It seems as though I have been waiting a long time for some nice clear skies, the old Gods must have heard my plea because last night was the clearest that I have seen for weeks. The seeing was impeccable and the transparency was superb.
I decided to take a break from imaging and concentrate on observing for a change. So having received the heavy duty binocular L adapter that I ordered from Telescope House I thought that this would be an excellent time to put it to good use with my 10×50 Bresser binoculars.
On the menu were two DSOs that I wanted to bag: NGC 6543 also known as The Cat’s Eye Nebula and the Messier Object M102 (NGC 5866), a lenticular galaxy also known as The Spindle Galaxy. Both objects are located in the constellation Draco, a constellation that I have neglected to take much interest in up until now.
I headed out at 23:00 UT to set up the tripod and the binoculars. I began things by browsing through the constellation Cygnus just to see if my chances of seeing The North America Nebula had increased due to the crisp atmospheric conditions. Now this is where things get a bit hazy because I swear that I could make out some detail, but I can’t be absolutely certain if I was imagining it. I’ve been searching for this nebula for a good many weeks now and it’s become something of an obsession, so I may have started going crazy.
After spending some time trying to discern the ‘detail’ that I was possibly observing, I rolled over to Draco to begin search for M102 / NGC 5866 and NGC 6543. To cut a long story short I failed to see both — well that’s not entirely true. I’m sure I could just make out something up around where NGC 6543 is supposed to be, but I’ll need to go back and try again (with both objects).
Having failed to locate The Cat’s Eye Nebula, or The Spindle Galaxy I thought I’d end my short evening observations on a high note by sketching The Hyades in the constellation Taurus. After spending about half an hour making a preliminary sketch which was as close to scale as possible I then packed up and headed inside to warm up.
Once I’d gotten a nice hot cup of tea and warmed up sufficiently I returned to the rough sketch I’d taken of The Hyades. Using it as a guide I was able to produce a much nicer looking render in Photoshop as you can see above. Over to the left hand side of the sketch you can see the orange K5III star Aldebaran while over to the centre can be seen the brightest stars at the core of the open cluster.
I’ll definitely be trying my hand at producing more sketches like this in the future. I’ve found it to be really rewarding and you certainly do plenty of intense observing, so good fun all round. Holding the pencil was a bit hard though; it was freezing!
Edit 16.09.09: The sketch above contains a number of errors. Most notably the unintentional omission of Θ² Tauri which, for reasons that escape me, was not included in the sketch. Also the magnitude estimates that were penciled in are off quite considerably. While it’s not an entirely accurate recording of an astronomical object it has to be remembered that it was my first try. Besides… there’s always next time.
Tags: Aldebaran, Bresser 10x50, Collinder 50, Cygnus, Draco, Galaxies, M102, NGC 5866, NGC 6543, NGC 7000, Taurus, The Cat's Eye Nebula, The Hyades, The North America Nebula, The Spindle Galaxy
Posted in Astro Art, Observing | No Comments »
The forecast at the Met Office held out - early Monday morning delivered crisp, clear skies with the odd cloud drifting overhead. I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity like this so promptly geared up to capture another and possibly better star trail image.
The target for the session was the constellation of Orion as it rose over the roof tops towards the south east. Having positioned the tripod and the camera I decided to take a few test shots to make sure that I was focused on infinity as well as frame the image as best I could considering the urban landscape (the backyard).
The final image is a result of thirty six 30 second exposures taken at 24mm using an ISO of 800 with an F/Stop of 4.5. I had originally taken forty six exposures but towards the end of shooting clouds began rolling in and spoiled the view. The exposures were put together in Startrails and post processed in Photoshop.
Orion can be seen rising at the very centre of the picture - I even managed to capture part of The Hyades in there too which can be seen at the top of the shot, again near the centre. All in all I’m pretty happy with my second star trails attempt, but would love to do longer trails, which means either taking more exposures or experimenting with longer exposures, F/Stops and ISO speeds. Certainly food for thought.
After capturing all the exposures that would make up my final star trails image, I decided to go for a wander across the sky using the Bresser 10×50 binoculars. I chanced my luck and decided to see if I could catch a glimpse of NGC 7000: The North America Nebula in Cygnus. No such luck - I’m beginning to think that the skies around Falkirk and Stenhousemuir just aren’t dark enough.
Having no joy with Cygnus I moved on to a current favorite of mine: Auriga and the delights of M36, M37 and M38. I viewed these three open clusters through the Strathspey 25×100 binoculars a few weeks back and I wasn’t disappointed. The view through the 10×50s was no less thrilling if not more stunning. Beautiful deep sky objects and ones I’m certainly going to be observing a lot more in the future. From here I swept over to The Hyades and The Pleiades in Taurus for a quick glimpse but I just couldn’t stop myself from coming back to these two amazing open clusters again and again during the course of my morning observations.
