Here is the December line-up of astronomy photos:
This month the big event was viewing Comet Leonard. On the morning of the 6th I headed out to Mud Springs with my friend Mike, not sure what to expect. I was hoping to catch Comet Leonard, but with the weather in the single digits and a forecast with limited windows to capture anything, I had my fingers crossed. Mud Springs is considerably higher and more open than Custer, and on arriving on the ridge where I set up, there was snow, bitter cold and a breeze. I set up my generator to power the heating pad I use on the mount to keep the on-board battery from freezing up, plugged in the mount charger to keep the battery full, and also plugged in my laptop, as the USB3 connection to my Mallincam DS10c camera can drain the laptop in about 45 minutes. This was my first time at a remote setting where I set up my laptop in the back seat of the truck, with the heat going full blast. Sweet! To my amazement things went pretty well! Stellarium on my iPhone could find the comet, but my laptop version could not. So on the iPhone I saw that the comet was near galaxy NGC 5637, half way between Arcturus and Izar in Bootes. I focused on Arcturus, then found the galaxy and slewing a bit to the north found the little fuzzball comet. The forecast showed that high clouds were scheduled to show up soon, so I had to work pretty quickly with SharpCap to find the right settings to capture what I could. After capturing these images the high clouds began to roll in with the rising glow of the sun. I attribute the out of round stars to either the breeze or me shaking from the cold. Within a couple of days I was thawed out and back up to 98.6.
M 1, the Crab Nebula was reported in 1054 by Chinese and Japanese astronomers as a new “guest star” when the supernova exploded, making it visible in the day and night skies. By the mid-twentieth century astronomers put 2 and 2 together and realized that the Crab Nebula was the result of that supernova explosion. The stellar remnant is thought to be only about 20 miles wide, but it has a mass equal to our Sun’s and is spinning on its axis 30 times a second. The nebula is about 11 light years across.
NGC 2392, the Eskimo Nebula, was another William Herschel discovery in 1789.
Here are a few photos from the Orion Constellation. The first, M 42, is another view of that nebula. NGC 1977, the Running Man Nebula, sits just above M 42. And finally, NGC 1980, the Lost Jewel of Orion, shows its Open Cluster of Stars with nebula. I love Orion!
This month, it seemed that whenever there were clear skies, the Moon’s shine would block out viewing of the skies. As a result I have been taking photos of the Moon. The first two are mosaics (multiple photos stitched together), one of the Moon waxing (heading toward a full Moon), and one when it’s waning (heading toward a new Moon).
The next photos were taken with a 2.5 Barlow Lens—that magnifies the image 2.5 times. Each of these photos were processed using Registax, a program that takes the 100 images captured and aligns them on top of one another to give one image with greater detail than any of the individual images. Almost magic!
What I find most interesting to observe, is the area closest to where the shadow on the Moon appears, as the Sun’s light highlights the craters and different features. I generally like taking photographs in those areas. A Black Hills Astronomical Society member, Chris, turned me on to a great virtual atlas of the Moon. It’s amazing and a free download. https://www.ap-i.net/avl/en/download After trying to reconcile what I was finding with my photos to what the atlas said, I started labeling the features I found interesting.
Finally, my songwriting and recording partner, Jeff Sweet, and I have put out our 4th DustUp CD! It’s available on Apple iTunes (search: dustup I am a wanderer) or you can listen to or download the album at dust-up.com/music. Or if you buy the album you get great album graphics and better quality sound than the typical MP3! Special Bonus—the album has 3 astronomy songs on it!!!!
Happy New Year and until next month….
Hank
