A few more for the Messier colletion

I struggle with trees in my yard that obscure a large portion of my night sky. I setup my 14" telescope in one of the only areas that get to -30° dec or better and waited for my targets to clear the treetops. In most cases the target barely cleared and there are dark artifacts where the trees obscured rich star fields near the center of our Milky Way galaxy.

I really wanted to get all the Messier objects from my own house and in this particular spot I cannot see the North Celestial Pole (NCP), which meant I had poor alignment and instead of fixing I limped along in a rush to catch my window. That meant that most of these are unguided shots.

First up on my remainder of the collection is M69.

Astrometry.net solved - http://nova.astrometry.net/user_images/377725#annotated 

M70 is at a distance of about 29,300 light years away from Earth and close to the Galactic Center. It is roughly the same size and luminosity as its neighbour in space, M69.
(ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_70)

Solved - http://nova.astrometry.net/user_images/378523#annotated

A photo I've already done, but I have to shoot when the skies are clear. Here's open cluster, M23.


Solved - http://nova.astrometry.net/annotated_full/815988

Next up is a tiny open cluster, Cl Berkeley 90, C 2033+466, Ocl 196 (ref - http://www.docdb.net/show_object.php?id=berkeley_90)

Astrometry.net (http://nova.astrometry.net/user_images/378121#annotated) didn't have labels for this, but I had identifed it via Cartes du Ceil's default catalogs and did find the above link and do see something faint.  This was more of a finding a guide star test.

Next up is another guiding test/time killer.  This didn't come out nicely at all, but here's NGC 6445, the Little Gem - or is it the Box Nebula? (http://www.cloudynights.com/topic/472894-confusing-ngc-object-naming/).

Solved - http://nova.astrometry.net/annotated_full/816041

The last cluster I have shot before.  M54 is unique in the Messier catalog in that it was "Previously thought to belong to our Galaxy at a distance from Earth of about 50,000 light-years, it was discovered in 1994 that M54 most likely belongs to the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy (SagDEG),^[7] making it the first globular cluster formerly thought to be part of our galaxy reassigned to extragalactic status, even if not recognized as such for nearly two and a quarter centuries." (ref - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_54)

Solved - http://nova.astrometry.net/user_images/378518#annotated

Finally as a special treat for you sticking with all these poor quality images, I present a rushed M17, 

The Omega Nebula, also known as the Swan Nebula, Checkmark Nebula, Lobster Nebula, and the Horseshoe Nebula is an H II region in the constellation Sagittarius. It was discovered by Philippe Loys de Chéseaux in 1745. Wikipedia. (ref - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Nebula)
Here's my previous attempt in my 6"

And Via my 14", +Akule

Here's a recent shot of my scope and if you want to learn more ask +Akule

Lastly you can see all my Messier objects I've shot to day here - http://maphilli14.webs.com/mikesdeepskyphotos.htm

I have only 5 left to go!

Messier 57, the Ring Nebula - shaking off the dust

After about 6 weeks of rain and clouds we here in North Carolina caught a brief 3 day break of sun and STARS!!!

Full res on AstroBin - http://astrob.in/full/113385/0/

In case you didn't catch the live show, this week we kicked off a new style Amateur Astronomer hangout called "Nights at the Round Table" hosted by +John Kramer

Check out the replay for some introductions to the panelists, how we got started in imaging and a nice overview of our scopes, equipment and techniques.

Mars 2014 ANIMATION!

Mars 2014 ANIMATION!

Using 7 processed and derotated source images from 7 different nights as seen in the labeled WinJUPOS map

Using Photoshop to feather out the seams, this map used for the final animation

A brief and related tutorial on processing Mars is here:

Akule Planetary Equipment H/W

Type: Custom Home Built Newtonian

Aperture: 356mm (14")

Focal Ratio: f/4.5 - 5x TeleVue Powermate at f/26 / 9,315mm EFL

Primary Mirror: Carl Zambuto 14" f/4.5

Camera: Point Grey Research Flea3 - FL3-FW-03S1M (monochrome)

Color Filter Wheel: True Technology UK (Tru-Tek) - SupraSlim with Visual Wide Wheel (built in diagonal)

Filters: Baader Planetarium LRGB Telescope Filter Set

Filters: Astronomik ProPlanet 742 IR-pass filter

Filters: Astrodon-Schuler UV filter

Images: http://imgur.com/a/0znBY#0

Blog: http://maphilli14.webs.com/apps/blog/?view_type=1

Akule Planetary Processing S/W

OS: Lenovo W530 (Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit)

Acquisition: Torsten Edelmann’s Firecapture

Processing: AutoStakkert 2 -> AstraImage -> WinJUPOS -> PhotoShop -> Gimp

Mars' 2014 retrograde colors, a look back to my images this apparition.