Reluctantly I soon turned my attention to the majesty of M31: The Andromeda Galaxy. No matter how many times I see it, it is always a wondrous sight to behold, but I almost broke my neck viewing it as the constellation itself was positioned almost at the zenith. Moving down towards the constellation Triangulum I eventually found M33, making it only the second time I have seen this fantastic yet elusive galaxy. I spent quite a while in this part of the sky, sweeping backwards and forwards from M31 and M33 just drinking in the mesmerizing view.
Before long I finally surrendered and focused the binoculars on the splendor of M42: The Orion Nebula. Yes I’ve seen The Orion Nebula many,many times before, but it still never fails to make an epic impact on me. Wheeling around to Ursa Major I thought I try and hunt down M81 and M82 but eventually just began browsing around the sky aimlessly. At this point I gradually wound things up and decided to head for the warmth of the house. Unfortunately I never managed to see or capture any Orionids or Taurids, but there is always next time.
Tags: Andromeda, Auriga, Collinder 50, Cygnus, DSLR, M31, M33, M36, M37, M38, M42, M45, M81, M82, NGC 7000, Orion, Orionids, Star Trails, Taurids, Taurus, The Hyades, The Orion Nebula, The Pleiades, Triangulum, Ursa Major, Weather
Posted in Astrophotography, Observing | No Comments »
The weather in Britain is unpredictable at the best of times, but this as they say really takes the biscuit. It all went down hill more or less from Tuesday with things becoming progressively worse as the week wore on. By Saturday it all seemed to peak when driving winds and a continuous down pour of heavy rain just refused to dissipate.
With the wind having finally blown itself out and shorter periods of rain fall, today is markedly better - there’s even a hint of blue sky cutting through the clouds! Going by the Met Office’s forecasts there should be a couple of hours or so of clear skies at around 03:00 am on Monday morning. I’ve been dying to get out and shoot some more star trails in the south east with the slim hope of catching a stray Taurid or Orionid. If the prediction from the Met Office holds out I may get my chance, although the way the weather has been recently, I’m not holding my breath.
Tags: Orionid, Star Trails, Taurid, Weather
Posted in Astrophotography, Observing | No Comments »
I really love star trails, they have an ancient and magical quality to them, but the real magic lies in capturing them successfully. Light pollution is just one of the bug bears of long exposure astrophotography and I found this out the hard way. Since getting my hands on a DSLR I have wanted to try and have a go at taking star trail images, but as with any new piece of kit it takes time to get a handle on using it.
Having shot some decent constellation photographs I felt it was time to give star trail photography a go. Monday night dished up a reasonably clear sky - transparency was so so with some cloud cover passing over but I decided to persevere with an experimental first attempt. Setting up the camera and the tripod to face northwards towards Ursa Major, I decided to shoot 4 seven and half minute exposures at 18mm with an F/Stop of 5.6 and an ISO of 800. To cut a long story short, it was a disaster! Each of the four exposures were completely blown out and fogged up with the orange / yellow haze of light pollution.
The only real success of the evening was catching a fiery Orionid Taurid gliding like a string of syrup overhead as it traveled south eastwards. A bright fireball with a visible contrail and a red hue, it had an entrance and disappearance arc somewhere between 40° and 50° and lasted about 3 - 4 seconds. My only regret was that I did’nt catch it on ‘film’.
I spent the rest of the evening looking at my four blown exposures and reflecting on what I could do to improve results. I decided a more austere approach was needed and this meant taking shorter exposures over the same period of time.
I was back out on Tuesday night (21.10.08) to put my star trail experiment into motion. Again I set up the camera and the tripod facing northwards and set the camera up using a focal length of 18mm at ISO 800, but this time I opened the aperture right up to 3.5 and set exposures to 30 seconds. As you can see from the result below, it’s not bad for a first attempt. The sky transparency wasn’t great and this image was shot on a second attempt as I had to abort mission first time around due to rainfall.
The image is made up of twenty five 30 second exposures that were combined in a fantastic little utility program called Startrails. The resulting TIFF that was rendered was then post processed in Photoshop to produce the image above.
I’ll definitely be trying more of these kind of shots. While it is a bit of chore doing all of the exposures one after the other, it is really rewarding to put them altogether in Startrails to see the end result. Hopefully if the skies remain clear(ish) I can try and catch another Orionid or two as well!
Tags: DSLR, Orionid, Star Trails, Taurid, Ursa Major
Posted in Astrophotography, Observing | No Comments »
