An Overlooked Gem?

I saw a beautiful image of this object on Astrobin a few days ago and decided to try it myself. I agree with the person who posted that image (user 1074j) that this is a beautiful object that is often overlooked because of its proximity to the Lagoon and Trifid nebulas.  I'm pretty sure it is part of the same molecular cloud complex so it must be at about the same distance, between 4000 and 5000 light years. It has a nice combination of emission, reflection, and dark nebulae along with lots of stars.

I synched the PicGoto on λ Sag, and the goto was right on. (The zigzag pattern of 4 stars in the leftmost lobe of the nebula in my image is pretty distinctive, making this star field easy to recognize. I look for stuff like that in AstroPlanner's field of view window and match what I'm seeing with the map when I'm trying to frame a shot.) It was a very warm night; the CCD started at 30 °C but 2.5 A through the Peltier cooler got it down to 18 °C. Once again I followed the sky background and general image quality using Deep Sky Stacker Live. There were wind gusts, but they didn't hurt me much because I used a focal reducer to expand my field of view. That meant my image scale was more than 3 arcsec/pixel, and even with the wind I can guide so I don't get motion much more than that.

Date: 22 Jul 2014
Subject: IC 1275
Scope: AT8IN+Antares 0.5x focal reducer
Filter: Baader UHC-S
Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors, PicGoto Simplificado)
Guiding: 9x50 Finder/Guider + DSI Ic + PHD 2.3.0 (Win 7 ASCOM)
Camera: DSI IIc chiller at 2.50 A, 18 °C
Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.2.0, no dither
Exposure: 43x300 s
Stacking: Neb 3, bad pixel map, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack.
Processing: StarTools 1.3.5.279 Crop; Wipe:Color & brightness 76%; Develop 80.11%; HDR:Optimize; Color:Scientific, 250%; Deconvolute auto mask 2.5 pix; Life:Moderate; Track RNC 0.98%; Magic:Shrink 1 pix;  CS6 Astronomy Tools Increase star color; Healing brush; Smudge tool to remove stacking artifact; Astro Frame.

Don't Try This at Home (in the Suburbs): Barnard's Galaxy

Since the sky was clearer than it had been in days (most of the smoke was blowing to the north, although I could smell some and there was an ominous smoke cloud in the direction of the Salt Lake Valley), and because the Moon was mostly not a factor, I decided to try a new, difficult, dark-sky target, Barnard's Galaxy. I've been more interested in trying this since seeing the Magellanic Clouds during my trip to Australia last fall. Anyway, I synced on Altair (again quite far from the target) and used the PicGoto to find NGC 6822. I had to hunt around for asterisms a bit, but once again the PicGoto came through for me. At 300 s exposure, I could just barely see Barnard's Galaxy in single subframes, and I expected the sky to darken as the night progressed (it did, but then I got clouds or something so after 3 hours it got much worse). I played with Deep Sky Stacker Live as I acquired this. I didn't keep the stack, but it was quite useful to see how the background brightness changed through the session. It was quite warm; the CCD started at 26 °C and at 2.5 A of current in my Peltier chip I got it cooled to about 18 °C. The air was also fairly still so my guiding was not terrible (that got worse too as the night progressed). All in all, this WAS a difficult target, one of those you are "not supposed to attempt from the suburbs," so I'm glad to have gotten something.

This is also the nearest galaxy I have imaged, with the exception of my "accidental" capture of both Magellanic Clouds from Canberra, Australia, when I was there last November.

Date: 21 Jul 2014
Subject: NGC 6822, Barnard’s Galaxy
Scope: AT8IN
Filter: Meade IR cut
Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors, PicGoto Simplificado)
Guiding: 9x50 Finder/Guider + DSI Ic + PHD 2.3.0 (Win 7 ASCOM)
Camera: DSI IIc chiller at 2.50 A, 18 °C
Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.2.0, no dither
Exposure: 36x300 s
Stacking: Neb 3, bad pixel map, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack.
Processing: StarTools 1.3.5.279 Crop; Wipe:Color & brightness 77%; Develop 87.49%; Color:Scientific, 287%; HDR:Optimize; Life:Moderate; Deconvolute auto mask 1.5 pix; HDR: Tame; Track RNC 1.23%; Magic:Shrink 1 pix; CS6 Astronomy Tools Increase star color; Deep space noise reduction; Healing brush; Astro Frame.

