DAY 1
In an effort to catch up and comply with the 1 post a day rule, I am challenging myself to process and post 1 image a day! Encourage me, some of these photos in my back log are not worthy of the fine images here!
Here's a nice open cluster Monoceros that is low for me and always in the trees. I setup in the 'hole in the trees' (see VSP for Pluto) and nabbed it and some friends back in early January.
DAY 2
Working on night 2 of my back logs. Here are some great tiny fuzzies in this image!
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DAY 3
Keeping up with my own promise day 3 in a row. I dug deep to 2010 for this as it was mostly all processed just waiting for me.
On a side note, I think I've been using #ObservationManager for nearly exactly 5 years. I have 600 observations across 300 sessions!!! All in a night-jobs work!
Oh, here's M103. I love that little line of stars in the upper right too
DAY 4
Perhaps I should take a cue from +Lynn Easley and post over here instead of 1 image a day? She and so many other set the bar high and I too am slowly crawling through the Messier objects. Here's M93 from when +Akule 1s got started in DSO imaging.
I've assembled my Messier chart here: http://maphilli14.webs.com/mikesdeepskyphotos.htm
Oh, this is day4 of the backlog!
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DAY 5
Day 5 of clearing of my backlog is more recent and brought to you via the +Virtual Star Party (replay here: Virtual Star Party Feb 3, 2013)
Getting sharper looking? I'd really like to dig deeper into these tiny gems of Planetary Nebula, here is the Eskimo Nebula and while I don't get the nice Ha, red knots I think this came out well for a wide-field, especially considering it's only about the angular size of Jupiter.
I wish it counted towards the Messier list, but this was credited to William Hershel many years after Messier and thus was not in the master Messier list.
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DAY 6
Day6 of backlog!
Here's the sun from a wonderful and unseasonably warm day in mid January 2013 I spent outside with the toddler.
I learned a bit about DSLR solar and planetary from +Cory Schmitz and here is a composite of both still and video. I like the FOV of stills but the video provides a good detail more fine detail when processed through #autostakkert2
If anyone knows the names of these sunspots or historical record of them I'd be grateful since I'm so timely at processing! :)
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DAY 7
I hope everyone is watching the +Virtual Star Party and I feel bad I wasted my clear skies recovering from a nasty cold, but I will post this and go to bed, but here's M77 as inspired by the great +Gary Gonnella I didn't do it justice but it'll do for Day7 of catchup!
G'nite all!
DAY 8
More Planetary Nebula goodness!
For sure I will not be using ISO6400 anymore. The noise is horrendous. Also I have fixed the shadow of the OAG prism falling on the DSLR chip, which added tons of edge artifacts.
Day8
I'm finding most of these images are laying around for good reason. I'm not super proud of most of them. Mostly all a big learning curve, thanks for hanging in there with me!
3 photos
DAY 9
I think I beat my previous "Most Distant" object record. Again not my best work, but here's Stephan's Quintet which has some interesting interactions of 4 of 5 galaxies in the cluster. The 5th is merely a happenstance foreground galaxy. The distance is estimated to be 290 million light years which beats the previous object I observed NGC7810/7803
Day9 of backlogs!
BTW, I hate ISO6400, this is old from back in October 2012 and I really struggled to get these to stack well, I'm not sure why.
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DAY 10
Ok, I slipped yesterday and I'll double up today.
Day 10 of back log. I think this was previously shared in partial, half-processed. Here's the finished Jupiter with Io in transit, covering it's own shadow which only happens right near opposition. The stat of elongation in the bottom of the image helps understand how close to opposition At the precise moment of opposition the elongation is exactly 180. Before and after are in the 170's. This shot was taken only a day or so off from that exact moment and a rarity to get good seeing where the moon and shadow line up so nice!
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DAY 11
Day 11 of backlogs!
Nice shot of Jupiter from a day before the previous post with GRS and setting GRS Junior!
12 photos
DAY 12
Day 12 of backlog brings us back to May of 2012. This was one of the final of the season and first of a few with the Baader LRGB set. It's not a bad shot for just laying around for 9 months! It was taken a week before the Venus transit and my 4th kid was born shortly there-after, so I've been a busy beaver and it's good to start digging out!
Thanks for looking!
11 photos
DAY 13
Day 13, I am still ashamed to post the ISO 6400 mistakes, but after some serious hitting with a Photoshop hammer this one came out almost respectable.
Also, I looked in my logs and this would have been in the +Virtual Star Party if I saw the invite in time! :)
I may double up again today and post a pre Venus transit group of sunspots tonight!
