I imaged the Perseid Meteor Shower three nights this week capturing an average of four meteors each night. Here are the best two from the peak night. Both are fairly large, bright and long.

Perseid Meteor High Res - August 12th, 2011

I think this one may be a small fireball. You can see Cassiopeia in the shot for reference.

Perseid Meteor - August 12th, 2011

Some light cloud cover rolled in but it wasn’t enough to block this Perseid .

Perseid Meteor - August 12th, 2011

Here’s the full sized picture:

Perseid Meteor - August 12th, 2011

I have compiled all information on the Mason Dixon Meteor hunt onto a specific page. For information about the PA Fireball of July 6th, 2009 please visit:

The Official Page of The Mason Dixon Meteor

I was on vacation last week at Atlantis in the Bahamas. Here are some pictures I took of a lightning storm over the Caribbean.

Lightning, Atlantis Bahamas - July 25th, 2011

The constellation in the background is the big dipper.

Lightning, Atlantis Bahamas - July 25th, 2011

Lightning, Atlantis Bahamas - July 25th, 2011

Lightning, Atlantis Bahamas - July 25th, 2011

I caught a faint meteor during the session.

Meteor - Atlantis Bahamas - July 2011

This is the third year in a row we’ve been to Atlantis Bahamas for vacation and it was the best one yet.

One of my neighbors went to Cape Canaveral for the final Space Shuttle launch. I asked her to send me some pictures. I strung them together in this quick animation of the launch. Thanks Caron! You did a great job!

Final Space Shuttle Launch Animation - Photo Credit Caron Wills - July 8th, 2011

Mind = Blown

I had a good run on globular clusters during last month’s new moon phase that culminated with this color shot of M5. Note the faint green trail of a satellite in the upper left. The only reason its green is because I was shooting through a green filter when the satellite crossed the field of view.

Messier 5 - June 7th, 2011

I have been transitioning from DSLR astrophotography to CCD photography. The CCD cameras are way better and the quality and overall ease of things is much better, but there is a bit of a learning curve. I’m still working out some issues with the optics and guiding combos. This photo guided perfectly with the MOAG, but due to the way things are connected, I can’t use the field flattener / corrector when I’m using the MOAG. As a result, there is distortion and stretching at the outer corners. I have since setup a guide-scope, so I can use the corrector and I’m getting worse guide results now. So there’s still work to be done… All this aside, M5 turned out pretty good for the first attempt at a color shot and July is starting out nicely too.

Photo Details
30x30x30 RGB
Camera SBIG ST8300
Guiding off-axis with a 402 mounted using a MOAG.
Paramount ME Mount
William Optics FLT98
CCDSoft / The Sky X / CCDStack

Here’s a photo of Messier 10, a globular cluster in the constellation of Ophiuchus.

Messier 10 - June 3rd, 2011

Photo Details
4×10 Clear Filter / Total Exposure Time 40 minutes
Camera SBIG ST8300
Guiding off-axis with a 402 mounted using a MOAG.
Paramount ME Mount
William Optics FLT98
CCDSoft / The Sky X / CCDStack

The U2 360 concert was amazing. SPACE was one of the dominant themes. The show started with David Bowie’s Space Odyssey and ended with Elton John’s Rocket Man. At the beginning of the show they cut in video of an astronaut on the international space station. They cut in video of more astronauts at the end. The stage looked like a UFO. This show was all about space and in that way profound, especially for me.

Bono modestly pointed out that 8 million lives have been saved as a result of 2 programs that he has pioneered and we Americans have supported. That was pretty awesome. He called on everyone in attendance 80,000+ people to give back to the world. It was inspirational.

The concert started like an encore with lots of old time favorites belted out in the first 10 songs, including Pride and I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. The music selection seemed to gravitate around the album Actung Baby which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year. I think they played nearly every track on that CD. Bono was very proud of their influence on the politics of that time and the end of the Cold War. He said the album was in fact a celebration of the war’s end.

Bono thanked George Bush for assisting with efforts in Africa and did not utter the word Obama or pay any homage to our current leader. I thought this was interesting because in the first U2 concert I ever saw, (Zoo TV) he called the White House at every show until he finally got through to the President (Bush Senior).

The space tie in makes sense. This is our future. This is our evolutionary purpose. Only when we look on the Earth from space do we realize how petty and silly our current conflicts and differences are. Only by challenging ourselves to go beyond our own planet can we be elevated to a higher level of thought and existence.