Landing Day

Today is Landing Day! I celebrate it every year, the first time humans ever walked on another world. Usually, I watch the "Mare Tranquillitatis" episode from the HBO Series From the Earth to the Moon, then perhaps break out Apollo 13.

I usually start my classes each term with a discussion about why we went to the Moon, and sadly, these days I'm usually the only person in the room who remembers. I was 10 years old and my family was on vacation in a park in Quincy, Illinois, eating lunch and listening to the landing on the radio. Even then I was a space nerd, so when I heard "Contact light. Engine stop." I knew the Eagle was safely down. We watched the first moonwalk from a motel in Nauvoo, Illinois (this little town is very important in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; that's why we were there). The journey to the Moon shaped my young life and inspired my ambitions. It is a significant part of why I am a scientist today. As much as I still love manned spaceflight, going up to the ISS in low Earth orbit just doesn't even come close to the excitement I (and I think, much of the world) felt about going to the Moon.

What does this have to do with astrophotography? As I've mentioned in some earlier posts, lunar astrophotography is not something I'm very good at, but I do enjoy giving it a shot from time to time. In the spring of 2013, I decided to try to image all the Apollo landing sites. These aren't great images. I took all of them right after starting to use my Logitech c270 HD webcam and I was trying to do the capture all Mac-native. Hmm... maybe I'm going to need to try this again using SharpCap and what I've learned in the last year. In any event, in honor of Landing Day, here they are. All the landing sites, as best I can pinpoint them (using the free lunar atlas software atlun; it's wonderful) are marked with yellow cross hairs.

This is one of the first images with my modified Logitech c270 HD camera.  This has much smaller pixels than the LPI, and hence gives a more “magnified” effect.  There is still some vignetting with this camera.  Capture was fully Mac-native.  OK for a first try; seeing was poor.  The small crater just slightly above center is Armstrong.

Date: 17 Apr 2013
Subject: Sea of Tranquility, Apollo 11 Landing Site
Scope:  AT8IN + Meade 3x Barlow
Filter:  Baader Planetarium Fringe Killer (UV-IR cut)
Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors)
Guiding: manual
Camera: Modified Logitech c270 HD
Acquisition: BTV+Webcam Settings
Exposure: 120 s, ~10 fps
Stacking: PIPP (Wine); Registax 6 (VMWare), best 80 frames
Processing: Wavelets in Registax 6; StarTools Contrast:Agressiveness 25; Sharpen; Deconvolute:3 pix; CS6 add crosshairs, Astronomy Tools AstroFrame.

This image of the Apollo 12 & 14 landing sites is probably a little better than one I took earlier, although at the time I took it I was just looking for the Fra Mauro site.  These two are pretty close together (about 180 km).

Date: 20 Apr 2013
Subject: Apollo 12 (Ocean of Storms) and Apollo 14 (Fra Mauro) Landing Sites
Scope:  AT8IN + Meade 3x Barlow
Filter:  Baader Planetarium Fringe Killer (UV-IR cut)
Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors)
Guiding: manual
Camera: Modified Logitech c270 HD
Acquisition: BTV+Webcam Settings
Exposure: 120 s, ~10 fps
Stacking: PIPP (Wine); Registax 6 (VMWare), best 80 frames of about 1200
Processing: Wavelets in Registax 6 (“Full” settings with linked wavelets); CS6 add crosshairs, Astronomy Tools AstroFrame.

Apollo 15 is one of my favorite lunar missions (OK, I guess I liked them all).  I was thrilled to be able to pick up Hadley Rille in this image.  You can see it running left (west) from the marked landing site and looping southwest along the front of the Appenines.  No rover tracks, however.  

Date: 18 Apr 2013
Subject: Hadley-Appenine (Marsh of Decay), Apollo 15 Landing Site
Scope:  AT8IN + Meade 3x Barlow
Filter:  Baader Planetarium Fringe Killer (UV-IR cut)
Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors)
Guiding: manual
Camera: Modified Logitech c270 HD
Acquisition: BTV+Webcam Settings
Exposure: 120 s, ~10 fps
Stacking: PIPP (Wine); Registax 6 (VMWare), best 80 frames of about 1200
Processing: Wavelets in Registax 6 (“Recommended” settings with linked wavelets); StarTools Contrast:Agressiveness 25; Sharpen; Track; CS6 add crosshairs, Astronomy Tools AstroFrame.

A better image than before of the Apollo 16 landing site, mostly made better by the use of the Logitech c270 HD camera and Mac-native capture with BTV.  

