Activity

Thank you Jim!

Great images Bob!

A tale of two Messiers: M 97 also known as the Owl Nebula and M 108 a starburst galaxy also known as the Surfboard galaxy are within a degree of each other in Ursa Major. The image was taken with the AT80ED refractor and ZWO 183MC camera on 12/7 at midnight (or so). I used Stellarium as a source for the star labels.

Must say I am obsessed with the galaxy M33 in Triangulum especially the structural detail one can obtain using a small refractor (AT80mmED) and live stacking images taken with a modest astronomy camera (ASI ZWO183MC) and an accurate, polar aligned tracking mount (Sky Watcher Star Adventurer Gti). In the image below (a live-stack of 501, 5 second…[Read more]

Just noted a paragraph that’s repeated on page 13, concerning filters and M57!

What a superb newsletter Bill; I think it beautifully portrays all the contributions from our members and makes one excited about winter observing (yes even here in MN). Congratulations to all!

Nice eclipse pics Mike. Bill, see my post above.
Last night I took another look at M 33 in Triangulum; it is well placed for imaging. Good article in Nov Sky and Telescope too. Below image is 307 5 second live stacked frames with dark frame correction taken with the 80mm ED refractor and ASI 183MC camera. A light cloudiness was present at the…[Read more]

I was taking photos of the group at Watson.

Hey Mike, thanks for sharing the eclipse photos. I was only counting 3 groups of sunspots in that first photo. I was about to check my scribbles, but the second photo confirms (and numbers) the five sunspot groupings I thought I eventually noted.

Who took photos of the group at the eclipse event? I thought I saw two different people snap a photo…[Read more]

Just wanted to share an image from yesterday’s eclipse! Most of the photos turned out really blurry. Really tough to focus when it’s mostly cloudy, but I’m pretty happy with what I got.

To Bill Davidson above! Yes Bill I would be honored to have you publish the pictures. Details for the Crab Nebula are as follows:
Scope: Astro-Tech 80 mm ED refractor (AT80ED)
Mount: Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi
Camera: ZWO ASI183MC color astronomy camera
Exposure: Live stack of 137, 5 second frames (11.4 minutes)
Processing: Dark frame…[Read more]

Nice! It even has night sounds. Minus the bright flash of night, and the short duration, it might be as good as the 8 hour streaming video on Amazon Prime. 😛

That must have landed quite a bit south of us. The video looks very similar to mine, only the tree to my south blocked a bit more of it.

Bob: Can I publish your photos with descriptions in the newsletter?

The same photo with a dark frame subtraction and Photoshop Elements processing is shown below.

Of course I had to take a look and photo of the magnificent Orion Nebula M 42 that was rising early am of Oct 10. The photo also taken with the ASI 183MC camera was 58 frames of 5 seconds each stacked and saved as FITS file.

In the early morning of October 10th I finally observed and photographed M1 the Crab Nebula with my 80mm refractor. The photo below was taken with the ASI 183MC camera; 137, 5 second frames were stacked.