Activity

It was a great night! I got 77 x 30s exposures of M81 and M82, with somewhat less time and worse tracking on the Pleiades. My initial stacks + stretches are below, but I would like to eventually try using siril and starnet++ to bring out the galaxies and reflection nebula without fattening the stars.

I’m looking forward to it! It will be my first time at Eagle Bluff.

<p style=”text-align: left;”>I am heading down now to get some solar viewing in.</p>

Darn, I’m in Texas until the 14th so I won’t be able to come. (I might get to see STARSHIP launch #3 however as I am 45 min. from Starbase in Mission TX.)
I did get some images the other night of 12P Pons-Brook below M32 and above Alpheratz. Could see it in a 7 power finder and looked interesting in the 80mm refractor and photographed well.
Also…[Read more]

Looking forward to it.

Early evening we should be able to see comet 12P/Pons-Brooks under M31 Andromeda.

It has been way too long since I’ve been to eagle bluff. I will be there for sure.

Jeff, could you or someone at Eagle Bluff take some photos of this gathering and send them to me via email.  I had surgery this week and hence bed ridden. It would be for our newsletter.

Eagle Bluff right now is a go for Saturday night.  John got word from Eagle Bluff and they said it was OK.  Anyone interested, come on out on Saturday.

Is Eagle Bluff available this weekend?  It looks like Saturday (Friday?) may be a great time to go there and do a Messier Marathon.  If not a marathon, time to get together for some observing.

Starlink 1176 was launched on January 29, 2020 from Air Force Eastern Test Range, Cape Canaveral FL

Thanks Josef. I did use Stellarium as you mentioned and aligned my photo with the position of M82 and M81 in Stellarium at the approximate time of photo. At 7:40 pm StarLink # 1176 passed through the field of view at the same angle as indicated on the photo! As above I don’t know if this caused the stacking process to ignore subsequent images.

If you know time of the image(s) set that time at https://stellarium-web.org/skysource/Bode'sGalaxy?fov=4.7939&date=2024-02-29T02:10:34Z&lat=44.08&lng=-92.51&elev=0 and you may see that satellite passing by.

M81and M82 plus a StarLink (?) trail from a cold last night in the observatory. After the satellite passed the stacking routine began to ignore frames so I stopped the stacking at 155 frames with 70 ignored! Don’t know if the satellite streak made that happen or not.

Most likely I was able to see 8 mag comet 12P/Pons-Brooks by 10×50 binocular from light polluted backyard.
See at stellarium-web.org .

Another photo taken tonight of the horsehead nebula area. Fortunately there was little to no streaking artifact likely due to efforts to reduce any condensation on optical elements in scope and camera and a lower relative humidity (in 55-65 range). Results are more satisfactory. Star sizes and color are not optimum but I’m just a beginner at…[Read more]

Another view of the Horsehead Nebula taken the night of February 6. The ZWO ASI183MC camera was rotated a bit and the 384 frames were 10 sec each. Image processed in the ASI studio (contrast stretch) and Photoshop elements. While I like this view the best the light streaking across the image is still evident. Will contact ZWO to see if they can…[Read more]

Thankful for some mild nights lately especially with the winter constellations in view. Below is an attempt to photograph the astounding area of Orion near the bright ‘belt’ star Alnitak. The Horsehead nebula and Flame Nebula are in the area and both appear with Alnitak in the photo below. An artifact {stacking?, light leak?, CMOS chip related?)…[Read more]

Thank you Josef. Below is another view of M 101 supernova change processed a bit more (dark frame subtraction done)

Very nice GIF image comparing images M101 with supernova about 250 days(8 months 5 days) apart!