Date: 17 Apr 2013
Subject: Descartes Highlands, Apollo 16 Landing Site
Scope:  AT8IN + Meade 3x Barlow
Filter:  Baader Planetarium Fringe Killer (UV-IR cut)
Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors)
Guiding: manual
Camera: Modified Logitech c270 HD
Acquisition: BTV+Webcam Settings
Exposure: 120 s, ~10 fps
Stacking: PIPP (Wine); Registax 6 (VMWare), best 80 frames of about 1200
Processing: Wavelets in Registax 6; StarTools Contrast:Agressiveness 25; Sharpen; CS6 add crosshairs, Astronomy Tools AstroFrame.

This is one of the first images with my modified Logitech c270 HD camera.  This has much smaller pixels than the LPI, and hence gives a more “magnified” effect.  There is still some vignetting with this camera.  Capture was fully Mac-native.  OK for a first try; seeing was poor.

Date: 17 Apr 2013
Subject: Taurus-Littrow Valley, Apollo 17 Landing Site
Scope:  AT8IN + Meade 3x Barlow
Filter:  Baader Planetarium Fringe Killer (UV-IR cut)
Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors)
Guiding: manual
Camera: Modified Logitech c270 HD
Acquisition: BTV+Webcam Settings
Exposure: 120 s, ~10 fps
Stacking: PIPP (Wine); Registax 6 (VMWare), best 80 frames
Processing: Wavelets in Registax 6; StarTools Contrast:Agressiveness 25; Sharpen; CS6 add crosshairs, Astronomy Tools AstroFrame. 

The Night of the Trifid (Nebula)

I’ve gotten home from a quick camping trip and have emerged from a period of too much moonlight, so I’m back to imaging again. The desire to get that H-⍺ filter is building, but I have not yet succumbed. 

It would have been nice to use last night on the Trifid Nebula, which is very interesting because it combines H-⍺ emission regions, which are red, with reflection regions, which appear blue. I synched on Antares, farther from the target than usual, but the goto was right on. Conditions were not great. Though the sky started out quite clear, there was also a lot of smoke in the air from the ubiquitous wildfires we seem to have every summer. The night was warm; the camera started at 26 °C but the chiller at 2.5 A pulled it down to 15 °C. The other problem was intermittent light wind gusts, which made the guiding problematic. The subframes definitely got worse when the Moon rose, but M20 is quite low on my horizon so I kept all the subs I could.  All things considered, I'm happy with the image because it is a big improvement over last year’s, and the best Trifid I’ve gotten so far.

Date: 17 Jul 2014

Subject: M20, Trifid Nebula

Scope: AT8IN

Filter: Baader UHC-S

Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors, PicGoto Simplificado)

Guiding: 9x50 Finder/Guider + DSI Ic + PHD 2.3.0 (Win 7 ASCOM)

Camera: DSI IIc chiller at 2.50 A, 15 °C

Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.2.0, no dither

Exposure: 37x180 s

Stacking: Neb 3, bad pixel map, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack.

Processing: StarTools 1.3.5.279 Crop; Wipe:Color & brightness 75%; Develop 82.80%; HDR:Reveal DSO core; Color:Scientific, 200%; Deconvolute auto mask 2.6 pix; Life:Moderate; Track RNC 2.00%; Magic:Shrink 1 pix;  CS6 Astronomy Tools Healing brush; Increase star color; Less crunchy more fuzzy; Astro Frame.

For comparison, here’s last year’s effort, which involved 600-second subframes. I guess if I get that H-⍺ filter I’ll be doing those more frequently. I also used the coma corrector so the field of view is a bit smaller, and the image is flipped 180°.

Date: 2 Jul 2013

Subject: M20, Trifid Nebula

Scope: AT8IN + HPS Coma Corrector

Filter: Baader UHC-S

Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors)

Guiding: 9x50 Finder/Guider + DSI Ic + PHD 1.14.2

Camera: DSI IIc (chiller at ~2.5 A, T = 19-20 °C)

Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.1.6, no dither

Exposure: 21x600 s

Stacking: Neb 3, bad pixel map, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack.

Processing: StarTools 1.3 Crop; Wipe:Color & Brightness; Develop 95.97%; Contrast; HDR:Optimize; Sharpen; Deconvolute: 2.4 pix; Track; Color:Bottom 2.0, Top Full, Sat 400%; Magic:Shrink 2; Magic:Tighten 1; Life:Moderate.  Processed another layer identically, except I used HDR:Reveal with noise reduction enabled.  CS6+Astronomy Tools Increase star color; deep space noise reduction; space noise reduction; Gaussian blurred (4 pix) high pass filter; blended in the core reveal layer at 50% transparency; less crunchy more fuzzy; AstroFrame.