As Mars only comes around every other year I pursued the red planet fairly aggressively this time around.  I had a few nights that ended up solely on the cutting room floor and the rest are presented here.  19 nights worth of images.

Whole season is here

FULL HD SIZE HERE!

My images do not match the timing of the real retrograde motion of Mars as my observations are spotty based upon weather and time.  Retrograde motion is explained here, http://mars.nasa.gov/allaboutmars/nightsky/retrograde/. 

My images start in the lower right back in December of 2013, when Mars' apparent size was a mere 6.7 arc seconds. Mars begins my image's 'normal motion' through to April 1st, 2014 and then begins retrograde until my image on May 13th.  Again these are not the dates of the real retrograde but an aesthetic representation for the sake of a pleasing looking image.  I left a bit of room at top in case I get any more chances this year but the past few weeks have been quite stormy and had no chances to get anything of worth.

Highlights include a published image on SpaceWeather.com on  March 29 (http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=28&month=03&year=2014)

and a few animations....

I didn't get Phobos or Diemos this year.

I do plan to make a full globe animation from the above images if that's what you're wondering!

Thanks for sharing this great ride with me watching the red planet and all the changes in weather and detail.

Mike

Asteroid Trifecta with animation.

I've got the bug, the bug of observing minor planets.  I think it started with the pass of Eros in 2012 (http://astromaphilli14.blogspot.com/2012/02/asteroids-eros-and-tyche.html)  When treating my images I found another little drifter, faintly moving through . I was hooked!  I thought I had discovered something. Turned out the classic case of what's new to me was something already discovered in 1886 but whatever. In learning more since then I've struggled with getting the hang of things. After upgrading from a DSLR to a CCD I found myself reinvigorated. With some recent clear skies and a bit more patience and some growing discipline I have observed this group of three asteroids; (1530) Rantaseppa, (4478) Blanco, and (4687) Brunsandrej. All within the same FOV for my scope and camera of 37.5 x 28.3 arcmin.  Then in an effort to get a +Minor Planet Center designation I found them again a few days later, all still 'apparently' together.

Using Astrometrica to measure position and magnitude you will see the number designation followed by the magnitude in parentheses.

NOTE there are MANY other asteroids in this fov as there are most, but my 2min subs in the 14" didn't quite make out the fainter, say mag18-20+ objects.  Not yet!

Night one - 20140221

Full field

(1530) Rantaseppa

(4478) Blanco

(4687) Brunsandrej

Boring! it was fun to see, but on Night 2

Night TWO - 20140224

In this video you will see an animation of the three asteroids moving over the course of 23:27 to 23:45 EDT or just 17 minutes of movement!

Easiest to click the direct YouTube link and make fullscreen HD (http://youtu.be/rpSW-wN1NS4)

Planets x3 as the weather moves from Winter to Spring

As the North Carolina weather moves from dry, large temp swings winter to the warm, moist and hazy spring I found a spell of settled weather the days of May 7th and 8th.  Starting with the 8th in this post I observed Jupiter, the Moon, Mars and Saturn.  The first time I've had three major planets in a single night in many years!

My Scope +Akule
Type: Custom Home Built Newtonian
Aperture: 356mm (14")
Focal Ratio: f/4.5 - 5x TeleVue Powermate at f/26 / 9,315mm EFL
Primary Mirror: Carl Zambuto 14" f/4.5
Camera: Point Grey Research Flea3 - FL3-FW-03S1M (monochrome)
Color Filter Wheel: True Technology UK (Tru-Tek) - SupraSlim with Visual Wide Wheel (built in diagonal)
Filters: Baader Planetarium LRGB Telescope Filter Set


Jupiter - not too shabby for being low and late in the season.

All the rest of this past, and quite productive Jupiter season (
https://plus.google.com/photos/+MichaelAPhillips/albums/5920900341220145457?banner=pwa)

Mars

All the rest of this season (https://plus.google.com/photos/+MichaelAPhillips/albums/5962944171620737953?banner=pwa)

and the mighty Saturn sporting a 20 degree ring angle!

Here's last years collection (https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/+MichaelAPhillips/albums/5842690900648084529)
Still working on this years! This is only the 3rd shot and 2nd with this camera.




The 7th's images are...

Mars' animation of nearly 1 hours worth of rotation

Final derotated image

And finally Saturn from the 1st night!

More of my Astronomy work on the main page: http://maphilli14.webs.com/

Also these images were assembled in an automated fashion with some custom scripts in sikuli and python.  The total time in the stacking program AutoStakkert2 and the sharpening program AstraImage is seen in my Resucetime stats for the week:

4h 34m of automated AstraImage stacking and 3h 34m of AS2 stacking = 8hrs and 8min of time back in my life instead of babysitting mundane programs that made me bored out of my mind!  ;)  Yay for automation!  Basically it frees me up to surf reddit on my cell phone!  haha!