Astronomical Images - the best from 2014/15
Featuring:
Clicking on some images won't do anything, and on others might toggle you through an image sequence.
To avoid disappointment I've been shying away from looking at Saturn (low down in the south). Maybe I should have looked a bit more - a good view on the 7th June, picture taken about 5 minutes into the 8th (BST).
This may well be the last time I use the good old DSLR for Deep Sky imaging. Time to move on to a Starlight Xpress dedicated Astro camera.
I chose a target to make use of the large sensor size of the DSLR. The Owl nebula (planetary M97) and in the same field the Surfboard galaxy (M108).
As I might not be using the DSLR for a while, I thought I would 'give it some stick', so I was out for quite a while - 34 140seconds frames, plus the ones I rejected, plus all the dark and bias frames, plus the setting and clearing up. About 4 hours elapsed time.
10th May
Remarkably, this is the first time I've used the solar filter I made for the big 'scope since the eclipse back in March.
Very nice eyepiece views with some delicate details around the spots. The picture doesn't do it justice.
Here's that improved picture of the Black-eye galaxy, M64, that I was going to get last year but didn't (still room for improvement, 14 150 second exposures at ISO1600 ):
With a pre-first quarter moon you might think I would be concentrating on the spring deep-sky objects. Not so, I'm still familiarising with the Atik GP camera. I thought I was completely in control taking this image of Jupiter on the evening of the 25th.
Better than the best fleeting eyepiece views at the time.
20th March
Eclipse day
The weather here was more clement than in the Faroes, but disappointingly overcast for most of the eclipse. Under the cloud, it got a lot darker than I thought it would, and then as if by magic the shopkeeper appeared. No, not "the shopkeeper appeared", the clouds thinned.
Venus and Mars the moon and some cables.
If you are looking at this and you're not at my house, the picture was brought to you courtesy of the thin cable.
17th February
No moon - more galaxies. I've never had much joy with galaxies in the the Virgo Cluster through the eyepiece, and this is my first look with the camera. As ever, the camera reveals much more than I would ever expect to see in the eyepiece in the light polluted skies of Cambridgeshire (thanks Balfour Beatty).
This is 9 x 3 minute exposures at ISO 3200, I took 16, but I rejected four for tracking problems, and let DeepSkyStacker reject another three.
My attempts at galaxy identification are marked on the small picture, but not on the bigger version (if you click the image to look closer). If you do look closer you might see some suspicious galaxy like blurs which I haven't put labels to.
The flat images didn't work on the above picture either (see Leo Triplet from January). I have a suspicion as to why this might be. I moved straight from M86 et al. to M51 in Ursa Major, and took a similar number of shots. On review it was obvious that the optics where dewing over during the whole of this process,
so the final image is just four stacked pictures (but didn't turn out too badly). My guess is that any flats taken with the optics covered in moisture are not particularly representative of the actual "flat frame" when the pictures of the object of interest were taken.
(Produces a quite nice effect though.)
Here's M51 (and also NGC5198 and IC4263).....
The Leo Trio of galaxies. A marginally better image than last years but I somehow managed to do something wrong with the flat frames so the final picture (16 150 second frames at ISO 3200) is noticeably lighter in the middle. I couldn't get rid of this without losing quite a bit of extra galaxy luminosity, so I left it at that. You'll notice that the small picture here includes last years image. This is because there is an interesting object in this years picture that wasn't there last year (arrowed). If you click on the picture to 'big' it you go to this years picture and you can see that the new object looks like 2 stars very close together. I'm assuming this is because the object moved between 02:33 when the first picture was taken, and 03:21 when the last was. This turns out to be asteroid (381) Myrrha.
18th January
With the breeze easing off, even in the freezing temperature I managed to motivate myself to get the small 'scope out on Sunday 18th. This is with the camera and zoom lens at 50mm piggy-backed. At this reduced magnification the comet movement is small enough to try stacking a few pictures (14 of them). This is about as close as Lovejoy will get to the Pleiades.
Hurray - it's Christmas Eve so let's do the easy stuff. Even so, I was almost really pleased with this.
A combination of multiple images of M42 at four different exposures (2.5 to 75 seconds).
I was reading in the online Guardian that this months full moon was (yet another) 'Super Moon'. Maybe I ought to take a picture I thought. As the moon would be rising behind the trees from our garden, I had to go for a wander. A sensible person would have picked up the camera and the light weight tripod which I have in easy reach here in my office/den. Instead I opted for the camera and two dogs on leads. My chosen location was the Old Church grounds in Colne. Handfuls of dog mess in plastic bags and two Jack Russells in 'Rabbit City' in the twilight are not obviously conducive to astrophotography - so you can't 'big' this picture. This will be my one photographic nod to the Super Moons of 2014.
(Actually it's two pictures, one exposed for the moon, and one for the sky/trees.)
The lovely Dumbbell nebula (M27). I tried stacking a number of these images, but whatever I did the original colour was irretrievably lost, so this is the best single frame.
Taken about 30 minutes into 5th August 2014.
We kick off the 2014-15 season with more Atmospherics than Astronomy.
The constellation of Auriga, with the bright circumpolar star Capella, is on the rise above a really good noctilucent cloud display in the early hours of the 7th July.
Click on the animation to see the earlier picture that was actually in focus.
Venus, Mars, Moon conjunction.
Saturn and Jupiter.
The Sun, Moon and a partial eclipse of the Sun.
M27 (Dumbbell nebula), M42 (Great nebula in Orion, I like this image), M51 (Whirlpool galaxy), M64 (Black-eye galaxy), M86 and others (Markarian's Chain in the Virgo galaxy cluster), M97 and M108 together (the Owl and the Surfboard) and the Leo Triplet - M65. M66 and NGC 3628 with asteroid Myrrha.