26 photos
Bonus Day 13
This one wasn't even in my logs, but happily waiting almost 1 year for me to finish processing! You're welcome +Matt Oloff
3 photos
DAY 14
This is starting to read like a shipwreck's log...
Day 14, I am still swimming in year old Mars photos.
Look at what I did with this NEARLY YEAR OLD data! :)
IR-RGB done somewhat interestingly in WinJUPOS.
Syrtis Major is prominent in the center on the Central Meridan. South of that, towards the bottom is Hellas shrouded in clouds and fog. Elysium is on the evening (right) limb also shrouded in clouds. It's late spring and the North Polar Cap is melting and sublimating leaving much moisture in the atmosphere!
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12 photos
Bonus day 14 from over a year ago!
I started this commitment in effort to get my disk utilization off of 100%
So far so good!
13 photos
DAY 15
Copping out on a real shot, here's some trials I did of my Off-Axis guider and DBK. Here's a close up of Mizar's true double after the clouds killed my views of M94 tonight. :(
Day 15
DAY 16
And I day 16, he posted something current!
So I nabbed this one last night! I wished the clouds stayed away for the VSP on Sunday, but they didn't. And all day Monday was nice, but then around 10, the clouds came back limiting me to only 12 subs of 2min each. Using ISO400 this time with proper flats and darks, I got a NICE even image. The seeing, focus, and collimation contributed to a good amount of star bloat, but I like this!
27 photos
DAY 17
Day17 of not-so backlogs. Taken this week Monday. In a quest to photograph the complete Messier collection, I 'have' to include this blunder of M40, which according to Wikipedia,
"was discovered by Charles Messier in 1764 while he was searching for a nebula that had been reported in the area by Johann Hevelius. Not seeing any nebulae, Messier catalogued this double star instead. It was subsequently rediscovered by Friedrich August Theodor Winnecke in 1863. Burnham calls M40 "one of the few real mistakes in the Messier catalog," faulting Messier for including it when all he saw was a double star, not a nebula of any sort.[1]"
The double in the lower left is what I assume to be M40, aka Winnecke 4.
I included as many of the nearby galaxies as I could frame, there are MANY galaxies. Near the top there are a handful include the brightest, NGC4335 at
Magnitude: 13.64.
Near the bottom is another set that I insected in the image that includes galaxies like PGC: 4537203 as faint as mag 19!!!
The count that Cartes Du Ciel gives is about 52 galaxies in this framed view of less than 1 degree! I didn't try to count. If some one wants to voulnteer, I'll include an image of where the galaxies are.
Also, if anyone can find me the redshifts or distances of the extended PGC I'd be happy!!
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DAY 18
Day 18 brings us back to January 5, 2013. This is a WONDERFUL looking cluster in a 14" telescope with a 2" 40mm eyepiece! STUNNING!
Also, it seems that this Messier object, now in my collection, was another near misstep. He reported coordinates that were off by several degrees declination. Discover is often credited to Caroline Herschel (GO GIRLS)
This is an ISO6400 shot, but came out well as it is SHORT in exposure and LARGE in number 57 x 10s. I think it came out well using an interesting processing technique I'll start in another thread.
Thanks for staying with my backlog!
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DAY 19
Shared publicly - Mar 10, 2013
Whereforartthou Comet PANSTARS???
DAY 20
Day 20's backlog is a day late! I'm still catching up and learning a lot along the way. Here's M47 from Friday night!
6 photos
DAY 21
Day 21! Three straight weeks of catchup. This too is a more recent work from Friday and another for m Messier collection! If I can I'll nab more tonight and process the best from Friday, a set of 3 galaxies, M105 and co.
7 photos
DAY 22
Shared publicly - Mar 12, 2013
Worthy of a re-share with additional comments. I've tagged this photo with a star that has an exoplanet (NOT photographed), but the star is easily visible and was tricky to track down as there are multiple coordinates given and it was not plotted properly on#CartesDuCiel
The only shot I got in preparation for the +Virtual Star Party last night before the clouds just ruined my views!
Day 22 is more current of the 'backlogs' but not to fear there is PLENTY of old stuff to get to still!
Also, there seems to be a member star with an exoplanet, but I can't find the star at the coordinates that are listed on wikipedia?!!
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8 photos
DAY 23
I nabbed me a comet tonight!
Day 23, more fresh content, still a backlog!
DAY 24
Day 24 brings you more recent work, from last Friday and the coup de gracias for that session. I had an extra 30minutes on top of this 1hr, but it was 5minute subs and didn't take as well to stacking in#DeepSkyStacker for some reason. Either the darks or mismatch, or groups or user error?!
Enjoy an early one today!