A Moon Shot

My annual celebration of Landing Day (20 Jul) is coming up, so in that spirit I'm posting a lunar image.  Lunar/planetary imaging is not my forté; my equipment is aimed at deep sky work, so I don't really have a long enough focal length to do great solar system imaging. Nevertheless, the other night I was messing around waiting for the sky to get dark and took a few videos of the Moon with my Logitech c270HD camera.  The seeing was not great and I had difficulty getting a sharp focus. In the future, I intend to try finding a bright star and using a Bhatinov mask to see if I can do better (but there are at least two big difficulties even with that: the field of view is small with the needed 3x Barlow lens installed and my finder alignment is not perfect and varies a bit as I move around the sky, so it's a bit challenging to get on the star, and the exposures with a webcam are short so the star really does need to be bright). I took several images, but I'm only posting the best one:

Date: 7 Jul 2014

Subject: Clavius, and lunar southern highlands

Scope:  AT8IN, 3x Barlow (f/12, 2400 mm)

Mount: CG-5

Guiding: manual

Camera: Logitech C270HD

Acquisition: SharpCap under VMWare

Exposure: 120 s 7 fps

Stacking: PIPP convert to greyscale, Registax 6, automatic alignpoint selection, best 75 frames

Processing: Registax 6 wavelets; StarTools crop, rotate 180°, HDR; CS6 Astronomy Tools Astro Frame

I "Need" a Hydrogen-alpha Filter!

Monsoonal moisture is coming, so I decided to go out last night despite there being a lot of Moon to deal with.  I actually started out the evening with a little lunar imaging, but I haven’t processed those yet, so I don't know whether they'll be worth posting. I had originally intended to try to image Barnard’s Galaxy, but when I saw how bright the moonlight was I decided to do a brighter, easier target instead. So I chose M8, the Lagoon Nebula, which I haven’t imaged in a couple of years.  I see it is also called the Dragon Nebula, which is a cooler, but less-well-known name. 

There was little or no wind, and it was quite hot (high 70’s °F when I started). On top of that, last night Mapleton Lateral Observatory was plagued with more than the usual number of little green lacy-winged insects that bite and give off an aromatic smell when smashed, so I was doing battle with them the whole time I was out.  I synched on λ-Sag, but the goto was a little off and I had to manually correct by about 1 field diameter. I had trouble focusing, and there was way too much Moon for this to turn out at its best. The chiller was running at 2.5 A, with the CCD at 15.5° down to about 12 °C. I must have had a cable snag during the session so I didn't get much data. Further, I reduced my exposures to 180 s to avoid overexposing the core of the nebula. I had intended to use a focal reducer to capture more of the nebula, but I was set up without it so I went without.  Since I'm having "filter envy" (see below), and since M8 is an appropriate target for it, I decided to try and improve contrast by using my UHC-S filter. That definitely enabled me to see detail I haven't seen before. Here’s the result:

Date: 7 Jul 2014

Subject: M8, Lagoon Nebula

Scope: AT8IN

Filter: Baader UHC-S

Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors, PicGoto Simplificado)

Guiding: 9x50 Finder/Guider + DSI Ic + PHD 2.3.0 (Win 7 ASCOM)

Camera: DSI IIc chiller at 2.50 A, ~15 down to 12 °C

Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.2.0, no dither

Exposure: 53x180 s

Stacking: Neb 3, bad pixel map, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack.

Processing: StarTools 1.3.5.279 Crop; Wipe:Color & brightness 79%; Develop 76.08%; HDR:Optimize; Color:Scientific, 200%; Deconvolute auto mask 2.6 pix; HDR:Optimize; Life:Moderate; Track RNC 1.72%; Magic:Shrink 1 pix; Color:Scientific 145%; Color:Scientific 100% cap green to yellow.  CS6 Astronomy Tools Astro Frame.

Over last weekend I posted a question on the Stark Labs Astronomy Tools Yahoo forum about using H-⍺ filters with one-shot color cameras.  I’d always assumed it would really kill the signal to shoot narrow H-⍺ through a Bayer matrix, and that it wouldn’t be worth trying.  On the contrary, apparently a lot of people do it with good results.  So now I’m gung ho to shell out $169 for a Baader 7 nm H-⍺ filter.  I just have to convince The Boss that this is a reasonable expenditure.  It would certainly help my imaging on Moon-lit nights, not to mention piercing the fog of light pollution that shrouds Mapleton Lateral Observatory. Anyone care to guess how long it will take me before the urge to buy becomes irresistible?