Comet Lovejoy near the Pleiades.
And Noctilucent clouds - with animation!
Clicking on some images won't do anything, and on others might toggle you through an image sequence.
June 2015
8th JuneTo avoid disappointment I've been shying away from looking at Saturn (low down in the south). Maybe I should have looked a bit more - a good view on the 7th June, picture taken about 5 minutes into the 8th (BST).
May 2015
12/13th MayThis may well be the last time I use the good old DSLR for Deep Sky imaging. Time to move on to a Starlight Xpress dedicated Astro camera.
I chose a target to make use of the large sensor size of the DSLR. The Owl nebula (planetary M97) and in the same field the Surfboard galaxy (M108).
As I might not be using the DSLR for a while, I thought I would 'give it some stick', so I was out for quite a while - 34 140seconds frames, plus the ones I rejected, plus all the dark and bias frames, plus the setting and clearing up. About 4 hours elapsed time.
10th May
Remarkably, this is the first time I've used the solar filter I made for the big 'scope since the eclipse back in March.
Very nice eyepiece views with some delicate details around the spots. The picture doesn't do it justice.
April 2015
14th/15th AprilHere's that improved picture of the Black-eye galaxy, M64, that I was going to get last year but didn't (still room for improvement, 14 150 second exposures at ISO1600 ):
March 2015
25th MarchWith a pre-first quarter moon you might think I would be concentrating on the spring deep-sky objects. Not so, I'm still familiarising with the Atik GP camera. I thought I was completely in control taking this image of Jupiter on the evening of the 25th.
Better than the best fleeting eyepiece views at the time.
20th March
Eclipse day
The weather here was more clement than in the Faroes, but disappointingly overcast for most of the eclipse. Under the cloud, it got a lot darker than I thought it would, and then as if by magic the shopkeeper appeared. No, not "the shopkeeper appeared", the clouds thinned.
February 2015
20th FebruaryVenus and Mars the moon and some cables.
If you are looking at this and you're not at my house, the picture was brought to you courtesy of the thin cable.
17th February
No moon - more galaxies. I've never had much joy with galaxies in the the Virgo Cluster through the eyepiece, and this is my first look with the camera. As ever, the camera reveals much more than I would ever expect to see in the eyepiece in the light polluted skies of Cambridgeshire (thanks Balfour Beatty).
This is 9 x 3 minute exposures at ISO 3200, I took 16, but I rejected four for tracking problems, and let DeepSkyStacker reject another three.
My attempts at galaxy identification are marked on the small picture, but not on the bigger version (if you click the image to look closer). If you do look closer you might see some suspicious galaxy like blurs which I haven't put labels to.
The flat images didn't work on the above picture either (see Leo Triplet from January). I have a suspicion as to why this might be. I moved straight from M86 et al. to M51 in Ursa Major, and took a similar number of shots. On review it was obvious that the optics where dewing over during the whole of this process,
so the final image is just four stacked pictures (but didn't turn out too badly). My guess is that any flats taken with the optics covered in moisture are not particularly representative of the actual "flat frame" when the pictures of the object of interest were taken.
(Produces a quite nice effect though.)
Here's M51 (and also NGC5198 and IC4263).....
January 2015
25th JanuaryThe Leo Trio of galaxies. A marginally better image than last years but I somehow managed to do something wrong with the flat frames so the final picture (16 150 second frames at ISO 3200) is noticeably lighter in the middle. I couldn't get rid of this without losing quite a bit of extra galaxy luminosity, so I left it at that. You'll notice that the small picture here includes last years image. This is because there is an interesting object in this years picture that wasn't there last year (arrowed). If you click on the picture to 'big' it you go to this years picture and you can see that the new object looks like 2 stars very close together. I'm assuming this is because the object moved between 02:33 when the first picture was taken, and 03:21 when the last was. This turns out to be asteroid (381) Myrrha.
18th January
With the breeze easing off, even in the freezing temperature I managed to motivate myself to get the small 'scope out on Sunday 18th. This is with the camera and zoom lens at 50mm piggy-backed. At this reduced magnification the comet movement is small enough to try stacking a few pictures (14 of them). This is about as close as Lovejoy will get to the Pleiades.
December 2014
24th DecemberHurray - it's Christmas Eve so let's do the easy stuff. Even so, I was almost really pleased with this.
A combination of multiple images of M42 at four different exposures (2.5 to 75 seconds).
September 2014
9th SeptemberI was reading in the online Guardian that this months full moon was (yet another) 'Super Moon'. Maybe I ought to take a picture I thought. As the moon would be rising behind the trees from our garden, I had to go for a wander. A sensible person would have picked up the camera and the light weight tripod which I have in easy reach here in my office/den. Instead I opted for the camera and two dogs on leads. My chosen location was the Old Church grounds in Colne. Handfuls of dog mess in plastic bags and two Jack Russells in 'Rabbit City' in the twilight are not obviously conducive to astrophotography - so you can't 'big' this picture. This will be my one photographic nod to the Super Moons of 2014.
(Actually it's two pictures, one exposed for the moon, and one for the sky/trees.)
August 2014
5th AugustThe lovely Dumbbell nebula (M27). I tried stacking a number of these images, but whatever I did the original colour was irretrievably lost, so this is the best single frame.
Taken about 30 minutes into 5th August 2014.
July 2014
7th JulyWe kick off the 2014-15 season with more Atmospherics than Astronomy.
The constellation of Auriga, with the bright circumpolar star Capella, is on the rise above a really good noctilucent cloud display in the early hours of the 7th July.
Click on the animation to see the earlier picture that was actually in focus.
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