February 2024
Welcome to Hank’s February 2024 Astrophotography Blog! The skies this month only gave me two short nights to get any viewing in. I spent those two nights fine tuning my capture and processing strategies and have four images to share. The first is Thor’s Helmet that I showed last month, but I’ve been able to clean it up, by plugging some light leaks on my telescope and learning more about how to do calibration frames better (Thanks to the NEW BHAS OBSERVATORY DIRECTOR Rick for his spot-on advice!): The second is a planetary nebula in Puppis, NGC 2438: The third is a trio of galaxies, M15, NGC 3384 and NGC 3389 that sit in the constellation Leo: The last is an image of M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy. These photos were captured on my 8” Celestron Evolution Telescope and iOptron CEM40 mount, using my Mallincam DS10c camera. I’m using 2 minute exposures for an hour’s worth of capture on Thor’s Helmet and 30 minutes on the others. Processing was done with Siril, Photoshop Elements and Topaz DeNoise: Last month I read “The Last Astronomers,” a book that gives a history of how the life as astronomers has changed over the years. The past was all about sitting in a cage high up on a telescope and manually moving it to keep the target centered in an eyepiece while collecting the light on glass plates. The future is all about robotic telescopes, where astronomers never have to get their hands on telescopes…