September 2022

Welcome to Hank’s September Astronomy Photo Blog.  Here’s what I found in the night sky this last month.

The Local Group is a collection of galaxies that includes our own Milky Way.  It is thought that members of the Local Group are close enough to one another to be gravitationally attracted.  To start off, the largest member of the group is Andromeda.

The second largest galaxy in the Local Group is our Milky Way. Sorry, but no photos have ever captured the entire galaxy, but astronomers say that the Milky Way looks a lot like Andromeda. If you look to the constellation Sagittarius (southwest on the horizon here in Custer), you are looking toward the center of our galaxy.  The third largest is the Triangulum Galaxy, M 33.

Here are a few more smaller galaxies in our Local Group:

Another cluster of galaxies not associated with the Local Group is NGC 7331, the Deer Lick Group. There is one large spiral galaxy and a few others that are called its “fleas.”  They are between 294 and 365 million light years away and while they look like they are together, the large one is not gravitationally bound to the “fleas.”

And our last grouping of galaxies is known as Stephan’s Quintet.  These 5 galaxies were in one of the first images photographed by the James Webb Space Telescope and was featured on last month’s Sky and Telescope cover.  You can compare the quality of my 8” telescope photo with the $10 billion dollar James Webb image here:  https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-sheds-light-on-galaxy-evolution-black-holes

Star Clusters come in two varieties: Open Star Clusters and Globular Clusters. Here is a batch from this month’s catch:

Here are a pair of small nebula and a larger one. They come in all sizes!

And now for the planets! Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune were all in the sky this month and I was using my normal lens setup as well as a 2.5 Barlow lens that magnifies the image 2.5 times. Up first is Jupiter. The first image was taken with my iPhone and shows Jupiter hot on the tail of the Moon; by the next night it was on the other side of the Moon! The second is a photo Mike Irwin and I caught using the Barlow lens. The third is a photo I’ve been trying to catch all month: there is a giant red spot that sometimes appears on Jupiter, and if you squint and imagine real hard you can see it near the bottom right.

Saturn is always a favorite to see. It just looks so cool! Here are a pair: without and with the Barlow lens.

And finally, Neptune, our most distant planet in the solar system is about 2.7 billion miles away. It took about 4 hours for that light to find my telescope! The first shows Neptune with its largest moon, Titan. The second is interesting in that it was taken with the Barlow lens, and displays a “half moon” look, which I am assuming is because the Sun is shining on only half the planet.

I have gotten a couple of questions about how to get started in amateur astronomy.  Actually you can do it the next night you have clear skies.  Just look up!  Here is a rough list of the ways you can do amateur astronomy:
·      Visual Astronomy—Get a planisphere or planetarium phone app, and start to check out the stars. These tools are great for spotting stars, constellations, planets, and the Milky Way. I use two apps on my iPhone:  Stellarium and SkySafari Pro.  Both are good.
·      Assisted Astronomy—Use binoculars or a telescope to look through the eyepiece that magnifies what your are looking at.  My 8 x 56 binoculars give a field of view of 5.8 degrees, and they are just the ticket for me. Just lie back in a beach chair and with your planetarium app on your phone, you’ll be finding all kinds of stuff. It is like visual astronomy, but you can see more distant objects. Good for spotting star clusters, planets, a few galaxies and other astronomical objects.
·      Electronic Assisted Astronomy—This is where you put a camera (generally a color video camera) where the eyepiece normally goes and capture the image directly to a monitor or computer screen.  The advantage of using a computer is that there is software you can use that allows you to “stack” images and multiply the light that is gathered, showing nebulosity (gasses, clouds, dust, particles…). These stacked images can then be captured in a photograph. In any case, the viewing of the object is in near real time.  I utilize EAA techniques for the images I post in this blog.
·      Traditional Astrophotography—This is where long exposure photos (generally a monochrome camera) are captured and stacked. By using different filters and post-processing applications, the images show the different types of visible light and light that we cannot normally see in the finished photograph. This technique can give you the highest quality images.

Each of the above approaches has their proponents.  My advice is to search your area for Amateur Astronomy clubs.  The members are generally dedicated to helping others enjoy their hobby.  You’ll be able to meet people who are doing stuff that you may want to do, too; they can tell you how they got started doing it and they can answer your questions. It’s a hobby where you’ll continue to need help in solving the myriad of problems that occur when you mix the outdoors, light pollution and cloudy nights with sensitive optics and hardware, computers, and specialized software with your dwindling bank account.  This was brought home to me this month by two of our BHAS members.  Jim had me and my telescope over to his home observatory one evening and he was able to show me how to use a new, faster approach to align my telescope than I had been using, and…BINGO, it worked!  Also, Chris has been talking to me about how to hard-wire my telescope mount to my computer, so I don’t have to deal with dropped WiFi signals that force me to restart my telescope/computer several times a night. The parts I needed finally showed up at my door and my setup is (for the moment) working flawlessly!   Having a couple of contacts like Jim and Chris has changed my whole Amateur Astronomy experience.  Suddenly I feel smarter!!!  So if you are interested in amateur astronomy, look up your local astronomy club.

When I was at Jim’s, after aligning my telescope with the new technique he showed me, we went to the Trifid Nebula and took this quick photo in about 2 minutes.  The next day I removed the stars.  Thanks Jim!  Thanks Chris!  I owe you guys a bunch!

Clear Skies! -Hank