28 photos
Bonus day 24 of backlog brings us back to the glorious Jupiter opposition of 2012, October 14th!
enjoy, Io, it's shadow, the Great Red Spot and Oval BA aka GRS Jr.
14 photos
DAY 25
Still working on my favorite #Lakewheeler #panstarrs shot, but this one is nicely framed and will be your 1st Day 25 backlog photo!
#panstarrs Me too! Night #2 and a preview for day 25 when I find the best of about 3Gig of raw photos! Here's a random one, passed lightly through Photoshop.
DAY 26
Day 26 brings us an average looking Jupiter from back in August of 2012. I struggled with WinJUPOS derotation on this one, yes I still owe everyone a tutorial, but since I can't get it perfect I'm holding out!
Note Ganymede in the upper left!
15 photos
DAY 27
A day late for day 27 of backlogs is another recent. I go through the pain of setup and always intend to grab as much data as I can. I had planned a long session on M95 & M96 together in the same frame. Before finishing the night on that I tried for NGC2903, a nice and somewhat large galaxy near Leo's head. I had a happy mistake and found this nearby galaxy, NGC2916 instead. I only found it wasn't the galaxy I wanted today when plate solving it in Astrobin. So, I was close as NGC2903 would have been in the same frame, but alas the clouds stole the night from me! :(
One more for today means my catchup will be caught up! :)
Read more
29 photos
DAY 28
And for day 28 of catchup...
Venus!
After the awesome Transit of Venus last year, the planet moved into the morning and somewhat quiet seclusion. I snapped a photo back in August only in Ultra Violet B&W. I have a question for the Venusian aficionados. Venus is said to rotate retrograde. Is it merely lefthanded, backwards or is it actually upside down?
Back on track and full 4 weeks of digging out of this pile of goodness!
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1 photo
DAY 29
Day 29 gives us a more recent, but needed and required Orion Nebula. I took 15 x 30s unguided ISO 400. Only 7 of them stacked in DSS. WHY? :(
Here's the result and not too shabby!
I kinda wish someone asked me about this name, I would have called it the cotton candy nebula, but maybe I over did the processing?!?
4 photos
DAY 30
Day30 of the shrinking but not yet gone backlog, brings us back to October. I had a string of a few good nights for Jupiter but this one had some sleep related wiring issues with the CFW control. I ended up shooting some B&W using the IR-UV blocking filter (Lum) only. Here's the result, a nice animation and the only Ganymede transit I got all season!
After one straight month I may start to share over in the Astronomy or Astrophotography communities, so be sure do circle me or follow those communities too!
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17 photos
DAY 31
For those of you who don't know me, I'm Mike Phillips and I have a HUGE backlog of unprocessed images that I'm trying to dig out from and have been posting on the Space community. I have 30 straight days of postings and images over there, so here's day 31 of back log brings us again back to October, the day before the Color Filter Wheel (aka CFW) lost my grip of control. I had a bunch of captures but none seemed to come togther in #WinJUPOS so here is the top, single image. It is kind of the boring side of Jupiter and there's no special transits of moons or anything. I Do like the NEB's white streaks (outbreak?). I hope to find more gems like this one, but I may start scraping the bottom of the barrel soon!
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18 photos
DAY 32
I've really stuck with my commitment to clear out my hard disk. Here's day 32 of my 1 a day regiment. This is somewhat recent from only as far back as December. I caught Europa in transit with shadow, then moved over to catch (previously posted -http://astromaphilli14.blogspot.com/2013/01/high-resolution-asteroids-ceres-and.html) Vesta and Ceres before moving back to Jupiter (after median flip). That's going to be part two for another day!
Enjoy!
19 photos
DAY 33
For those of you who don't know me, I'm Mike Phillips and I have a HUGE backlog of unprocessed images that I'm trying to dig out from and have been posting on the Space community.
Day 33 is the 2nd half of yesterday's post. The seeing conditions deteriorated but I like seeing the GRS and Jr in the same shot.
20 photos
DAY 34
Day 34 of what I suppose is a major spring cleaning, let's face it, the weather's been terrible and NOW is the time to do it.
This is a bit of a redo and some practice on my budding DSO skills. Here's M29 and a redo from my previous 8" tests back in 2010 (http://multiply.com/mu/maphilli14/image/1/photos/89/1200x1200/23/MAP-M29-20100902.jpg?et=nkGnt%2CJwhvnuPnuX6BjaHg&nmid=287921959)
I wish it helped further my Messier hunt to completion, but it's not, it is a big jump in quality from the 8"
If you've missed the last few they're in my stream or over on the Amateur Astrophotography communities!
