Mike's Astro Photos

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

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

Here’s a shot of the open star cluster M37 from January 8th, 2010.

Messier 37 - January 8th, 2009

Here’s a photo of Messier 103 an open cluster in the constellation Cassiopeia. This image is comprised of approximately 20×2 minute exposures stacked with flats and darks using Deep Sky Stacker.

Messier 103 - November 28th, 2009

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

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.

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

The new observatory is almost complete. I just got power working last night. I have the scope setup in there on the tripod as I haven’t gotten the pier yet. Its currently being fabricated and I should have it by the end of the month. Photography wise I’m limited to piggyback shots until I get the pier installed. I took this photo of Andromeda last night, I simply mounted my camera on top of my telescope, pointed to the Andromeda and snapped 5×2 minute exposures. I stacked 3 inside photoshop to create this image. There was the lowest default zoom on the camera, so the size of Andromeda is what it would be if you saw it with your naked eye (no magnification). Andromeda is the fuzzy ball in the center of the pic.

Andromeda Galaxy - September 19th, 2009

Milkway with Vega

Here’s a picture of the Milkway with Vega. This picture is a stacked composite of 12, 2 minute exposures at ISO800. The camera was mounted ontop of the scope piggyback style. I got my first successful attempts at the milkway last night and this is the results of my second night. The scope and camera were pointed at the zenith (straight up) which helped out a lot with the image / light pollution.

Here’s a piggy back photo of Orion. Its 3×30 second exposures stacked in photoshop. The red star in the middle of the 3 sword stars is M42 the Orion Nebula.

Orion

Here’s a 30 second piggy back exposure of Sirus and Orion.

Sirius and Orion Piggyback