually caught a couple. You can see in this picture the moon is huge. Part of this is due to the 25 second exposure, but even still, that’s a big moon.

Big Moon Meteor - January 31st, 2010

here’s a closeup of just the meteor. I’m surprised it was even visible with the light from the moon.

Big Moon Meteor - January 31st, 2010

It turns out the Doctors who gave the Lorton Meteorite to the Smithsonian didn’t own the building that got hit and after finding out about it the landlords (the legal owners of the rock) want the meteorite back. The museum offered to pay the landlords $5,000. Turns out the rock is worth $25,000-$50,000. A 300 gram rock at $30 per gram (the low end price for something like this) would be $9,000, at $100 per gram (the super hype price) that would be $30,000 + the hammer stone bonus, first stone in a witnessed fall in the nations capital bonus and all the media hype some bidders might be willing to pay up to $50,000 for this rock. You can read the full article here or watch this update from the local news.

Here’s a cropped picture of a sporadic meteor from 4:20 am on January 10th, 2009.

Sporadic Meteor - January 10th, 2009 4:20 AM

Here’s the full picture. The trail on the left is a meteor. The small red line in the bottom center of the picture is a plane.

Sporadic Meteor - January 10th, 2009 4:20 AM