Here’s a time lapse video of about 1400 pictures we took at the concert.

Here’s a photo of the Globular Star Cluster Messier 15 located in the constellation Pegasus. Estimated to be 13.2 billion years old, M15 is one of the oldest known star clusters.

Messier 15 - June 2nd, 2011

Photo Details
18×10 Clear Filter / Total Exposure Time 180 minutes
Camera SBIG ST8300
Guiding off-axis with a 402 mounted using a MOAG.
Paramount ME Mount
William Optics FLT98
CCDSoft / The Sky X / CCDStack

Here’s an astrophoto of NGC 6960 from a couple of weeks ago. Also known as the Veil Nebula, NGC6960 is a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust found in the constellation Cygnus.

The Veil Nebula NGC6960 - May 31st 2011

This is the second in a series of test photos that I took during the last new moon phase at the beginning of June. I was testing and improving various aspects of the system. Most of the photos shot during this period were black and white mainly because I was working on other issues at the time, like: tracking/polar alignment, guiding, focusing/image correction, flat/dark calibration and learning new software and techniques. It was a very productive week.

The photo does suffer from a few problems including: imperfect guiding and distorted optics, especially at the corners of the image. This seems to be one of my last major hurdles and requires getting the field flattener set just right. Part of the process of improving the pictures is identifying specific imperfections, understanding why they exist and then acting to formulate solutions to the challenges. Despite these problems, I’m still happy with the image especially since its only the second photo I’ve taken with this new camera system.

Photo Details
5×10 Clear Filter / Total Exposure Time 50 minutes
Camera SBIG ST8300
Guiding with 402 & Piggy back guide scope
Paramount ME Mount
William Optics FLT98
CCDSoft / The Sky X / CCDStack

Globular star clusters are one of the many fascinating things you can image in the night sky. These clusters are the place where stars are born by the 100s of 1000s. M13 also known as Great Globular Cluster in Hercules boasts over 300,000 stars.

I have been setting up / testing / learning some new equipment and software the last few months and this is the first image I have created from the new rig. I still have some things to work on, but we’re getting there.

Messier 13 - May 30th, 2011

Photo Details
LRGB 60x40x40x40 / Total Exposure Time 3 Hours
Camera SBIG ST8300
Guiding with 402 & Piggy back guide scope
Paramount ME Mount
William Optics FLT98
CCDSoft / The Sky X / CCDStack

I just got around to making a time lapse video from last years lunar eclipse. I had taken a picture ever 30 seconds for the duration of the event. I lost a few frames due to clouds towards the final stages. The movement of the moon in the frame is due to imprecise polar alignment. I had to setup the mount that night and its alignment was slightly off. I remember having to baby sit it and correct the FOV every few minutes until the early morning.

Here’s a screen cap of today’s shuttle launch. Endeavour’s last mission.  Kinda sad…

Launch of Endeavour Space Shuttle

Update: Here’s a pic of today’s launch taken by Stefanie Gordon on a flight from NY to FL.

Shuttle Take off - Stefanie Gordon - May 16th 2011

Here’s an amazing picture of a shuttle and an F15. (don’t think it was today’s launch). The photographer of this photo is unknown, but I assume another F15 pilot.

F15 watching shuttle take off - Unknown Date - Unknown Photographer

And here’s an F22 watching another launch

F22 Guarding Shuttle - Unknown Date - Unknown Photographer

And here’s another one…

F15 watching shuttle launch - Unknown Date - Unknown Photographer

A friend of mine on facebook posted this. All I can say is wow.  Check this out!!!

http://media.skysurvey.org/openzoom.html

Here’s a photo of the Double Cluster in Perseus aka NGC 884 & 869. This is one of the most spectacular visual objects you can look at — its so big and covers so much space you can actually see it with the naked eye. In powerful telescopes you have to move the scope to view the entire object. Both of these clusters are thought to be 7000 light years away from us and only a few hundred light years away from each other. They are infants in the stellar sense, both less than 6 million years old.  Considering our solar system is 4.5 billion years old, that’s pretty young.  The Double Cluster is a great object to showcase at a star party or to show first time astronomers.

Double Cluster - December 9th, 2010

Photo Details
26×4 minute iso 400 exposures
Canon 20DA Camera
CGEM Mount
William Optics FLT98
SBIG STV Auto Guider