Mike's Astro Photos

Its that time of year again and Orion the hunter is currently rising in the east just before midnight. Orion is home to several spectacular nebula the most famous being M42 – The Great Orion Nebula. M42 is a defuse nebula situated just below Orion’s belt. Coming in at 24 light years across and only 1,344 light years away from Earth, the great nebula is big enough and bright enough to see with the naked eye, but without optics, its not much more than a smudge located in the center star of Orion’s sword. This diffuse nebula is one of the brightest nebula in the sky and a fantastic sight in binoculars or a small telescope. Here’s a recent picture of the nebula, much better than my first.

The Great Orion Nebula - November 2nd, 2010

Photo Details:
William Optics FLT 98 / CGEM Mount
Canon 20Da Camera
SBIG STV Autoguider
12×3 minute ISO 400 exposures
Deep Sky Stacker
Photoshop cleanup

Comet Hartley 2 was as close as it gets to Earth last week. I snapped these pictures the night after the peak (as peak night was cloudy.)

Comet Hartley 2 - Hartley 103/P - October 22, 2010 16:58 UTC

Here’s an animated GIF of a sequence of images taken over a 45 minute time period. Clouds were coming and going so I had to drop some frames at the beginning of the animation. The line that goes through one of the frames is a satellite.

Comet Hartley 2 - Oct 22, 2010 16:26 - 17:17 UTC

The really really exciting thing about this comet is: NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is currently operating the EPOXI mission and one of the goals of this mission is to send a NASA probe (space ship) on a close fly by of this comet. This fly by is scheduled to take place in just a few days. You can read more about the EPOXI mission here.

Photo Details
William Optics FLT 98 / CGEM Mount
Canon 20Da Camera
No Auto Guider
30 second ISO 400 exposures
No stacking / no flat frame processing
minimal photoshop cleanup

UPDATE November 4th, 2010 From Gary Fujihara @ Big Kahuna Meteorites

For those of you who missed the live webcast, EPOXI spacecraft flew by Comet Hartley 2 a few minutes ago and took some absolutely stunning pictures with its Medium Resolution Imager. Here is a composite of 3 of the 5 closest approach images:

And here is an Associated Press Story about the NASA mission.

Spiral Cluster M34 - October 1st, 2010

The Spiral Cluster, aka M34 is an open cluster in the constellation of Perseus found not far from the Perseus Double Cluster. M34 is an open cluster believed to have first been discovered by Giovanni Batista Hodierna sometime before 1654. In 1764 Charles Messier described it as

“a cluster of small stars between the head of Medusa and the left foot of Andromeda, a little below the parallel of gamma Andromedae. In an ordinary telescope of 3 foot [focal length] one can distinguish the stars.”

Photo Details
William Optics FLT 98 / CGEM Mount
Canon 20Da Camera
SBIG STV Auto Guider
24×3 minute ISO 400
Total Exposure Time: 1 hour 12 minutes
6 flat frames (av mode) & 1 dark

So I heard about this story a few weeks ago. A bunch of retired US Air Force guys claim UFOs came to the nuclear missile silos in the US and remotely hacked our missiles and turned them off. These guys (over 100 of them) have recently met at a conference to discuss these events and the cover ups that followed. Here’s a video of the conference. This is pretty compelling stuff, not sure what to make of it. Comments welcome.

I took these milkyway photos this past July 4th, 2010. I mounted my DSLR and standard lens on top of my telescope, so that I could benefit from the mount’s tracking (and leave the shutter open longer to capture the milkway.) Each of these photos is a single 3 minute exposure @ ISO 800. I live in the suburbs, of the suburbs so it seems dark, but it is still considered  an orange light pollution zone (just 2 notches down from the city). Surprisingly you can see the milkway quite well with your naked eye on a moonless summer night.

Milkyway Surrounding Deneb - July 4th, 2010 1:52 AM

Milkyway and Altair - July 4th, 2010 1:31 AM

Milkyway on Southern Horizon - July 4th, 2010 1:40 AM

A lightning storm blew through Baltimore County  this past Wednesday September 22, 2010. It was a nice show with visible bolts firing every couple of seconds.

Here’s a photo of the Pleiades also known as the Seven Sisters. This open star cluster is one of the closest to Earth and clearly visible to the naked eye in the constellation Taurus. The prominent dust cloud surrounding the stars was once thought to be a nebula left over from the star formation, but is now believed to be just a dust cloud within the interstellar medium.