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DAY 35
Day 35 brings me WAAAY back to the HOT June of 2008. According to my logs, "EXTREMELY hot temps are choking out the South East US. Daytime temps are blasting out records of late spring in the upper 90's (F) with
forecasts in the 100's (F) in the coming days. "
yes, I have logs from 2008 *and* half processed images. In this case I'm glad I held off, I added an artificial flat, noise reduction and some spot curves to really bring this one to life. I have to say it feels good to be on top of something so old finally!
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10 photos
Shared publicly - Mar 24, 2013
Bonus Day 35. most of you have seen the M25 Pluto from the VSP last summer, but here it is again, framed and qr coded to the youtube video finder chart search.
I framed it for use with the Messier list: http://maphilli14.webs.com/mikesdeepskyphotos.htm
The images link to the picasa/g+ albums now and so I upload, and decided to add some commentary
11 photos
DAY 36
Day 36, here's a REALLY ancient one from 2007 and I never felt right about it, M44 a really big cluster, closet open cluster to Earth and worthy of a redo, but only after I bag all the Messier objects.
12 photos
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DAY 37
Day 37...
1st, This is from LAST YEAR! 2012, not current, last year, 12 months old...
Perhaps my best Saturn ever. I have been trying to catch the Encke gap / minimia (http://ejamison.net/encke.html)
Topaz denoise really helped me push the sharpening beyond where I would be comfortable without it.
Glad I found this one laying around in wait for me! :)
Now where did my clear skies go? I'm ready for another go!
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2 photos
DAY 38
Shared publicly - Mar 27, 2013
My evergoing spring cleaning brings us back to the +Virtual Star Party from February 3, 2013. I started the show with the Horsehead and didn't get much time on the subject, but here's the efforts and please no more ISO 6400 on the Canon 7D for me!
Day38
5 photos
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DAY 39
A late day 39 of spring cleaning is a bit of a trial night. Bad seeing hit on a Jupiter photo, which I've probably not posted yet either.... not yet.
Here's 2 good frames that were part of a good learning curve in the move to using ISO 400. I have another redo of M35 here too: https://plus.google.com/photos/108750361778865447048/albums/5707994338205684529/5707994335853746978
13 photos
5
DAY 40
Caught up again, here's a Saturn from early this morning. I shot quite a bit of data but this single RGB run seems to be the best of it for now. Seeing was quite variable and better than the previous attempts for 2013's apparition. I think with the weather being so bad I'll have time to play more with the data, but for now, day40 has me staying on top of things!
3 photos
DAY 41
Spring cleaning marches on for day 41. This is another redo of a star cluster in effort to reign in my DSO skills. Actually practice is good but this night of February 15, 2013 I was after Asteroid 2012 DA 14 but was thwarted, or that is another post later. Here is the previous version with the same telescope, different camera and techinques: https://plus.google.com/photos/108750361778865447048/albums/5846502832257385345/5847448881610861282?banner=pwa
14 photos
DAY 42
Spring cleaning marches on for day 42. I was really hoping to get more than 14mintues on this nice pair of galaxies. I really worked hard to get the subjects framed nicely AND get a guide star for the OAG. I am posting in the off chance the weather doesn't improve before the torrents of tree pollen start.
30 photos
DAY 43
Rolling along with the spring cleaning here's a nice Pre-Transit of Venus (evening apparition). The color you see is not what you eye would see but more of a false, broad spectrum color image made from Red = Infra-Red, Blue = UltraViolet and Green a blended mix of the two.
Here's the initial rushed versions:
and a the 3 frame animation:
Time to close the books on this day's catchup of day 43.
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2 photos
DAY 44
Shared publicly - Apr 3, 2013
A day late day 44 of my 1 a day spring cleaning... This is actually a redo but I think I like the original better thusfar: https://plus.google.com/photos/108750361778865447048/albums/5778747074605794177/5822629057329421122?banner=pwa
This was a hangout that was planned to be an on-air one by +Mitchell Duke and myself, but youtube was down for maintenance and so we only got +Ryan Meader and +Paul Stewart . Ok, today's day 45, back to it!
21 photos
DAY 45
Shared publicly - Apr 3, 2013
Day 45 of the one a day spring cleaning might bring me closer to ending the books on 2012's Jupiter. This was a great view of GRS and Jr from a hangout with +Cory Schmitz and +Chris Ridgway
Good times guys, where'd all our clear skies go???
22 photos
DAY 46
Shared publicly - Apr 4, 2013
Day46 brings me to a clean main computer. That makes 2 of the them now. Now onto the home server and external drives which are loaded with old stuff! I wonder how long this spring cleaning can go on for?!