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

The last two imaging sessions have seen “the best of times” and “the worst of times,” and both have involved favorite targets of mine.  

The Dumbbell Nebula (M27) is one of the nearest planetary nebulas to Earth and is easy to find even with a Telrad sight alone because of its symmetric position at the corner of a rectangle formed by the bright stars of Cygnus.  As I was setting up my imaging session the night of 30 Jun, I found it with my 15x70 binoculars while sweeping that region of the sky.  I synched on the famous colored double star Albireo then did the goto M27 with the PicGoto.  Sky conditions were outstanding (so this was the “best of times”).  I put the scope near the house hoping to block the wind gusts I've had the last few sessions, but there were no gusts that night.  I got the best guiding performance I think I've ever gotten.  The mount was west-weighted; my mount seems to perform much better that way than east-weighted (or I've misunderstood and done it backward all along, but I don't think that's the case).  I also used much higher aggressiveness (90%) and lower hysteresis (5%) on RA than usual.  Finally, this was first light for the newest version of PHD2 (2.3.0).  I had hoped to get a little more internal structure in the nebula, but this is still far better than my last attempt. Note that the stars are generally small and tight.

Date: 30 Jun 2014

Subject: M27, Dumbbell Nebula

Scope: AT8IN

Filter: none

Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors, PicGoto Simplificado)

Guiding: 9x50 Finder/Guider + DSI Ic + PHD 2.3.0 (Win 7 ASCOM)

Camera: DSI IIc chiller at 2.50 A, ~10 °C

Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.2.0, no dither

Exposure: 64x300 s

Stacking: Neb 3, bad pixel map, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack.

Processing: StarTools 1.3.5.279 Crop; Wipe:Color & brightness 75%; Develop 82.26%; HDR:Optimize; Color:Scientific, 200%; Deconvolute auto mask 2.7 pix; HDR:Optimize; Life:Moderate; Track RNC 1.96%; Magic:Shrink 1 pix; Save; 2nd layer: HDR Reveal Core.  CS6 Astronomy Tools Layer the Reveal Core layer under the other, top layer 60% opacity; Increase star color; Make stars smaller; Less crunchy more fuzzy; Astro Frame.

In contrast with these great conditions, last night was “the worst of times.”  I left my gear out the night before, so the setup was identical to the night with excellent conditions. I decided to revisit another favorite target, the Cocoon Nebula (IC 5146), which I last imaged 2 years ago.  I love the way the emission colors near the center of the nebula fade into reflection blues around the edges, which are in turn surrounded by dark areas where starlight from behind is blocked by the cloud.  I synched on Deneb and used the PicGoto to easily find the Cocoon Nebula. Seeing was poor and on top of that I started in the Provo light dome.  There was also some gusty wind.  Unlike the excellent guiding I got the night before with the exact same balance conditions, guiding performance was terrible, especially in DEC.  As a result, I threw out a lot of subframes and could have discarded more.  I guess that goes to show that sky conditions really matter, perhaps even more than the quality and tuning of your equipment.  The stars don't seem as tight in this image. Even so, the final image turned out better than expected.  My theory is that standard deviation-clipped stacking probably helps (especially with bright components in the image), along with the fact that the dim parts are not terribly messed up by short-term mount excursions like those caused by seeing or wind.

Date: 1 Jul 2014

Subject: IC 5146, Cocoon Nebula

Scope: AT8IN

Filter: none

Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors, PicGoto Simplificado)

Guiding: 9x50 Finder/Guider + DSI Ic + PHD 2.3.0 (Win 7 ASCOM)

Camera: DSI IIc chiller at 2.50 A, ~12 °C

Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.2.0, no dither

Exposure: 56x300 s

Stacking: Neb 3, bad pixel map, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack.

Processing: StarTools 1.3.5.279 Crop; Wipe:Color & brightness 75%; Develop 82.80%; Color:Scientific, 250%; HDR:Optimize; Deconvolute auto mask 2.5 pix; HDR:Optimize; Track RNC 1.23%; Magic:Shrink 1 pix; Life:Moderate.  CS6 Astronomy Tools Increase star color; Healing brush; Astro Frame.