Pleiades - September 6th, 2010

Photo Details
William Optics FLT 98
Canon 20Da Camera
13×3 minute ISO 400
SBIG STV Auto Guider

Here’s a recent photo of the Andromeda Galaxy taken with a William Optics FLT98. At a mere 2.2 million light years away, Andromeda is the closest spiral galaxy to Earth and visible as a fuzzy dot in binoculars or a small telescope. On a dark night you can see it with your naked eye or a basic camera lens. Andromeda is estimated to have over 1 trillion stars making it 2-3 times larger than the Milkyway.

Andromeda Galaxy - Sept 6th, 2010

Photo Details
William Optics FLT 98
Canon 20Da Camera
12×3 minute ISO 400
SBIG STV Auto Guider

Here’s a picture of the Messier 27, the Dumbell Nebula, a planetary nebula 1367 light years away from Earth.

Full magnification cropped frame below.

M27 Dumbell Nebula - September 06, 2010

and here is the full picture.

M27 Dumbell Nebula - September 6, 2010

Photo Details
William Options FLT 98
Canon 20Da Camera
60×1 minute ISO 400
SBIG STV Auto Guider

I recently went on vacation to Atlantis in the Bahamas and took some astro photos while I was there.

The full moon in July was called the hay moon because farmers cut their hay in July around this time. I can confirm this happens in Lancaster as I’ve seen more cut hay fields in the last two weeks than I have all year. Here’s a picture of the Hay Moon rising over Atlantis.

Hay Moon Atlantis - July 25th, 2010

I really wanted to catch a meteor photo over the ocean, so I setup my camera and tripod on the balcony and waited. I caught one within 15 minutes, my first night trying, but not a single one after.

Atlantis Meteor

Here’s the full picture:

Meteor Over Ocean

Here’s a picture of the moon just over the main towers the last night I was there.

Moon Rising Over Atlantis

A time lapse video of the moon rising:

And the sun rise the morning I went home.

Atlantis Sun Rise

Good times…

I spotted this hawk in my backyard on Friday morning. He liked sitting on top of my covered telescope tripod.

Hawk - July 9th, 2010

He had a good view from up there and then saw something he liked.

Hawk - July 9th, 2010

There have been swarms of beatles in the yard the last few days and this guy was spotting out some breakfast.

Hawk - July 9th, 2010

Umm protein…good.

Hawk - July 9th, 2010

I wasn’t sure what type of hawk this was so I posted the pictures to a birding forum. This is what Mike Miller from Astromart had to say:

This is an immature Red-shouldered Hawk. Note the bright buffy bar, near the tip of the far wing in Photo #2. This is diagnostic for Red-shouldered, and cleanly separates it from Broad-winged, which can be very similar, especially with a perched bird.

Here’s a photo of Messier 8 — The Lagoon Nebula, a giant interstellar cloud in the constellation Sagittarius.

Lagoon Nebula – July 6th, 2010

Here’s the core at full resolution.

Lagoon Nebula - M8 Core

 

Photo Details
50×1 minute ISO 800 exposures
Canon 20da DSLR
WO FLT98
CGEM Mount
SBIG STV Auto Guider

Another fireball meteor fell over Baltimore and PA on June 24th, 2010.

Orioles fans watched it streak across the Baltimore sky line during a night game Thursday. How cool would that have been!? Plus the O’s won.

Here’s a map of the AMS witness reports, some reports from Maryland Weather Blog and the York Water video (yes York Water captured this one too).

June 24th, 2010 - Oriole's Fireball

From an early analysis / quick eye up it looks like the termination point for this fireball is somewhere north west of Harrisburg. I have some new data that I’m working with while leads and information continue to come in. Its looking like meteorites may have landed in the Appalachian mountains which will be very difficult terrain to go meteorite hunting in.

Here are a view news stories. The York Daily Record story has a video of the fireball as it terminates.

http://weblogs.marylandweather.com/2010/06/meteor_during_orioles_game.html

http://www.ydr.com/ci_15379570?source=most_viewed

Will keep you posted.

Here’s a photo of Venus and the New Moon.

Venus and New Moon - June 14th, 2010

The yellow streak in the middle left looks a bit like a squiggly meteor or a UFO, but its actually a firefly.

Firefly

Here’s a closeup of the moon right before it set.

New Moon Setting

Here’s a photo of the Sombrero Galaxy through the WOFLT98.

Sombrero Galaxy - May 5th, 2010

Here’s a crop at full resolution:

Sombrero Galaxy

I’m still getting the hang of this scope, but check out the difference in zoom and quality with the Sombrero picture take with the SCT.

Photo Details
William Optics FLT98
Canon 20Da DSLR
3 frames @ 2 minutes each
ISO800