January and February have been hard on the Observatory on Tanglewood Drive. It’s been cold and the weather has not left many breaks in the clouds. The other problem is that when the Moon is out, the glow really lights up the atmosphere, making for miserable conditions for taking photos. So to deal with the moon glow, I picked up a filter that blocks out everything but narrow bands of Hydrogen and Oxygen emissions (Ha & OIII). I know next to zero about Ha and OIII, filters or how all this works, but I have seen photos taken with those filters, and they seem to let the light from stars and star forming areas pass through. Now I thought that when you’d buy a filter, you’d just screw it on to the front of the camera, but that’s not how it works. But when I got the Starizona HyperStar lens set up last fall that takes wide angle/low exposure images, the guy on the other end of the phone said, “get the filter holder,” I took his advice. Now I know why! Since I had the filter holder for HyperStar, the moon was up, the skies were clear, and the temperature was in the 20’s, I set up the telescope last night and started roaming the skies looking for something that might have Ha and OIII wavelengths.
So here are the photos. In some ways they are not as detailed as photos from clear dark sky nights. But they do bring out different details and they let me see more than the Moon would normally let me see.
Andromeda Galaxy. Not as detailed as some of my past photos, but then all the regular wavelengths have been cut out. This is about the only object in the night sky that you can see unaided that is not in our Milky Way galaxy. It is our nearest galaxy, and is part of a group of galaxies that the Milky Way is in, called the Local Group. Andromeda is the largest galaxy in the Local Group, with the Milky Way coming in 2nd. Andromeda and the Milky Way are gravitationally bound and are expected to crash into each other in about 5 billion years, about the time Texas figures out that having an unregulated private power supply company keep the lights on is not a great idea.
The Triangulum Galaxy. It is the 3rd largest galaxy in the Local Group. I’m not sure what the little star centered “on edge” galaxy is to the left is called. My star atlas doesn’t list it. But you’ll see a satellite that cut the photo in half. Thank you Elon Musk.
The moon’s dark side. So dark you can’t see it! Since the Moon doesn’t generate any Ha or OIII emissions, all you see here are the Ha and OIII emissions reflected from the Sun.
An open star cluster called M44, the Beehive Cluster. It’s about 577 light years away, which is about a 10th of the span of the Milky Way.
Finally, one of my favorite places to visit, the Orion Nebula, M42. Just south and west of the beautiful Orion Nebula are several bright stars that are pretty close to one another, yet another open star cluster, NGC 1980, The Lost Jewel of Orion. I just love how the Ha and OIII filter brings out really subtle details of M42. The wispy clouds, the lines of definition. It’s a remarkable thing to see. When you go outside at night, look for Orion’s belt. Going down from the belt are several stars in a line known as Orion’s Sword. The Orion Nebula is the middle star in the sword.
There’s wonders yet to behold!
Hank
