The Moon shot Friday night shortly after it rose. If I wanted really high resolution, I would have waited a few hours until it was higher. I used my 127mm MCT telescope and my Canon 800D camera. Merged and processed in Lightroom.
9/29/2023 The Moon
9/16/2023 Two Nights at the River Ridge Observatory
I’ve been sidelined with illness for a couple months, not able to do much of anything for much of that period. But I am now feeling better and was able to go to the River Ridge Observatory Friday & Saturday nights though the latter was disappointing.
I had the new Antlia RGB Triband Ultra filter in the telescope from June and decided to continue to see what it can do. It is kind of a hybrid filter, my description not theirs, in that it selects Hydrogen Alpha, Sulfur II, and Oxygen III like a dual narrow band but also selects a range in blue to let you get a more balanced color. That’s the theory at least.
Friday night, I decided to shoot the Pinwheel Galaxy near the handle of the Big Dipper while the Triangulum Galaxy got a little higher. I got two hours of one minute subs on each before clouds came in and made me go home. Saturday was partly cloudy but predicted to clear around 9PM so I went back. That clearing never happened but I managed to snag about 20 minutes on the “Great Globular Cluster in Hercules” before giving up. These Messier objects are like comfort food for astrophotographers. Click on the images for larger views.
Messier 101 – the Pinwheel Galaxy. This galaxy is hosting a supernova that appeared in June. It’s still visible in the arm above and to the left of the core. It seems to have reddened but maybe that’s my imagination.
Messier 33 – Triangulum Galaxy because it’s in the constellation of Triangulum. This is the second closest major galaxy to ours after Andromeda. Though moderately bright, that light is spread out over a large area making it difficult (for me at least) to see in a telescope. The reddish areas here are clouds of molecular hydrogen and are star forming regions.
Messier 13 – the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules. The brightest globular cluster in the northern sky, and third overall maybe second if Omega Centauri is actually a galaxy core and not a globular cluster.
6/19/2023 First Night with a new Filter
Tomorrow was a work day but it was the first clear night in a while and I wanted to try out a new Antlia Triband RGB Ultra filter. This filter is designed to provide a more color balanced image than other light pollution filters. It is like a dual narrowband, which have two colors, but not quite as narrow perhaps but with a third channel to let blue in.
Monday night was warm but there was no breeze to shake the scope or dew until 3 AM or later. I didn’t plan to but stayed until 4:30 before packing up for the night. I shot five objects but one was disappointing (not the filter’s fault) so here are the other four in the order they were taken. Make sure you go all the way. Click for a larger image.
M20, the Trifid Nebula, and M21 aka Webb’s Cross, the cluster on the right. In Sagittarius.
M4, a globular cluster in Scorpius.
M16, the Eagle Nebula in Serpens with it’s “Pillars of Creation”.
IC 1396, the Elephant Trunk Nebula in Cepheus.
