Tag Archives: Messier

M101 Supernova in Haiku

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Cloudless skies last night.
Supernova shining bright.
A delightful sight.

Antha Ann Adkins

Thursday night we had clear skies (though a near-full Moon) and I was able to take another set of M101 and supernova images.  Comparing to my previous images, you can see that more time from my driveway gave me more galaxy details, but that they don’t compare to what I can get from darker skies.

Camera geek info:

  • Canon EOS 60D in manual mode, ISO 800, 1 minute exposures
  • Williams Optics Zenith Star 73 III APO telescope
  • Williams Optics Flat 73A
  • SkyTech 2” LPRO-MAX CCD Filter
  • iOptron CEM40
  • Friendswood, Texas Bortle 7-8 suburban skies

Frames:

  • 318 1 minute lights
  • 31 0.05 second flats
  • 20 0.05 second flat darks
  • 49 1 minute darks

Processing geek info:

  • PixInsight
  • Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch

M101 Supernova

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One of these things is not like the others … I got an image of M101 the Pinwheel Galaxy in February from the lovely dark skies of Dell City, Texas. Since then, light from a supernova in one of its arms has reached us … from 20+ million light years away. And I was able to image that from my driveway!  The driveway picture is noisier and dimmer due to light pollution, but you can tell there’s something new there! I’m looking forward to going back out to the dark skies and imaging it again.

Interestingly, the total imaging times of 66×3=198 minutes on 2/16 and 218 minutes on 5/25 are pretty similar, but due to the light pollution, the 5/25 image has less detail, is noisier, and is grainier.  On the other hand, the tracking wasn’t as good on 2/16, emphasized by the longer image times, so the stars aren’t circles and the image isn’t as sharp as I would like.

Camera geek info (February 16 pre supernova):

  • Canon EOS 60D in manual mode
  • Williams Optics Zenith Star 73 III APO telescope
  • Williams Optics Flat 73A
  • iOptron CEM40
  • Dell City, Texas Bortle 2-3 dark skies

Frames:

  • Feb 16 3 minute exposure ISO 1600
    • 66 3 minute lights
    • 21 0.05 second flats
    • 20 0.05 second flat darks
    • 20 1 minute darks

Processing geek info:

  • PixInsight

Camera geek info (May 25 with supernova):

  • Canon EOS 60D in manual mode
  • Williams Optics Zenith Star 73 III APO telescope
  • Williams Optics Flat 73A
  • SkyTech 2” LPRO-MAX CCD Filter
  • iOptron CEM40
  • Friendswood, Texas Bortle 7-8 suburban skies

Frames:

  • May 25 1 minute exposure ISO 800
    • 218 1 minute lights
    • 31 0.05 second flats
    • 30 0.05 second flat darks
    • 49 1 minute darks

Processing geek info:

  • PixInsight

M106

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We haven’t had good telescope weather for a while, so I’ve been working on learning more processing techniques.  This is my latest effort: M106, a spiral galaxy containing a supermassive black hole in the center.  It’s got some nearby friends.  How many galaxies can you find?

This is the image where I learned that it’s better to fix the physical alignment of the tracking mount rather than take shorter images to reduce the star trailing – the same amount of time in 30 second images vs 1 minute images takes, well, twice as long to process.  

Camera geek info:

  • Canon EOS 60D in manual mode
  • Williams Optics Zenith Star 73 III APO telescope
  • Williams Optics Flat 73A
  • SkyTech 2” LPRO-MAX CCD Filter
  • iOptron CEM40
  • Friendswood, Texas Bortle 7-8 suburban skies

Frames:

  • March 25 1 minute exposure ISO 800
    • 108 1 minute lights
    • 25 0.03 second flats
    • 27 0.03 second flat darks
    • 40 1 minute darks
  • April 11 1 minute exposure ISO 800
    • 80 1 minute lights
    • 20 0.1 second flats
    • 20 0.1 second flat darks
    • 40 1 minute darks
  • April 21 30 second exposure ISO 1600
    • 471 30 second lights
    • 30 0.03 second flats
    • 30 0.03 second dark flats
    • 42 30 second darks

Processing geek info:

  • PixInsight

Dell City Astrophotography April 2019

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Last weekend we took a break and visited Dell City, Texas, where we stayed in a lovely B&B, enjoyed gorgeous sunsets and sunrises over the Guadalupe and Cornudas Mountains, and enjoyed seeing the stars and planets.

As the song goes (sing it with me, y’all):

The stars at night

Are big and bright

Deep in the heart of Texas!

It is true!

And I had great fun trying to get some good pictures of the beautiful sky full of stars.  But just like folks buying new telescopes need to be reminded that they won’t get the views that they see in the published pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope, I had to learn that the view from a telephoto lens isn’t the same as the view from an 8-inch telescope.  So the Messier objects, which are nice objects to find in my 8 inch telescope, are mostly fuzz balls with my telephoto lens, even with a sky-tracking camera mount and the ability to take a long picture.

The other thing I had to deal with was an embarrassment of riches – there were so many stars that it was hard to make out the constellations.

I started the evening of April 27 trying to find the two brightest available comets, but they were really too dim to be seen.  I did get familiar with the constellation Leo, and saw a beautiful meteor pass through it – it’s even in my picture, though it’s very faint and you have to zoom in.

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Camera geek info:

  • Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/4, 30 second exposure, ISO 1000
  • Sigma 24-70 mm f/2.8 EX lens, set at 24 mm, manual focus
  • iOptron SkyTracker with ballhead
  • Tripod

I turned from there to finding Messier objects, and found M13 in Hercules, M4 in Scorpio, and M80 in Scorpio.  Fuzzballs all.

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Here’s a closeup of M4 with the blinking lights of an airplane.  (M4 is the fuzzy one.)

M4AndAirplane

Camera geek info:

  • Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/4, 30 second exposure, ISO 1000
  • Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM lens, set at 70 mm, manual focus
  • iOptron SkyTracker with ballhead
  • Tripod

Finally, I waited until Jupiter rose to get a picture of it with its line of moons.

JupiterAndMoons20190428

Camera geek info:

  • Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/4.5, 30 second exposure, ISO 1000
  • Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM lens, set at 150 mm, manual focus
  • iOptron SkyTracker with ballhead
  • Tripod

The next evening it was cloudy, so we got up early the following morning for a last view of the stars.  It was totally worth it – we got a lovely view of Sagittarius between Jupiter and Saturn and the Milky Way just before dawn.

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Camera geek info:

  • Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/5, 30 second exposure, ISO 1000
  • Sigma 10-20 mm f/4-5.6 lens, set at 13 mm, manual focus
  • iOptron SkyTracker with ballhead
  • Tripod

I also was able to zoom in on Jupiter and a couple more Messier objects.

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Camera geek info:

  • Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/4, 30 second exposure, ISO 1000
  • Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM lens, set at 70 mm, manual focus
  • iOptron SkyTracker with ballhead
  • Tripod

I’ll finish with Venus at sunrise on April 27.

VenusGuadalupeMtns20190427

Camera geek info:

  • Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/7.1, 1/8 second exposure, ISO 100
  • Sigma 24-70 mm f/2.8 EX lens, set at 24 mm, autofocus

I can’t wait to go back and try this again!