Welcome to my Astrophotography Blog!

This is a journal of my adventures in astrophotography -- taking images of distant celestial objects. Please look around and feel free to add your comments, questions, and critique to any of the entries by clicking the "comments" button on the bottom of each entry -- or just say "howdy!

And don't forget to click on the images for a larger view!

So choose either the Red pill or the Blue pill and follow me down the wormhole....

JOhn

Comanche Springs Star Party

Comanche Springs Star Party
Doin' my thang at the Comanche Springs Astronomy Campus (where I often become a "red ghost")

Dallas Sky

Rancho Venado Sky

Atoka Sky

Camanche Springs Sky

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Welcome to The Triangulum!

This is the Traingulum Galaxy, otherwise known as M33. It is a fairly large spiral galaxy close to Andromeda.

You can see the dark brown dust lanes and the red "knots" where there is ongoing star formation in the spiral arms. I hope to add some Ha (Hydrogen Alpha) data to this image at a later date. This requires additional long exposures with a narrow band filter that allows only hydrogen emission wave lengths. What the hell does this mean?

Well, star formation is creating lots of radiation that excites the clouds of nearby hydrogen, causing it to glow red. By using a filter that focuses on this red bandwidth, one can really bring out those cool formation areas -- so you can see those cute little red star nurseries : )

This image was taken in Atoka with my normal rig (FSQ 106, QHY8 camera) and a 3 hour exposure.

2 comments:

Bob Eggleton (Zillabob) said...

This is a knockout John and I want to use it in a painting!! Always lovin' the astro photos as they send my mind elsewhere.

Neutronman said...

Hey Bob, please use whatever reference you find in the wormhole that moves you... its OUR universe!

Oh, and don't forget to send me five bucks (I kid, I kid)!