So today's image is from my 8" SCT at f/25 using everyones favorite+Virtual Star Party color planet cam the DBK.21AU618.AS cam from+Astronomy Cameras The 8" had just had the dec gears replaced by yours truly and is going to get an upgrade to house the DSLR and 200mm f/4 lens for some great wide-field shots soon!
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23 photos
DAY 47
Michael A. Phillips
Amateur Astrophotography - Apr 7, 2013
Day 47 (should be Friday) is as current as it gets, as it was taken on Friday! :) Th e final, and lesser of the objects from this session. It rounds out 1 more Messier object for my quest of a complete set. It is one of the 'Anemic Galaxies' from my previous post.
31 photos
DAY 48
Michael A. Phillips
Amateur Astrophotography - Apr 8, 2013
Day 48 (should be Saturday's) and I sigh as I fall behind in my catch up!
Here's a redo of M95 & M96, now with a meager 20 minutes over 3 nights. I had more but I lapsed and let the focus go soft and they didn't stack properly. This was from Friday and the 2nd of 3 targets, with the next one, M100 will be Sunday's image (I know it's Monday!)
32 photos
DAY 49
Michael A. Phillips
Shared publicly - Apr 9, 2013
Day49's spring cleaning, which was posted 'on time' this past Sunday was actually taken during the +Virtual Star Party While watching the replay, I realized that the live views were dim and wholly uninteresting. I intend to up that game. In the meantime, here's M87, brightest radio sources in the sky. You heard that +Nicole Gugliucci ??
33 photos
DAY 50
Michael A. Phillips
Shared publicly - Apr 10, 2013
Day 50 was yesterdays image and another from the VSP this past Sunday. It's much smaller than M87 and only 2 of the unguided subs stacked. I was happy to get the 4 targets I did during the VSP and 1 more after. Now only 1 day behind in my catchup for spring cleaning.
34 photos
DAY 51
Michael A. Phillips
DeepSkyObjects - Apr 10, 2013
Day 51 of my spring cleaning of the hard drive is the 3rd from this week's #VSP and a tiny galaxy that is a part of my growing, but not yet complete Messier collection.
35 photos
DAY 52
Michael A. Phillips
Amateur Astrophotography - Apr 10, 2013
A wonderfully rich field of M49 is Wednesday's Day 52 spring cleaning of the hard drive and another current #VSP image. This was a nice image as I spent the pre-party portion of the show soaking in 31 x 60s unguided shots. I count a good dozen or so galaxies here and am happy with this shot as a half-planned session.
oh and i'm back on pace at 1 a day and ready to tackle the remaining 2 current ones before hitting the really old ones this weekend!
36 photos
DAY 53
Michael A. Phillips
Shared publicly - Apr 11, 2013
Day53 rounds out the VSP images. This was not taken during the VSP but after the show ended. Not a great shot at 18minutes, but the main galaxy, M60 is the brightest and is visually overlapping a tiny spiral just above!
37 photos
DAY 54
Michael A. Phillips
Space Photos - Only post 1 per day - Apr 12, 2013
Messier 100 everyone!
This is from exactly 1 week ago and a nice ~1hr soak of light from 55Million LY away. A nice looking spiral for a change and the Coup de grâce of the night and month of DSO observing so far, perhaps best since I got +Akule
I do hope to do much better and have learned a lot about proper ISO, exposures guiding with an OAG, etc.
I really need to get a good 2-3 hrs of light on one subject but in my quest for a complete messier list, I skip around too much. I hope to get complete stats on my messier progress, but I'm assuming to be well more than halfway between this scope and the previous 6" schmidt-newt.
Here is the last 'current' image and your 1-a-day spring cleaning image day 54!!
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38 photos
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DAY 55
Michael A. Phillips
Shared publicly - Apr 13, 2013
Dragging the old archives for day 55's duplicate.... I think I miscounted and am clearly distracted with 3 year old captures. In part I'm moving my site from the defunct multiply.com to G+
26 photos
DAY 56
Michael A. Phillips
Shared publicly - Apr 14, 2013
Day 56, 8 straight weeks of cleaning 1 image a day from my vast reserves. I was putting the baby to bed tonight when I realized why I'm so far behind. It is mostly because I am present with my kids as often as I can, living in the moment to watch them grow. I will take photos of them along the way and drown in that set of photos too, but finally now after all these years (this is from 2010 btw) have I come to realize and hopefully be at peace with the fact that the universe will wait while the kids and bond and grow.
oh, yeah, this is called the Iris nebula, thanks for reading!
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